Anita Pratap

how-has-iran-survived-so-far

Sat Apr 11 11:10:12 IST 2026

You don’t need a brain to be clever. The animal kingdom is full of remarkable examples. The coin-sized jellyfish has no brain but can trick and avoid predators by changing shape, colour and size. Replacing the brain is its “nerve-net”—a decentralised web of neurons that communicates and enables it to adjust its form and movement to evade external threats.

Within hours of unleashing “Epic Fury”, US and Israeli forces decapitated the Iranian regime—destroying its central nervous system, assassinating even Ayatollah Khamenei. But the regime did not die. Despite successive and multiple assassinations, the regime was not even paralysed. Instead, Iran downed two American fighter jets, maintained a barrage of drones and missiles, wounded its neighbours and sent economic shockwaves around the world.

How has Iran survived so far? By being a strategic jellyfish. Its “brain” was blown up, so it adapted, relying on its “nerve-net”—a decentralised system of administration that ensures the business of war and daily life goes on. Adaptation is key to survival, said Charles Darwin, because it makes us resilient when confronted with change or calamity. But the key to resilience is preparation. Iran’s “nerve-net” did not mushroom overnight. It evolved.

Iran has been preparing for this war for 45 years—from 1979 when the brutal pro-US Shah Pahlavi regime was overthrown, through the horrific eight-year Iran-Iraq war when US ally Iraq gassed Iranian civilians, endured decades of US-led threats, conflicts, sanctions, amputation from the global financial system and Israeli assassinations of Iranian leaders. As the Chinese war strategist Sun Tzu advised, “Know thy enemy”. Iran studied and prepared. If the enemy systematically targets its leaders, then the threads of decentralised webs must be spun to create alternate networks.

Learning from the ruinous Iran-Iraq war, Iran dispersed power plants around the country to avoid destruction of the whole network. “Import substitution” stimulates local production of medicines, car-parts, white goods, even steel that Iran then exports to Gulf neighbours. Apart from Hormuz Strait, they trade overland especially with China, its biggest trading partner. It uses the barter system, exporting oil in exchange for grain and machinery. Local councils assess local needs, buy, sell, plan, decide, implement. Despite corruption, repression and civilian hardship, Iran’s economy is more diversified than its neighbours.

But Iran’s military is severely degraded due to decades of sanctions that denied access to spare parts, upgrades and modern fleets. Its defence budget is pitiful, “a rounding error in our military budget”, notes American economist Paul Krugman satirically. Iran adapted by improvising, creating swarms of low-cost, high-impact drones.

Drones are cheap, but deploying fighter jets to intercept them is expensive. Iran’s Shahed-136 drone costs about $30,000. It costs that much to keep an American F-35 fighter jet airborne for an hour. The jet itself costs over $100 million. The missiles jets use to intercept drones cost $1 million apiece. The math is unsustainable, even for cash-rich Gulf nations fighting Iranian drones.

Experts say it is a war crime when Donald Trump threatens to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages, where they belong”. Iran belongs to an ancient, sophisticated civilisation. It has suffered huge damage—factories, universities, clinics, apartments, bridges are wrecked, 2,000 dead, inflation is 40 per cent. Yet, it survives and surprises. Supermarkets are stocked; gas is available, civil servants receive salaries, even year-end bonuses. The nerve-net hums. After a terrifying night of bombings, morning dawns with the muezzin’s comforting call to prayer, civic-minded rescue volunteers clearing debris and the delicious smell of freshly baked naan.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

how-medieval-war-cries-resurface-in-pete-hegseths-political-discourse

Sat Mar 28 16:28:14 IST 2026

Beneath his clothing lies a secret world of mediaeval beliefs. Tattoos on his chest and biceps include a Jerusalem cross—symbol of the Christian crusaders, sword, rifle, a ‘Join, or die’ rattlesnake from the American revolution and ‘Deus vult’ or ‘God wills it’. A millennium ago, this was the rallying cry of Christian knights as they battled to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslims. More recently, ‘Deus vult’ surfaced on clothing and flags carried by some rioters in the January 6 Capitol attack in Washington.

The man with the tattoos is Pete Hegseth, US secretary of war—or war crimes, say his critics, after an American Tomahawk missile killed 168 schoolgirls in Iran. In an earlier avatar as the US army’s infantry officer in Iraq, Hegseth told soldiers to ignore legal constraints on killing enemy combatants—a war crime. Hegseth is a born-again crusader—in the mediaeval Christian sense of avenging warriors who fought Muslims.

A 2015 whistleblower complaint described a bar incident in Ohio where Hegseth, allegedly intoxicated, publicly chanted “Kill All Muslims”. Published in 2020, his book is called American Crusade. As in the 11th century so in the 21st. As war secretary, Hegseth transformed the Pentagon into a staging arena for the Iran war, which he pledged America will win because “the Almighty is on our side”. America will protect the world from the “evil” regime with its “rats” and “madmen”.

In 2024, skeletons came tumbling from Hegseth’s closet when Trump nominated him as defence secretary. His lawyer dismissed the allegations as a “coordinated smear campaign”. Investigating his background, The New Yorker magazine reported that Hegseth was forced to resign from leadership roles in two veterans’ non-profit organisations for financial mismanagement, drunkenness and sexual improprieties.

In yet another avatar, Hegseth was a Fox News TV anchor. His former colleagues reported he was often hungover at work, sometimes so “blackout drunk”, he needed to be carried to his hotel room or pulled down from clambering on to the stage. Hegseth admitted paying $50,000 to a woman who accused him of rape in 2017. In a 2018 email, Hegseth’s mother, Penelope, rebuked her thrice-married, philandering son—“You are an abuser of women—that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own ego.”

In his Iran war media conferences, Hegseth is less the solemn leader of the world’s most powerful military and more the gung-ho gunslinger starring in video games that splices Hollywood film clips with images of white-plumed missiles, menacing bombers, rising black smoke and dazzling pyrotechnics set to sonic boom. He sought to exclude critical mainstream journalists and photographers distributing unflattering photos from Pentagon briefings, replacing them with far-right loyalists. He stares intently into the camera, for effect poses and pauses, then announces hyperbolic bumper-sticker headlines: “Iranian regime is toast”, America is winning—decisively, devastatingly and without mercy”…. “We are punching them while they’re down—exactly how it should be”. Empty of strategic vision or thoughtful assessments, Hegseth’s combative grandstanding appears cocky and cavalier to some. But it attracts billions of clicks from young men and MAGA factions.

Christian nationalists and Zionists who support Trump and Hegseth believe the ongoing American-Israeli “holy war” in Iran is “part of God’s plan”, an Armageddon signalling the promised end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ. The fulfilment of the prophecy probably includes a halo of orange descending from the heavens, followed by the man with the tattoos.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

geopolitical-chess-decoding-the-five-potential-futures-for-iran

Sat Mar 14 15:05:24 IST 2026

What’s next for Iran? Propelled by prophecy or politics, five scenarios could unfold.

First, using its proverbial chess-playing skills, Iran transacts truce. Second, it capitulates. Third, it wages a spreading yet targeted war using missiles, drones, suicide bombers, dirty bombs, cyber and energy disruptions to counter the destructive US-Israel sky war. Fourth, Iran implodes under proxy wars. The US has used anti-regime militias for waging proxy ground wars to ruin Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Proxy war by saboteurs is a deadly machete for dismembering countries. Iran, a proud colossus straddling the region, could disintegrate into civil war, spawning violent ghettos of gunmen and gangsters. With 93 million people, Iran’s meltdown would metastasise, infecting the whole region. Fifth and the scariest: realising it cannot fight this Armageddon, a cornered Iran uses its final, fatal option—nuclear. The epic American-Israeli fury that this would unleash is the stuff of prophecies.

Iran is an ancient civilisation that withstood many calamities, defeats and victories. Historically, it defended its territories and invaded neighbouring lands with fearsome might. Ancient historian Herodotus records it raised an army of 2.3 million to invade Greece 2,500 years ago. It has also been humbled by the Romans, Greeks and Ottomans. Yet, Iran recovered its mojo by displaying a core strength—strategic patience. If the outcome differs this time, it is because its patience and cleverness cannot match the asymmetrical military, financial, technological, AI and intelligence prowess of the US-Israel duo.

What’s next for the US? Invade Greenland, Cuba, Colombia? Yo-yo tariffs? The unpredictable, unsafe, might-is-right new world order makes us yearn for the peace we enjoyed for decades, peace that we assumed was natural, inevitable. It was, until it wasn’t. Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s autobiographical, The World of Yesterday, achingly captures the annihilation of the peaceful, humane, cosmopolitan European order by World War I, the rise of Nazism and World War II.

Zweig’s nostalgic tribute to that bygone era is his effort to preserve the memory of a lost civilisation governed by excellence and culture, its democracy and human rights replaced by authoritarianism, extremism and evil nationalism that marched Jews into gas chambers. Sinking into pessimism, Zweig finished his manuscript, posted it to his publisher, and, then, together with his wife, committed suicide.

Brute force of hegemons arouses global helplessness, even depression. But, historically, patience is an antidote to pessimism. Just three years after Zweig overdosed on barbiturates in 1942, Nazi Germany collapsed and World War II ended. A repaired and rejuvenated Europe rejoiced. The European Union chose Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ as its anthem. Europe became a rags-to-riches fairytale. History does not end; it merely metamorphoses. In poverty and in prosperity, in victory and in defeat, the story of humanity continues—in new forms.

Cities everywhere are a constant reminder of this civilisational continuity driven by humankind’s sheer grit to survive, even thrive. Take Delhi for example. Its trauma includes partition, assassinations, riots, bomb blasts, Covid. But, today, billion-dollar deals are negotiated in glass-and-chrome offices. In its grungy neighbourhoods, hustlers hustle and bustle, talking in lakhs, not thousands. Over the decades, Delhi’s streets have become even wider, the vehicles bigger, better, broader. Old majestic trees line affluent Delhi’s avenues, while new plastic-and-brick hutments jostle in slums.

What’s next for the world? Blood, sweat and tears, perhaps. Blood, flowing with happy hormones, for progress created, sweat for dread of destruction, tears for all that remains undone. This paradox, this primal tandava is the yin-yang wheel of life… spinning towards the future.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

anita-pratap-power-without-maturity-why-analysts-are-likening-trump-to-nero

Sat Feb 28 14:26:19 IST 2026

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the worst of them all?

If the question is about Roman emperors, many historians would say it is the narcissistic Nero. He demanded flattery, renamed institutions after himself, built a gold-leafed palace, installed a 100-foot statute of himself and wanted to rename Rome “Neropolis”.

Clarifying that ancient Rome is not modern US and Nero’s extreme actions are incomparable, several western analysts are likening Donald Trump to Nero. It is Neroesque when Trump expects applause after his rambling infantile, self-praising jokes. He transformed the dignified Oval Office into a gaudy, gilt-and-gold bling den, demolished a White House wing to construct an ornate ballroom and is renaming institutions and airports after him. It’s not hard to imagine a “Trumpolis”.

Trump and Nero are erratic and grandiose, but these are minor examples compared to their egregious actions. The pain and chaos caused by Trump’s caprice, bullying, abuse and vendetta provoke commentators to see Nero in him. Polish parliamentarian Włodzimierz Czarzasty warned Trump: “The times when Nero, under threat of punishment, demanded recognition for his musical talents have been regarded as the beginning of the decline of the Roman empire.” Republican donor and hedge fund manager Ken Griffin said the Trump administration’s decisions have been “very, very enriching—for his own family”.

Backlash brews. British journalist Gideon Rachman writes, “As Trump’s behaviour becomes more and more indefensible, a genuine backlash is finally under way and is steadily increasing the chance that his presidency will ultimately be seen as a grotesque aberration—rather than a lasting shift.” Several democracies—including India during the Emergency—have faced authoritarianism, ended finally by voters. The descent into autocracy can lead to civil war and repression. It can also be reversed and the character of the nation restored.

Faced with backlash, Trump habitually denies, doubles-down and defames. Trump’s temper tantrum, following the supreme court ruling against his tariffs, showcased his stark them-against-me world view where critics are “traitors” and supporters “genius”. Judges who opposed him are “fools and lapdogs”, “unpatriotic and disloyal” while those who filed the lawsuit against him “foreign-centric sleazebags”. In fury, he slapped an additional 15 per cent global tariff under a different legal clause.

The world does not believe his bombast, but Trump himself does. Spawned by distortions and false beliefs, his fantasies endanger the world. He believes his “landslide” victory and the US stock market rise to “70,000”, grant him supranational powers. “I can destroy the trade; I can destroy the country,” he thundered. He is America. And those who thwart him—the “treacherous” court, congress, citizens—“disgraced the nation”. He would have us believe that the opponents ganging up against him stifle his better instincts. “I want to be a good boy,” he complains. Trump is no Jacob Blivens in Mark Twain’s The Story of the Good Little Boy. Blivens was caring, righteous and never told lies.

Experts say the US “decline” is an overstatement, given its powerful military, economy and democratic pillars. Nero killed his mother and wives, though modern historians believe some stories are exaggerated. But his successors buried his gigantic palace, reclaiming the 200 acres for public use. More apt is comparing Trump to 18-year-old Commodus who became Roman emperor 100 years after Nero. Says American scholar Robert Denham, “Trump and Commodus represent a structural flaw. The ancient Roman imperial system and the current American monarchical executive and personalised party allowed inexperienced immature men to gain near-absolute power with semi-divine status. But there is a difference.” He adds, “Trump is an old, immature man.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

epstein-and-the-princess-of-norway-by-anita-pratap

Sat Feb 14 11:19:04 IST 2026

Dead men tell secrets. But none so loudly and dreadfully as convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. His secret files show patterns of celebrity sexual romps, financial improprieties and shady deals. These influencers sought Epstein’s advice, favours and freebies, hungering invitations to his Caribbean Island resort—nicknamed “paedophile island” by locals. Like onion, escapades peel to reveal the rotten layers of the global glitterati.

Norway reels under new disclosures that compromise its hallowed institutions—the royal family, Nobel Peace Prize committee and foreign ministry. Prominent members trysted with Epstein well after his first 2008 conviction. Former prime minister Thorbjørn Jagland, who headed the Nobel Committee from 2009 to 2015, availed of loans, free plane rides and family vacations in Epstein’s Palm Beach luxury villa in Florida—the white-painted den of black sin where underaged girls were abused.

Star ambassador Mona Juul and her ambitious husband Terje Rød-Larsen helped craft the 1994 Oslo peace accord between Israel and Palestine. Files reveal Epstein gave his “chum” Terje loans, gifts, Ivy League college admission for his son, donations to his peace foundation. A well-known shipowner disclosed Epstein blackmailed him to sell his Rs28 crore apartment in Oslo at half price to Terje. Epstein bequeathed $5 million each to the couple’s two children. Epstein’s generosity to his powerful friends is self-evident, but what they did for him is cloaked in secrecy. Following these disclosures, Terje suffered multiple strokes.

Former Norwegian foreign minister and current head of the Davos-based World Economic Forum, Børge Brende, wined and dined with Epstein. On the menu was replacing the United Nations with the World Economic Forum… an idea now replaced by Trump’s Board of Peace. Conspiracy theorists claim Trump green-signalled the revelations to punish Norway for denying him the Nobel Prize.

Most damaging are secrets involving Epstein and crown princess Mette-Marit, 52, Norway’s queen-in-waiting, who is mentioned over a thousand times in the files. An unwed mother with a controversial past, Mette-Marit’s marriage to crown prince Haakon was spun as the modernisation of the monarchy. It’s more dysfunctional than modern. Her former lover was among Norway’s first convicted cocaine traffickers. Her son from this relationship, Marius, 29, is an accused serial sex offender. He is currently in jail, undergoing trial for 38 charges including rape, violence and drug offences. If convicted, he could get 15 years.

A common friend, Boris Nikolic, introduced Mette-Marit to Epstein, describing the crown princess as “twisted:) not a typical royalty”. The files reveal crown princess soliciting Epstein’s advice whether it would be appropriate for her to gift her then 15-year-old son wall posters of naked women. She advised Epstein, “Paris is for adultery, Scandinavia for finding wives.” Exchanging coquettish sms, she addressed Epstein, “Dearest,” saying, “I miss my crazy friend” and “Are you coming over to see me soon?” adding “What do you have to do besides seeing me?” Holidaying in Epstein’s Florida villa, enjoying sushi, shopping and steam baths, Mette-Marit exulted, “I haven’t felt so much peace in a long time.” Now she expresses “deep regret” for her friendship with Epstein, saying their exchange “does not represent the person I want to be”.

Norwegian media gleans that Russian intelligence sought access to Epstein’s network. A Russian woman linked to the Federal Security Service, Russia’s intelligence agency, requested Epstein for two “inappropriate” photos, shortly after the crown princess vacationed in his villa. Nearly half of Norway’s population now say Mette-Marit is unfit to be queen. Alive, Epstein was the spider in a dark world-wide-web. In death, his sticky spider web threads that trap prey, curl into nooses, garrotting his high-flying friends.

One by one.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

psychology-of-power-narcissism-fear-and-the-mind-of-a-dictator

Sat Jan 17 11:28:36 IST 2026

Dictators have a few things in common with T. rex, the king of dinosaurs. Both dominate their sphere of influence through brute force. Both assert supremacy by instilling fear. Even trees trembled when T. rex approached. Likewise, small nations shudder when they see the dictators’ advancing army, airpower or armada. Fear is an effective, time-and-cost-saving mechanism for entrenching dominance. It reduces resistance from victims and rivals.

As in jungle, so, too, in oceans and cities. It is apt to liken tyrants to this dinosaur. After all, T. rex stands for Tyrannosaurus rex, Greek-Latin for tyrant lizard king. Homo Sapiens’ T. rex have armed and harmed our civilisation for centuries. The 20th century alone had dozens of them—Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Gaddafi, Idi Amin, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Chiang Kai-Shek, North Korea’s Kim dynasts and many more.

Through blizzards of lies, distortions and false accusations, dictators ascend to power. Truth is their enemy. Bark matches bite as they doggedly control the truth, or “narrative” as it is called now. Homicide becomes self-defence, murder is suicide, inflation the invention of political opponents. Hitler provided the best tip for mass-media messaging and public manipulation: “Propaganda must be limited to a few points and repeated endlessly.” Controlled truth controls people’s minds. Meanwhile, truth-seekers disappear or die. The sinister African dictator Idi Amin proclaimed, “There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.”

Dictators thrive in tough times because happy people don’t seek saviours. If the situation is not bad enough, autocrats invent trouble until reality catches up. Changing times, uncertainty and misfortune make people fearful. They crave a strong leader who can make them feel safe again. Historically, grievances and calamities result from war, oppression, colonialism, cultural domination and national humiliation by imperialists, inequality, inflation and disease. From this womb of misery, dictators are born.

But tyrants seldom deliver. One reason is, as philosopher Hannah Arendt argued, they appoint “crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity guarantees their loyalty”. These minions gouge institutions, crush the dictator’s enemies, blunder and plunder national resources. Curiously, even after they gain all the levers of power, dictators seem uninterested in using them to improve people’s lives. It reflects a nagging fear: who needs a dictator when life is good. Psychologists say despotism is a pathology of four traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and sadism. This explains why dictators don’t promise happiness. They promise revenge. They don’t just exploit misfortune, they nurture it so that bad times don’t end.

But they do, unless they worsen. Yet, dictators and dinosaurs are anachronisms. T. rex had giant skulls and huge, heavy tails. Its massive, deadly jaws crushed its prey’s entire skeleton, while its propulsive tail uprooted vegetation and smashed animals. But they had dwarf forelimbs. Lacking in fine-motor skills, these ridiculously puny appendages could hardly grasp or grapple. Symbolic. Giants with limited dexterity, T. rex and tyrants combine brute strength with structural weakness. In this contradiction lie their seeds of destruction. Their power to dominate is impressive, but less so is their capacity to adapt—which as Darwin said, is the key to survival. Thus, dictators, ecosystems and creatures collapse.

But an asteroid made dinosaurs extinct before evolution did. Implosion or invasion ends dictatorships. Until then, dictators avoid celestial and citizens’ rocks, luxuriate in heavily guarded, gilded mansions, enjoy pomp and pageantry, seize neighbours’ territories, receive supplicants bearing gifts, praise and entreaties. There are no forever dictators, but the end of one doesn’t signal the extinction of this vile sub-species. Unlike T. rex, dictators still roam the earth.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

russophobia-is-raging-across-europe

Sat Jan 03 15:41:41 IST 2026

Like day and night, New Year is a time of bright optimism and dark prophecies—often about the same issue. The promise of AI bringing prosperity competes with the peril of AI enslaving humanity. Miracle cures are here, but they are no match for malignant variants. Rule of law prevails but flails like a toothless old crone against scams, lobbies and leaders. Peace prospects shine in Ukraine, but dark questions arise about a new, destructive war looming in Europe. Predicts German security expert Hanna Notte, “Europe risks a self-fulfilling prophecy over the Russian threat.”

European leaders predict an imminent Russian attack on a NATO country. Warns Mark Rutte, secretary general, “We are Russia’s next target. [We] must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured.” Richard Knighton, the UK’s defence chief, urged British youth to prepare for war should Russia attack Britain. Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius invoked the nostalgia of a tranquil bygone era, “We already had our last summer of peace.”

Cold War jargon resurrects from the European deep freeze: Revanchist Russia, Red Scare, Bolsheviks, Broken Arrow—all zigzag low and loose but fail to hit target: the European public. So far, they are unimpressed by the scaremongering. The euphoric European propaganda, early in the Ukraine war, convinced people that Ukraine was winning and Russia losing, with its clunky tanks squashed like dead toads on a highway. Public perception solidified that the Russian military is no match for NATO—proclaimed the most powerful military alliance in world history. To pivot now and believe that Russia is a well-equipped mortal enemy is a big ask. Besides, Russian attacks aren’t new. Their hybrid war in Europe is decades old.

But predictions of full-fledged war legitimise the ongoing rearming of Europe’s military-industrial complex, which contributed to much destruction during the World Wars, and which had shrunk thereafter as Europe invested in infrastructure and public welfare. Military spending is now accelerating, especially in Germany, Italy, Britain and France. While GDP figures swell, citizens face funding cuts to municipalities, safety, health care programmes and reel under an affordability crisis—aggravated by the Ukraine war.

Europe’s rising war rhetoric is triggered by worry—about Russia and an unreliable US: Donald Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin, his impatience to end the Ukraine war, his public condemnation of Europe’s liberal governments and praise for Europe’s “patriotic” far right. It bothers liberal Europe that the increasingly popular, pro-Kremlin far-right groups’ narrative that Russia has a right to defend itself against NATO enlargement is gaining mainstream momentum.

Russia, frequently, unfurls its brutality and perfidy. Yet, events from the 19th century onwards show a pattern of European disdain for Russia’s security concerns. Russia is seen as “revanchist”—a vengeful, expansionist power under Tsarist, Soviet and post-USSR regimes. Independent western scholars say the problem is not Russian ideology, but Europe’s refusal to recognise Russia as a legitimate, equal security actor. Europe’s Russophobia stems partly from Russia’s huge landmass sprawled across Europe and Asia. Size matters. Further Russian expansion is unacceptable, so it must be contained. That was western strategy. It still is.

History repeats. Prophecies come true. From Greek myths to Star Wars, in legend and in life, the cruel irony is that the very actions taken—like rearmament—to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies, lead to its unfolding. An apt New Year resolution is to stop repeating the ancient Roman dictum: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” History shows preparation, like self-fulfilling prophecies, invariably leads exactly to what it wishes to avoid—war.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

what-is-the-trump-doctrine-trumps-national-security-strategy-explained

Sat Dec 20 11:21:11 IST 2025

Winston Churchill famously said, “Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” In that vein, Donald Trump is aerogel, wrapped in contradictions, packaged in business deals. In 2019, aerogel beat glass to hold the Guinness World Records as the world’s most transparent material. It is solid, but mostly air, an obvious contradiction.

It is almost disarming how transparent Trump is about his prejudices, peeves, methods and goals. He publicly threatens to capture Denmark’s Greenland. He plans to turn war-shattered Gaza into a luxury Mediterranean Riviera. He forces Ukraine into signing a critical minerals mining deal. He covets the Nobel Prize. Only he can bring peace to warring nations, only he can talk to Azerbaijan’s leader. In the Trumpian world, “yes we can” becomes “only I can”. All this we know because Trump says so.

The US National Security Strategy, NSS, a “Trump Doctrine” enshrining “America First”, is a transparent testament to his contradictions, intentions and obsessions with business deals. Land, tariffs, war, peace, projection of US power are all opportunities for real estate, infrastructure and media projects. Ethics specialists cry “conflicts of interest”. Trump is unfazed.

The doctrine includes robust economic measures and crackdowns against migration and drug smuggling. The NSS rejects America’s “ill-fated global domination” but then contradicts itself, asserting the imperative for “economic, financial, technological, energy and military dominance”. The US will enforce “American preeminence in the western hemisphere”. The hegemon will convert the hemisphere into an “attractive market for American commerce and investment”, eject foreign competitors, and, if necessary, militarily access “strategically important locations”.

It is baffling how Trump fails to see his contradictions when they are projected globally, 24x7. He accepts FIFA’s made-up peace prize when his attempts to achieve peace in Ukraine flops and when he unilaterally turns the Venezuelan coast into a battle-zone. Trump claims the US is attacking the tiny, Venezuelan “narco” speedboats in “self-defence”. The US armada, gathered off Venezuela’s coast ready to attack, includes the world’s biggest warship, the USS Gerald Ford, helicopter and aircraft carriers, attack vessels, fighter jets, drones, spy planes, nuclear submarines, guided-missile destroyers, and amphibious assault ships capable of landing thousands of troops. But Trump releases narco-king and ex-president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, from a 45-year US prison sentence. Venezuela is not even a drug conduit, experts say. Trump plots regime change in Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. His doctrine flexes power over law, duress over diplomacy, hyperbole over dispassionate analysis.

Trump never loses an opportunity to praise himself or insult Joe Biden and Europe. In the NSS, Trump boasts “no administration in history has achieved so dramatic a turnaround in so short a time”. Turnaround to some, U-turn to others. The NSS rebukes Biden’s “deadly failures” and Europe’s impending “civilisational erasure because of uncontrolled migration”. The NSS disparages Europe’s “economic decline”, “regulatory suffocation”, “loss of national identities”, “lack of confidence”, “censorship” and “suppression of political opposition”.

In a shocking assertion of internal interference, the NSS threatens the US will “cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory” (support far-right groups). The doctrine deepens European insecurity. Denmark, loyal US ally and NATO member, now publicly identifies the US as a “potential security threat”.

Coercion, conflicts of interest and contradictions underpin the Trump doctrine. It disregards morality, geopolitics, psychology, history. Says economist Jeffrey Sachs, “A great power that frightens its allies, coerces its neighbours, and disregards international rules ultimately isolates itself.”

It happened to Athens 2,500 years ago. More recently, it happened to the Soviet Union.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

what-is-moral-architecture-and-can-it-fix-our-digital-world

Sat Dec 06 11:05:40 IST 2025

The world is in a mess” is a common lament across the world. Not everyone agrees though, certainly not the ones who contribute to the mess or those who thrive on it, and certainly not the moneyed M&Ms of the world—Microsoft and Mercedes, Mark and Musk. But, then, they are not of this world anyway. They inhabit a distant galaxy. While most people feel the pincer pinch of inflation, infection and inequality, trillionaires’ wealth rockets to MoM-z14, the farthest observed galaxy, 33.8 billion light-years from planet earth.

Experts attribute many reasons for this global gloom. War, polarisation, corruption, aggressive geopolitics and AI. People feel online trends have aggravated this mess. But, 25 years ago, when the internet dawned into our lives, the world brimmed with optimism, expectations and possibilities. “But that optimism has curdled into cynicism,” mourns Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s co-founder. So, what went wrong? Wales answers, “The defining difference between web 1.0 and the platforms that dominate today is not technological sophistication but moral architecture.”

Moral architecture depends on good governance. Algorithms and AI determine the content consumed by billions of users. They are a force for good, but how they function remains opaque. Wales argues for implementing “structural transparency”, or clearly outlining “where data originated, how it is processed and what uncertainty” surrounds it. He says, “Think of it as nutritional labelling for information.”

But powerful forces strive to strangle AI regulation. The troika of Silicon Valley lobbyists, $100 million moneybags and slick spin-doctors hatched a plan, backed by Donald Trump, to restrict US states from regulating AI companies. MAGA supporters and even some Republicans accuse Trump of appeasing Big Tech donors. Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican hawk, sniggers, “Shows what money can do.”

Money is doing terrible things everywhere, adding to global gloom. Tuna is big business with a $50 billion global market. But tuna-fishing fleets starve, overwork, beat their “bonded” migrant crew, who haul fishing lines that stretch for kilometres on voyages that last for years. “Abuse on these vessels is industrial, systemic,” says human rights investigator, Steve Trent.

Luxury brands tolerate worker abuse by subcontractors. A South African government probe reveals the nexus between rogue police officials and gangsters who bribe the judiciary, swindle state hospitals of millions of dollars and terrorise honest officials by “threatening to burn them in their cars”.

Moral crisis in football has led to rampant illegal betting, match-fixing and on-field punching. “Football does not take place in outer space. The scandals are a magnifying glass of all the problems in today’s society, especially the erosion of the rule of law, lack of transparency, accountability and legal impunity,” bemoans Turkish sociologist Daghan Irak.

The internet, today, is a microcosm, spawning good solutions and bad problems ranging from predatory apps to data centres’ guzzling of precious water, teenage suicides after conversations with chatbots to societal dangers from scams, financial bubbles and job losses. Wales says the best way to survive this onslaught is to embed transparency, independence and empathy into the digital architecture itself. “It was done before. It can be done again,” he promises.

But when big money talks, public good walks—away. Collective will to restore sense and sensibility seems feeble. Solutions sound like closing the door after the horse has bolted. The stallions of the universe gallop beyond MoM-z14 while earthlings, saddled with messy problems, can never catch up. Astronomers say MoM is unreachable, receding from earth due to cosmic expansion. The phenomenon—and the distance—is cosmological. And metaphorical.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

art-adversity-and-the-strength-of-the-human-spirit

Sat Nov 22 17:46:25 IST 2025

It all starts in the mind. As an adorable four-year-old, Nobuyuki Tsujii loved sounds. He sat with chubby legs splayed, a toy piano keyboard on his lap, banging and caressing the keys. The diversity of sounds delighted him. All senses on high alert, he says he could touch the sounds, see colours in the notes. Like Vincent van Gogh, Nobu celebrates the richness of life through art. No detail is too small or humble.

Nobu was born blind. Far from restraining him, the disability drove him to develop his acute hearing to exquisite heights. He blossomed into a child prodigy, became Japan’s most famous pianist. Now, at 37, he plays with the world’s most famous philharmonic orchestras—in New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Milan, Tokyo, Sydney. He cocks his ear to get cues from the conductor he cannot see. He doesn't miss a beat, his fingers flying and fluttering over the keys, his characteristic headshaking accelerating to vigorous immersion.

Nobu yearns to see… stars, waves, the faces of his parents. But no self-pity, no succumbing to obstacles for him. Instead, he willed his mind to fulfil his dream. Like artists and adventurers, athletes, too, are inspirational in highlighting the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. Beating all odds through sheer willpower.

In May 2023, athlete Alexandra Truwit was snorkelling near the Bahamas when she lost her left leg in a shark attack. Eleven months after amputation, she won two medals in the Paris Paralympics. This month, she ran the New York marathon with a prosthetic blade. She says, “I have relied on other people’s comeback stories to hold on to what seemed an unrealistic hope.” She named her foundation “Stronger than you think”.

As the joke goes, Eli Hanssveen looks and sounds like she was made when God was in fine mood. Beautiful, wholesome and playful with a voice that can make angels weep… aching, grand, joyful. But her road to success was land-mined. She faced prejudice because she came from the hinterland, a “suburb of nowhere”. She says nobody in her family or community understood what “I want to be an artist” even meant. Singing became her secret passion, she kept practising, even over-practising. She swallowed snobbery and setbacks—until she became a singer in the Oslo opera.

Being a war correspondent means having to see fields strewn with corpses, streets with bomb-shattered bodies or threatened by gun-toting guerrillas and soldiers. Yet, one of my most chilling, unforgettable experiences was visiting Mauthausen, the World War II concentration camp with its menacing watch towers and ghastly gas chambers. Austrian authorities turned it into a museum to remind us of the unspeakable suffering inflicted by humans against humans.

That visit took place 22 years ago. Unerasable is the guide's description of naked, starving, shivering Jews in a communal shower. Instead of water, lethal gas seeped out of the sprinklers. In sharp contrast, that same evening there was a sublime concert by pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. Human hands inflicted soul-shattering evil in Mauthausen. But in Vienna’s Musikverein concert hall, the hands of a pianist uplifted the audience to celestial grace. The urge to find beauty, to excel, to seek something divine springs from the mind. It starts in the mind, but it doesn’t have to end in their mind. Long after these “artists of life” have gone, the grit they personify, the emotions they awaken, the memories they bequeath, live on in the minds they have touched. No detail is too small or humble in a life well lived.

nvidias-5-trillion-leap-how-ai-is-reshaping-global-economy

Sat Nov 08 11:32:01 IST 2025

I glitters on the global stage. The meteoric rise of AI-chip manufacturing company—Nvidia—dazzles world leaders and financial wizards. It enthrals even mum-and-dad retail investors, whose eyes turn into dollar signs as they spot a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a killing in the stock market.

Virtually unknown 15 years ago, Nvidia, with a $5 trillion market capitalisation, is now the world’s most valuable company. It is not comparable, but to get a sense of the enormity of this figure, Nvidia’s valuation is higher than the GDP of all countries in the world, except two—the US and China. A $10,000 investment in Nvidia five years ago is currently worth $137,000, an astounding 1,270 per cent return. Three-fourths of its employees are dollar millionaires.

This money-mania drowns critics who warn about AI’s “stealth-and-steal” persona. AI’s strengths are well-documented, but regulators fret over the excessive concentration of wealth and power, its impact on politics, academia and society. AI accelerates job losses, tramples truth, steals creativity and distorts culture. An all-too human way of life threatens to fade away.

The arguments that AI cannot match human creativity, decision-making and empathy—the hallmarks of our species—lie like wrecks in a war zone. Haiku, the 17-syllable Japanese poem, is breathtaking in its brevity and brilliance. Basho remains the haiku maestro. A decade ago, AI’s haiku renditions were laughable. Now, they stun. It was said, AI is no Bach. Perhaps, but it can imitate so well that music lovers in a Los Angeles salon could not distinguish AI and Bach compositions. In our arrogance, we failed to recognise a fundamental revelation: AI improves constantly and exponentially. It corrects its mistakes faster than humans. Hubris meets Nemesis.

The current sensational phenomenon is AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Warring nations use the euphemism “collateral damage” to disguise the brutality of civilian casualties. AGI disguises its real meaning: the turning point when AI matches human intelligence. Then comes AI’s Superintelligence, surpassing human intelligence. This will be the pinnacle of human achievement. Or, downfall.

Mortal accomplishments leave in their wake winners and losers. The rich get richer, Nvidia reaches $10 trillion market cap. But losses are inevitable. Bubbles burst, companies collapse, bankruptcies spiral, exuberance crashes. Humanity’s capacity for self-harm is explained by the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ conceived by mathematicians Melvin Dresher and Merrill Flood in 1950. If two arrested criminals cooperate and remain silent, the outcome is good. They get short sentences. If both confess, they get moderate sentences. But if one betrays, while the other remains silent, the betrayer is freed, a fantastic outcome for him, but his partner gets a long sentence. The obvious choice for individuals is to pursue self-interest, by betraying, not cooperating.

The dilemma is that the high returns of self-interest invariably trumps the moderate returns of collective good—not just for criminals, but in economics, psychology, geopolitics or environment negotiations. Self-interest is particularly pronounced in AI. Cooperation entails regulation, investing in safety, sharing progress. But this requires unprecedented and unimaginable global trust and enforcement. So, AI safety sputters while Big Tech’s investment in AI skyrockets.

Experts say, once one company or country reaches superintelligence, the race ends. Competitors cannot catch up because the winner exponentially outpaces them. The victor amasses colossal financial, political, even existential benefits. Others are left with little or nothing. It is catastrophic for losers, but euphoric for winners, even beneficial for humanity if superintelligence is humane. ‘The Winner Takes It All’ is not just an Abba song. It could be a way of life.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

weaponising-justice-how-trump-targets-his-political-enemies

Sat Oct 25 13:25:49 IST 2025

Show me the man and I will show you the crime” was Russian dictator Joseph Stalin’s sinister refrain. Inventing crimes to punish enemies was normal then. But, now, in our twisted times, a senior American official quotes this Stalinist saying to explain his “persecution” by the president.

The feud between President Donald Trump and John Bolton, who was national security adviser (NSA) in Trump’s first term, is emblematic of an abrasive era, where abuse drowns argument and personal pique overwhelms public propriety. Both are belligerent fighters. One is a tough guy with a thin skin and the other, a policy hawk with a rough tongue. To many, anti-Putin Bolton is a warmonger and regime-change fanatic.

Still, Bolton’s expertise on security matters runs deep. With a high regard for his own intellectual rigour, Bolton doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He is well known for his sneering put-downers. As Trump’s NSA, Bolton quickly lost patience with his boss’ style of functioning and thinking—or lack thereof. Trump says he fired him. Bolton says he resigned. Either way, they parted ways, their fights turning slanderous and scathing. In a Newsweek interview, Bolton derisively described Trump’s rambling, repetitive, unfocused thought-process as “a random walk that never stops”. He declared Trump “was not competent to be president”, that he envied world leaders like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, but they saw him as a “laughing fool”.

Bolton’s tell-all book—The Room Where It Happened—mauls Trump, who promptly sprayed insults calling Bolton a “disgruntled boring fool” whose only foreign policy solution was “Gee, let’s go to war”. Bolton was either prophetic or he understood Trump well. In January 2024, in his book’s new edition, Bolton warned, “Trump really only cares about retribution for himself, and it will consume much of a second term.” Sure enough, in the election campaign, Trump vowed vengeance against his political enemies, thundering, “I am your warrior, I am your justice, I am your retribution.” Since his election victory, he has weaponised his government to witch hunt his “witch hunters”—all those liberals who mocked and shamed him, tried to impeach, fine and imprison him through court cases.

Bolton is accused of storing and sharing classified information with his wife and daughter. If convicted, he could get a 10-year jail term. Dismissals and court cases against Trump’s nemeses swells—people who investigated or prosecuted him for fraud, Russian links and abuse of power—in his first term. Accused Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, “This is what tyranny looks like. Trump is using the justice department as his personal attack dog.” Unsurprisingly “No King” protests against Trump erupted on American streets.

Experts say these cases may fizzle in court, but Washington attorney Scott Bolden says Trump believes, “process is punishment”, that he wishes to inflict on his “tormentors” the same legal pain he suffered after his first term… he wants them jailed or at least endure the humiliation of being produced in court and incur exorbitant legal costs. Trump is prosecutor, jury and judge when it comes to his foes. About the officials facing his wrath in court, Trump posted on Truth Social, “They’re all guilty as hell. We can’t delay any longer. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (five times), over nothing. Nothing. Justice must be served now!”

In the Afghan tribal heartlands, wounded warlords wait for generations to wreak vengeance. Trump’s raging hurry contrasts with the congealed hatred of an old Pashtun proverb: “revenge is a dish best served cold”. Trump likes it hot. Served now.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

how-autocrats-and-billionaires-are-reshaping-the-world

Sat Oct 11 11:01:48 IST 2025

The hour of the predator dawns as the old order nears its end. A doddering president Joe Biden becomes a metaphor for a disintegrating world order incapacitated by new threats. In the just-released non-fiction Hour of the Predator, Swiss-Italian author Giuliano da Empoli presents a new order shaped by autocrats and plutocrats such as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, AI-adventurer Sam Altman and their global prototypes.

These populist-business billionaires are changing the world, fundamentally and irrevocably, hastening a geopolitical transformation as dramatic as the 16th century collapse of the Aztec empire under Spanish conquest. Or the collapsed Roman, Russian, Ottoman and British empires. This is “one book you absolutely need to read in order to understand current politics”, recommends historian Anne Applebaum.

The predator-prey, powerful-powerless dynamic intertwines the highs and lows of history. Power has myriad faces—brutal in war, ruthless in intrigue, seductive in rhetoric, ugly in threats, imperious in executive orders. The legion of loyal lackeys scurry to please the tyrant. The power capital becomes a swamp infested with toadies, parasites, leeches and assorted creepy-crawlies. We have seen this face of power. But da Empoli also reveals the exercise of power behind closed doors, not necessarily through yells and tantrums, but in the curling lip, unblinking stare, low, menacing voice, the silence signalling time to leave—forever.

As an advisor to the Democratic Party’s former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, da Empoli has witnessed the innards of power. In his earlier best-seller The Wizard of the Kremlin, he portrays Vladislav Surkov, ‘Putin’s Rasputin’, the secretive sorcerer who invented ‘Putinism’. It is now being adapted into a Hollywood movie, starring Jude Law. da Empoli uses his political experience to chilling effect, unveiling a cynical world, empty of ethics and shame, a world where corruption, scandal and hypocrisy do not disqualify aspirants from high office. He says billionaire populist strongmen like Trump, Mohammad bin Salman, Argentina’s Javier Milei, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan along with business and tech tycoons are steering the new world order. The conjoined age-old axis of evil—power and money—now on steroids.

Power-wielding narcissists and nerds inhabit another world. The public knows this but perhaps hasn’t grasped the full implications. Notes da Empoli: “The predators are not of this world—and do not wish to be.” Their ambitions are otherworldly—conquering outer-space to mine minerals or plunging to ocean depths for fun. These champions of freedom are unconstrained by existing social, political and regulatory conventions. Their god complex raises them above the banality of democracy and accountability. History, taxes and rules don’t apply to them. “They have no knowledge of the past, they despise the present, and the future is but an egotistical projection of their own fantasies,” observes da Empoli. He paints a world where the public feel disempowered or have abdicated their power to envision their future. And so, people’s abandoned future becomes the predators’ playground.

History happens, whether predators and the public like it or not. History is an iteration of the drama of predators and prey, winners and losers. Like the Aztecs. Or Nigeria’s Igbo tribe. From 1857 onwards, Christian colonisers plundered their land and robbed their dignity. British imperial inducements— jobs, education—incentivised conversion. In his brilliant book Things fall Apart on the Igbo saga, Chinua Achebe observes: “Things come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again.”

This ebb and flow of human destiny nourish and destroy civilisations. Predators and public may not know history. But history knows us.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

global-uncertainty-trump-tactics-psychology-of-trump

Sat Sep 27 11:06:25 IST 2025

To understand leaders, we must know their ideology. In President Donald Trump’s case, experts say, we must understand his psychology. But it is above most people’s pay grade to fathom the psychology of an erratic, complex, boastful potentate, who has neither filters nor fetters in using his executive power to upend the world order, crush his opponents, unnerve his allies, ignore genocide, fill his family coffers, hike H-1B visa fee by ‘6,566 per cent’ overnight, browbeat media, comedians, liberals and universities. John Coates, neuroscientist and an expert on risk-taking, says “Trump is a psy ops warrior.”

Trump’s “psychological operations” have converted the geopolitical into a geopsychological universe. China’s foreign minister Wang Yi says he is a “bully toying with the world”. Trump has unleashed a whirlwind of global uncertainty with his slash-and-burn tariffs, sanctions, attacks, raids and invasion threats. Trump’s superpower comes from nuclear weapons and B-2 Bombers. But also from “weaponising” uncertainty. Says Coates, Trump “deploys uncertainty to soften up his opponents, make them risk-averse in advance of negotiating deals.”

The ability to keep opponents guessing is a powerful weapon, because uncertainty plays tricks on the human brain. Psychologists say uncertainty intensifies emotions, exaggerates dangers, damages health, impairs judgment and decisions. Studies show uncertainty leads to poorer decision-making, even accepting less favourable terms of agreements. All his life, Trump filed expensive lawsuits to scare opponents. Now he uses his executive power to force top law firms to do free work for him. He sends troops to terrorise migrants. Trump’s skill and stomach to wage psychological war is ceaseless, changeable, capricious, even cruel.

Unpredictable bosses get compliance because they are feared more. They manipulate uncertainty to get their way in politics, military, bureaucracy, sports. Research shows football referees who are unpredictable about when and how they punish foul play extract better behaviour from players. During World War II, the unpredictable movements of the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee kept even the hard-nosed Winston Churchill on tenterhooks. The battleship, designed to outgun and outrun British and French cruisers, moved stealthily in the south Atlantic, looming near a harbour, vanishing without a trace, only to reappear elsewhere. It did not attack, but it disrupted British maritime communications, trade and imports of raw material and food.

But weaponising uncertainty is a double-edged sword, warns Coates. Used against opponents, uncertainty can be useful. But used against allies, it can inflict self-harm. Undermining the Fed’s independence or keeping the private sector guessing damages US economy. Canada took Trump’s bullying, but then fought back. Besides, uncertainty’s effect wears off under prolonged use. Kill becomes overkill.

That’s because uncertainty triggers the “stress response”. Pioneering endocrinologist Hans Selye distinguished between positive, short-term stress—’eustress’—experienced in sports, creative work or meetings that enhance performance and concentration and negative, chronic stress—’distress’— experienced when enduring joblessness, death or humiliation. Negative stress causes illness and meltdowns. It alters behaviour with people dreading risk, offering concessions or becoming timid in job, pay or tariff negotiations.

The prospect of pulling off band-aid from an unhealed wound is more excruciating than the act. Anticipating a tooth extraction is often worse than the actual extraction. Research also shows humans can bear more pain when it is administered regularly than when it is administered unpredictably. Uncertainty, the ‘not-knowing’, transforms the mind into a minefield as the brain imagines exaggerated scenarios of pain and loss. Psy ops warrior Trump knows how to feel the pulse of the people. But he also knows how to scratch their raw nerve… and keep the world on edge.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

broken-windows-theory-explained-crime-perception-community-policing

Sat Sep 13 12:52:44 IST 2025

Broken windows’ is not a metaphor about art, architecture or poetry. It is a sociological theory about what makes residents feel unsafe in run-down neighbourhoods. ‘Broken windows’ symbolise decline—city, even national. Experts refer to Decaying Detroit, Beat-up Bronx, Broken Britain.

In most places, crime has gone down, but citizens feel the opposite. This disconnect is because murder, larceny and bank robberies have come down. But street crime—what people experience or witness—has increased significantly. Shoplifting, car theft, knifing, phone or jewellery snatching have increased by 60 to 90 per cent in the UK.

Psychologists say crime comparisons from the past are irrelevant to the public’s lived experience. Thus, President Donald Trump strikes a chord among his MAGA base when he talks about “carnage on the streets”, “migrant crime” and sending troops to “crime-infested Chicago”, even though violent crime has declined in the US. Still, public order is undermined when beat policemen dwindle, when sentencing and prosecution rates fall.

In the UK, where statistics are well-maintained, half the public don’t trust the police and nearly 40 per cent think they are doing a bad job. Citizens don’t even bother to report minor offences anymore.

American social scientists George Kelling and James Q. Wilson coined the ‘broken windows’ theory in 1982. They argued that visible signs of disrepair, such as broken windows, dilapidated buildings, abandoned properties trigger criminal behaviour in that neighbourhood. The decay signals that residents have lost control or are beyond caring, encouraging vagabonds and vandals to commit minor, and then bigger offences. Potholed streets become scenes of crime and despair, with stray groups, huddled homeless people, aggressive beggars and stoned drug addicts. Those who can, like the whites in Detroit, flee, and petty criminals fill the vacuum. The theory proposes that by addressing minor transgressions and maintaining a well-ordered environment, authorities can prevent greater disorder and crime.

The ‘broken windows’ theory was first put into practice in New York in the 1990s through community policing. Crime rates fell, encouraging other countries to implement the plan. However, it is unclear if this method directly reduced serious crime. But it did improve public perception of safety and community cohesion—which curtailed anti-social behaviour. It reinforced the assertion of Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. She theorised that “eyes on the street”—the presence of local residents and passersby in public spaces—deter crime and enhances safety. Studies in Manchester have shown that improved community policing reduces crime rate much more than severely punishing offences. The British government has earmarked an extra £200million funding for neighbourhood policing by 2029, involving 13,000 community police officers.

It is tempting for citizens to blame the authorities for all societal ills. Yet, the public can step up by contributing to safeguarding their streets. In 1969, during the violent Naxal uprising, it was not policemen but neighbourhood husbands and sons who patrolled the streets of Kolkata to make families feel safe. That same year, an American urban experiment by psychologist Philip Zimbardo revealed that an abandoned car in Bronx was vandalised in minutes, but an abandoned car remained untouched in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley. Other researchers expanded his pioneering conclusion: social neglect in a neighbourhood encourages vandalism. Some neighbourhoods are scary, but Kolkata regained its mojo, Bronx, the bustling birthplace of hip hop, is vibrant, though some neighbourhoods are still best avoided. With plum military exports, the UK’s GDP is set to rise. Britain is not broken. But the ‘broken windows’ theory contains shards of truth for all countries.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

norway-oil-wealth-paradox

Sat Aug 30 13:00:51 IST 2025

Norway has a new complaint. It’s too rich. Economist Martin Bech Holte titled his cautionary bestseller: The Country That Became Too Rich. On book tours across the nation, he has been warning citizens about the side-effects of oil wealth. With a per capita GDP of Rs87 lakh ($100,000), Norway is richer than the US, China, Japan, Britain, France and other developed nations. Besides, in theory, the per capita share in its booming $2 trillion oil fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, is an additional Rs3 crore.

So why is Holte grumbling? The high-profile author laments that Norway is now grappling with stagnant wages, reduced purchasing power due to currency depreciation, low productivity, few science students, fleeing capital that is needed to create private sector jobs at home and municipalities burdened by economic difficulties. He despairs oil wealth has made Norwegians complacent. But evidently, not complacent enough to stop complaining, himself and his critics included. Journalist Terje Erikstad of Norway’s financial newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv mockingly argued that this is a manifestation of Norway’s “complaints-industrial complex” (CIC).

This complex thrives in Norway just like the “military-industrial complex” (MIC) thrives in the US, Russia and Britain. The MIC lobbies with governments to enrich themselves with lucrative defence contracts, allegedly even start and prolong wars. The CIC is powerful and entrenched in Norway, a small, peaceful country in the northern rooftop of Europe. Both complexes are driven by values: the MIC for money, the CIC for equal treatment of citizens.

In most countries, the MIC is viewed with suspicion, if not hostility. But Norwegian society respects complainers, even see them as saviours. Embedded in Norwegian DNA, complaining is a national pastime for several reasons. ‘Janteloven’, the unwritten law that dictates nobody is above others. An egalitarian citizenry strongly conscious of individuals’ rights, fairness and rule of law that kings and hikers must obey. A vigilant society that spots and neutralises deviant behaviour. A nation that believes life can and should be better. Especially because they pay high taxes.

Norwegians prioritise health, happiness and free time for leisure activities. Holte argues that even before the oil revenue, Norwegians enjoyed a good quality of life. But now oil wealth makes the state spend unwisely, he says. His book struck a chord and a nerve, with supporters disparaging wasteful spending and high debt and detractors claiming he had “Golden Age syndrome”—bemoaning the passing of an exaggeratedly glorious past.

Unlike many nations that boast about their achievements, past and present, fiction and fact, Norwegians indulge in self-criticism. Business leader Øyvind Eriksen Søreide forewarns, “Norwegian business is not suitable for the future.” Economic historian Ola Innset counters Holte’s narrative. He says Norway‘s problem is not that the country is “too rich”, but that there are too many rich people. He notes, widening inequality and a weakening welfare state are the real concerns.

Critics say the complainers are absurd because Norway is rich, well-run and democratic with high longevity. But arguably, Norway is a well-administered country because of the complainers’ watchfulness. The national habit of attentive criticism keeps politicians, bureaucrats and citizens in check, curtailing wrongdoing and enabling course corrections.

Journalists, bureaucrats and economists are among the biggest complainers. A saying goes, “The best way to complain is to create.” Norwegians are nifty at that, too, inventing quirky items like cheese slicer to advanced avionics. The nation has among the highest per capita patents in the world. The delicious irony is that those who complain against the complainers are complainers, too.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

ukraine-zelensky-protests-corruption-law

Sat Aug 02 10:55:31 IST 2025

Protesters shouted slogans and carried placards with just one word for their leader: “Shame!”. For the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukrainians abandoned “national unity” and took to the streets to protest against President Volodymyr Zelensky. They were not demonstrating against the ongoing, grinding war, even though war has beggared their nation, ruined cities, families and border areas.

One-third of Ukraine’s 35 million people have fled. Those who remain are battle-weary. But not weary enough to forsake a fight against their president’s new “authoritarian law” that “weakens” the nation’s anti-corruption institutions. Zelensky placed two hitherto independent bodies under the control of the prosecutor general appointed by him. He argues that this will prevent Russian spies from infiltrating the agencies. But activists accuse Zelensky of snuffing investigations against his corrupt cronies.

Critics say the new law, rushed through parliament with unusual secrecy and speed (in less than 24 hours), was a blast from the past, resembling Ukraine’s notorious “dictatorship laws” that gave their erstwhile pro-Russia leaders overarching powers. Ukraine had a bad track record for corruption due to its legacy of oligarchic rule during the Soviet era. The bad old ways continued long after the Soviet Union collapsed. In 2017, Ukraine was even lower than Russia in Transparency International’s corruption index. Comedian-turned president Zelensky won elections on his clean image. Corruption was brought down considerably, but it now shows an uptick in areas like defence procurement.

The Kyiv Independent alleges that Zelensky’s law aims to neuter corruption cases against his inner circle. This includes Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov, accused of real estate corruption, abuse of power and bribery involving Rs240 crore. Activists believe that the law is part of Zelensky’s anti-democratic campaign that includes crackdown on independent media and government critics.

Zelensky’s law was roundly condemned by his key ally, the European Union. “Our current financial assistance to Ukraine is conditional on transparency, judicial reforms and democratic governance. The same is true concerning Ukraine’s path towards EU accession....,” says Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU economy commissioner.

Criticism by the G7, EU and Britain compelled Zelensky to signal willingness to dilute his reviled law. Protesters want the law vetoed but his parliamentarians appear reluctant to make any concessions, allegedly afraid of becoming targets of anti-corruption “witch-hunts”. People inside and outside Ukraine are beginning to see an alternative leader to Zelensky: Kyiv’s mayor and former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko. Popular and personable, he is transforming the capital with his anti-corruption crusade.

For Zelensky, the worst optics were images of the war-wounded protesting alongside the demonstrators. Soldiers said military leaders ordered them to avoid demonstrations and posting criticism on social media. But many came out in full uniform to protest. A double amputee at the rally near the president’s office held a sign that read: “We are fighting for Ukraine, not your impunity.” Another one was equally scathing: “The front line stands, the back line falls.” It summed up the dark public mood: soldiers lose life and limb, politicians gain perks and pelf. Disaffection brews even in faraway war trenches. Yehor Firsov, a demoralised MP and drone operator, says Zelensky is showing callous disregard for public opinion, “daring us, ‘What can you do?’”. He is losing hope. “We ask ourselves,” he says, “Why fight any more?”

In democracies, wartime presidents have limited shelf life. The rise and fall of Winston Churchill, Zelensky’s role model, is a case in point.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

trumps-tariffs-political-weapons-of-mass-destruction-unveiled

Fri Jul 18 15:58:00 IST 2025

The cat is out of the bag. Tariffs are not economic tools; they are political weapons of mass destruction to bludgeon countries around the world. This is President Donald Trump’s way of using brute force to assert American supremacy. For months now, world leaders swallowed the excuse that the US had the right to raise tariffs to offset its trade deficit. But the cat snarled out of the bag when Trump slammed 50 per cent tariffs on Brazil, even though the US enjoys a $7.4 billion trade surplus with South America’s biggest economy. He revealed his real motive when he said on “Truth Social” that he was imposing tariffs on Brazil for the “witch-hunt” trial against his Brazilian Buddy—Jair Bolsonaro, the rightwing, populist former president, nicknamed “Trump of the Tropics”.

So how is this going down in the tropics? Not well. Our late prime minister Morarji Desai once told me, “Never underestimate the defiance of a small country against the coercion of a big country.” He was referring to the Indian subcontinent dynamics. Brazil is big, but much smaller than the US, economically and militarily. The Desai formula still works—coercion meets defiance in the tropics.

Left-leaning Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rules out “ending” Bolsonaro’s trial, let alone “immediately”, as Trump demands. Bolsonaro is facing trial for the attempted coup against Lula after the 2022 elections—an enactment of Trump supporters’ 2021 attack in Washington. Bolsonaro and his sons fawned their way into Trump’s orbit by mimicking some of his policies and moves—including refusing to accept election defeat. As for US tariffs, Lula says Brazil can divert its goods to old and new trading partners.

Brazil is the latest country Trump threatens with tariffs for non-economic reasons. Others include Canada, China, Mexico and Colombia. Trump brandished tariffs for reasons ranging from Canada not stopping fentanyl from entering the US to Colombia refusing to take US immigrant deportees. Trump is also furious with Brazil because under its chairmanship, BRICS is examining alternatives to the dollar as trading currency. Decades ago, similar moves by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi faced strong US opposition.

A cringeworthy spectacle is the parade of world leaders grovelling before Trump. It hasn’t worked. The Damocles sword of tariffs continue to dangle over countries. The world still grapples with uncertainty. Only the markets seem calm, not displaying the anticipated bipolar swings triggered by Trump’s on-off tariffs. Analysts conjecture, but sometimes there are simple explanations for even complex phenomena. Perhaps, the market is calm because it expects Trump to backtrack—which he has done consistently, earning the nickname—Taco—“Trump Always Chickens Out.” But the danger is that this calm is misleading. Market turmoil could be like what Ernest Hemingway wrote about bankruptcy—“It happens gradually, then suddenly.”

Trump’s use of tariffs as a weapon to promote far-right forces, as in Brazil, alarms Europe. In recent years, no political movement has surged as much as rightwing populism in Europe. Already, populists rule several countries. Now they are circling the citadels of power in the UK, France and Germany. Trump associate Steve Bannon and billionaire Elon Musk egregiously interfered in recent elections to promote the far-right in the UK and Germany. White supremacists used Musk’s “X” to incite violence in Britain.

The strangest twist and the biggest threat for liberal Europe is that far-right groups are now supported by both Russia and the US! The tariff sword has been unsheathed and it is multi-edged. The cats are on the prowl. And they have nine lives.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

russian-gerbera-drones-ukraine

Sat Jul 05 10:58:55 IST 2025

As summer kicks in, a new flying species swarm Ukrainian skies—making cities dangerous, even unliveable. The threat comes from Russia’s newly invented drones, immune to jamming. Penetrating Ukrainian airspace with near impunity, these kamikaze drones bomb border supply and troop convoys, even entire neighbourhoods, enabling the Kremlin to capture more territory than it has in the past year—without extra boots on the ground.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Russia invented jamming-proof Gerbera drones because 80 per cent of their attack drones were destroyed by the Ukrainians who intercepted their radio signals. So, Russia replaced interceptible wireless digital communication with undetectable analog fibre-optic cables that tethered the drone to a vehicle parked near the frontline. Attached to the drone is a lightweight cylinder from which unspools thin optic-fibre cable as it flies—up to 20km into Ukrainian territory. In the vehicles, drone-controllers guide the camera-equipped, cable-connected Gerbera to chosen targets and detonate. Unless the cable breaks in mid-flight, Gerbera provides high-quality video until impact.

To move forward, Russia took a step back to the ancient goatherd concept of tethering. Devoid of signals, Gerbera escapes detection. Russia deployed Gerbera squadrons to recapture Kursk and destroy Ukrainian border infrastructure. Located 10km from the frontlines, Ukrainian logistics hub Kostyantynivka’s pre-war population of 65,000 has dwindled to 8,000 due to relentless Gerbera attacks. Forecasting a summer in hell, Russia bombarded Ukraine one night in its biggest-ever attack with 500 drones and 60 missiles. Gerbera is a “game-changer”, the way Ukrainian drones were when war began in 2022, say ‘milbloggers’—a sub-species of military bloggers who report from the warfront. The combat-tested, cost-effective, ‘fly-by-wire’ Gerbera can be deterred only by physically shooting down or entangling them. Like in an aviary, key frontline Ukrainian buildings and routes are now covered in tunnels of netting to ensnare encroaching drones. But there are videos of Gerbera sneaking and flying under the net.

Deception, diversity and adaptation are fundamental to survival. As in nature, so in war. Like Covid-variants, Russia has diverse drone variants. They include cheap “dummy” look-alikes of imported Iranian Shahed drones. Made of plywood and plastic and using 4G SIM for Wi-Fi connection, they drown, distract and deceive Ukrainian air defence systems, tricking them into wasting expensive anti-aircraft ammunition. Half the drones involved in major attacks are decoys. Meanwhile, deep-strike drones are upgraded with jet engines, enabling them to fly faster and higher with bigger payloads. Sounds Trumpian, but this is true.

Russian analogue tactics persist. Troops dismount chunky, “sitting duck” tanks to ride pesky motorcycles; foot soldiers crawl bombed fields to ambush camouflaged Ukrainian trenches. Authorities and elders find drones annoying; kids love them. To teach children to operate drones, the Kremlin plans to lower age restrictions from 10 to seven. War is the laboratory of innovation. As Gerbera swarm battlefields, Ukraine races to invent its drone variants and countermeasures. In this cat-and-mouse technological warfare, Ukraine is labelled the nimble innovator and Russia the lumbering war machine. They are. But Gerbera shows Russia can be a nifty ninja too, like its leader.

The Russian-Ukrainian drone death-dance is a manifestation of Leela—the cosmic play described in Hindu scriptures. Rivalry, threat, loss and recovery spiral in the evolutionary interplay of creation and destruction, survival and extinction. Man and machine adapt. The next generation of AI-drones will forever transform war—and peace. The global military-industrial complex swells. Hi-tech soars. Low-tech lingers. An urban legend states that Americans spent millions to make a pen that could write in zero-gravity space. Russians used pencil.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

war-is-an-endemic

Sat Jun 21 11:49:45 IST 2025

For millennia, historians, philosophers and statesmen have pondered about war, its nature and the nature of leaders who take their people to war. Iran cannot match Israel’s daring commandos or precision spyware technologies that destroy their military facilities and assassinate their generals and scientists.

But Iran has nuclear capabilities—again incomparable to Israel’s nuclear weapons. People blank out nuclear devastation because it is too dreadful to imagine or they believe leaders aren’t stupid enough to bring it on. Yet mistakes, miscalculation and overconfidence have catastrophically blighted human history. Albert Einstein purportedly said, “I don’t know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

About 2,000 years ago, Roman statesman Cicero introduced the concept of ‘just war’—waged to achieve justice or peace, conducted with moral constraints and under specific ethical conditions. His wisdom underpins modern laws. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a messianic mission to destroy Iran’s nuclear bomb-making capability, decapitate leadership and cripple Iran’s alleged “existential threat” to Israel.

Says Israeli newspaper Haaretz’s Gideon Levy, “Neutralising Iran is Netanyahu’s life-project.” Netanyahu has already reshaped the Middle East by weakening Iran, downgrading Israel’s circle of enemy Muslim nations, degrading Iran’s proxy armies—Hamas and Hezbollah—invading Lebanon and Syria that hosted the proxies. But Cicero warned, even in ‘just wars’ “unnecessary cruelty must be avoided”. Gaza is a devastated graveyard of humanitarian laws, ethics and morality.

Wars are invariably triggered by strong emotions—revenge, fear, pride, egoism, closed-mindedness, wrote Greek historian Herodotus. He chronicled the Greek-Persian wars 2,500 years ago. His enduring theme is that wars often arise from conceit and cultural misunderstanding. He attributed Persian King Xerxes’ disastrous invasion in 480 BC to overconfidence, disdain for Greek resistance, flawed assumptions and arrogant indifference to local complexities—tendencies noticeable in recent US invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Vietnam. Herodotus wrote: “Great empires are most often destroyed by their own excess.”

Education and strength of character in leaders are necessary to avoid wars, historians concur. In The Art of War, Chinese strategist Sun Tzu reveals, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” This is using diplomacy, deception and disruption. Clever minds outmanoeuvre enemies by exploiting their vulnerabilities, achieving goals without waging a costly war. But this strategy works only if leaders focus on self-awareness and understanding the adversary’s motives, capabilities and defiance. These traits are missing in western wars, even in the long-standing tensions between the US and North Korea. Says Sun Tzu, “Know the enemy, know yourself, and you will never be defeated.” China understands President Donald Trump well. Less certain if they understand themselves equally well.

Plato astutely observed that unchecked aggression coarsens language and deforms the character of both citizens and societies. Rational deliberations check leaders who use populism and rhetoric to wage wars for political gain or emotional appeal rather than reasoned necessity. Excuses for war are often flimsy. Says American analyst Jeffrey Sachs, “I have been hearing Netanyahu say Iran is weeks away from nuclear weapon for 25 years.”

In the face of modern wars, authoritarianism and AI, ancient wisdom is ever more relevant. War is perpetual, sometimes avoidable, but never inconsequential. Statesmen urge caution, introspection and a moral compass. Nations are judged on how they prosecute wars—and how they strive to end them. War is as endemic as death and disease. A century ago, Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

ethics-out-of-the-window

Fri Jun 06 17:33:45 IST 2025

Like evil spirits, corruption haunts human civilisation. The Rig Veda, Old Testament and Quran warn against bribery. The Arthashastra lists 40 ways how bureaucrats embezzle. China had its Book of Swindles. The first recorded cases go back 5,000 years to Egypt, when bribery, embezzlement and nepotism were rampant in the judiciary. In Greece, politically ambitious families bribed the Delphic Oracle. As former British prime minister David Cameron said, “The evil of corruption reaches into every corner of the world.”

Corruption is criminal but also political. Left-oriented socialists view corporate influence, foreign interference, dark money, fat-cat donations and tax-avoiding schemes as corruption. Right wing conservatives see corruption in voter fraud, union meddling, graft in bureaucracies, deep-state conspiracies and left-wing bias in public institutions that misuse or waste taxpayers’ money. This ideological divide exists in all democracies from Australia to the US. Whatever the form, corruption destroys both faith and state.

These days, corruption masquerades as “foreign lobbying” and “the US is the Mecca of dirty money”, says Ben Freeman, author of The Foreign Policy Auction. Criminal cases of bribery are sensational but account for a tiny portion of foreign influence operations in the west. He says, “Every year, foreign interests—many of them autocracies—spend millions of dollars on lobbying, public relations firms, think tanks, universities and sports franchises. There is a massive and thriving foreign influence industry operating in the US—entirely non-criminal in nature—24 hours a day, seven days a week, every week.”

Two-thirds of American think tanks take overseas funding. “Foreign governments pay lobbyist firms to promote their interests. It doesn’t matter if they are tyrannies or autocracies, to lobby legally, they just need to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” says Freeman. Like finance in Wall Street, lobbyists are concentrated in Washington, D.C.’s “K street”. K, by the way, doesn’t stand for kickbacks. All activities are legal—except taking sanctioned oligarchs as clients.

The Archbridge Institute economist Justin Callais says, “Powerful interests can shape the law itself to suit their own purposes.” Ironically, from 1869, American officials have been trying to ban foreign lobbying. In the UK, the three top Tory donors are Russian kleptocrats-turned UK citizens who made their fortune through corrupt oil, property and security deals. Neither shady pasts nor massive donations to Tories are illegal.

China and Russia were the traditional big players. A 2017-21 study showed Russian spending on foreign lobbying grew 584 per cent, Chinese by 476 per cent. But sanctions have hurt their business. The biggest foreign paymasters now are the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia—the latter’s influence operations skyrocketed after 9/11 when 15 of the 19 plane hijackers were Saudis. Spending millions on lobbyists, universities, gaming industry and Hollywood, the UAE also sponsors prestigious sports leagues, events and trophies.

At a New York-based Human Rights Foundation’s (HRF) event, activists accused these countries of “sportswashing”, “buying favour” by whitewashing their human rights image. The countries say they are rescuing bankrupt sports clubs and see no harm in building their “soft power”.

The reins on corruption loosens. John Jamesen Gould, editor of The Signal newspaper that partners with HRF, says, corruption “has been happening for years. It’s been getting worse. And now it’s getting worse still”. He referred to the US department of justice scaling down anti-corruption enforcement—dropping high-profile cases, firing anti-corruption prosecutors, disbanding Task Force KleptoCapture, and unwinding efforts to enforce sanctions against Russian oligarchs. A presidential order suspends the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Notes Gould, “Corruption isn’t a legal but a moral language.” When donation-receiving lawmakers make the law, law is neither about justice nor ethics.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

donald-trump-the-most-powerful-man-in-the-world-and-the-least-original

Sat May 24 11:10:42 IST 2025

The most powerful man in the world is also among the least original. President Donald Trump projects himself as a business genius, a brilliant billionaire and nifty negotiator. But his boastfulness is belied by his track record. If anything, his collapsed ventures unmask him as a loser, a failed serial entrepreneur whose enduring characteristics are megalomania and unoriginality. In 1989, he launched a board game called ‘Trump’ to rival ‘Monopoly’. Phil Orbanes, senior vice president of the company that was Trump’s first choice to produce the game, said, “It can leave you exhausted, feeling like you don’t want to play again.”

The complicated game with 12 pages of rules sold poorly. The 2004 revised version’s tagline was: “It takes brains to make millions. It takes Trump to make billions.” Both versions got terrible reviews. Wrote Mother Jones magazine, “This is a great game if you don’t have very many friends.” Listing the game among ‘Top 10 Donald Trump Failures’, Time magazine called it one of Trump’s “ridiculous ideas”. To rival the renowned cycling competition Tour de France, Trump launched Tour de Trump. It almost bankrupted him within a year. He started an airline—Trump Shuttle. It ran out of cash in three years. He launched hotels, casinos and entertainment resorts. Their last resort was bankruptcy.

In 2002, he launched the ‘Trump World’ magazine with his photo on the cover. It vanished. His financing company—Trump Mortgage—lasted two years. Trump had mocked “poor quality” Chinese clothing. Later, it was discovered his exorbitant Donald J. Trump Signature Collection was sourced from China. Spurned by customers, ‘Trump Vodka’, ‘Trump Steaks’, ‘Trump Ice’, Trump perfumes called ‘Empire’ and ‘Success by Trump’ and ‘Trump Home’—luxury furniture reflecting his lifestyle—were removed from stores, never to return. Critics found his furnishings “heavy on burl and brocade”. Says Professor Robert Reich, “The story of Trump as a successful businessman is based on a lie.”

Trump took his unoriginality from business to politics. His slogan—Make America Great Again—is borrowed from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign. It was embraced by voters suffering from unemployment and inflation due to the ongoing economic downturn. Reagan’s slogan—Let’s make America Great Again—was inclusive and empowering. Trump’s grandiosity emblazons he will and can make America great. Reagan coined the phrase; Trump copyrighted and virtually franchised it worldwide.

Presidential hopefuls have always used themes of American prosperity, greatness and exceptionalism. Trump’s ‘America First’ slogan is also not original. It has been used by wannabe presidents for 100 years. But in the 1930s, the slogan’s connotations darkened, becoming associated with American far right, racism, fascism and Hitler-sympathisers. In the 1940s, the isolationist ‘America First’ committee was made famous by aviator Charles Lindberg. “Tariff is a beautiful word,” Trump extols, but this policy, too, is borrowed from an American president who lived 125 years ago.

Trump had one original idea, but perhaps it was because others found it too absurd to pursue. In 2009, Trump introduced a controversial home urine test called—not ‘Trump Urine’—but PrivaTest. It supposedly indicates which vitamins people should take. Many distributors wound up burning large stocks. Harvard University’s Dr Pieter Cohen called PrivaTest a “scam”.

Former US president Barack Obama wrote, The Audacity of Hope. Trump could publish a ghostwritten book with a punchier title: ‘Audacity’. The ‘Trump Institute’ shuttered after police investigations. His unapproved “Trump University” closed in 2011 after settling lawsuits for illegal business practices including falsely calling itself ‘university’. Students paid exorbitant fees for five-day education. The course on offer? Entrepreneurship.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

in-15-years-british-wages-have-grown-only-2-2-per-cent-still-want-to-migrate-to-the-uk

Sat Apr 26 11:20:57 IST 2025

Is Britain growing out of growth? Strange questions beget strange answers. The response raises the prospect of human redundancy as the evolving economy makes segments of workers increasingly unnecessary to produce services and goods. Data now appears to support prophecy. In his book Home Deus, published a decade ago, historian Yuval Harari predicted the rise of the “useless class” made redundant by technology. Lording over the disempowered are the “Gods”, a tiny elite that amasses wealth, power and production. This is Harari’s “history of the future”.

The future, as always, is already here, manifesting in some corner of the world. Britain has been hammered by many shocks—financial crisis, Covid, Brexit and now a global trade war ignited by the unpredictable President Donald Trump whose strategic weapon of choice is the wrecking ball. Britain has come a long way from the East India Company days, but it is still a trade-dependent nation.

The future also comes in disguise, camouflaged under beguiling toys, dense statistics or research-rich reports. Experts agree the root of Britain’s current macroeconomic problem is “productivity”. Workforce productivity is defined as the amount of goods and services a group of workers produce in a given amount of time. In his paper ‘Yanked Away’, Britain’s Resolution Foundation’s economist Simon Pittaway reveals Britain’s labour productivity rose by a woeful 5.9 per cent and real wages by a pitiful 2.2 per cent in the last 15 years. Compare this to Britain’s previous 15 years ending 2007: productivity growth was 38 per cent and real wages rose to an impressive 42 per cent. British economists say the current level of stagnation was last seen in the 18th century.

It is human nature to clutch at straws, to be determinedly optimistic. Britain draws comfort that it is not alone in this economic quagmire. All but one among the advanced G7 nations are in similar doldrums. Over the last five years, British GDP per hour worked declined by 0.8 per cent, Italy’s by 0.9, Canada’s 0.5 and France’s 0.2. Germany’s—Europe’s engine and best in class—rose marginally by 0.4. The outlier is the US, where productivity rose by a stunning 9.1 per cent. It has world-class tech companies. But Pittaway concludes American high productivity is due to technology-adoption by the entire US economy. Technology-driven productivity gains bake a bigger economic pie, absorbing displaced workers. The question is will algorithms, robots and AI invalidate this 20th century mantra.

If American beef is pumped with growth hormones, the country’s high economic performance is pumped by massive steroid injections of stimulus during Covid. The stimulus totalled 25 per cent of GDP ($5.2tn), unimaginable for Britain, or any other country. But the stimulus also aggravated the massive US budget deficit. Trump’s reasons for waging the tariff war changes as often as his hair colour. Tariffs will bring jobs to the US, he says. Actually, China trade supported 1.2 million US jobs, but more than two lakh Americans lost their jobs after his first term China tariffs. American economists Michael Pettis and Matthew Klein argue, “Trade wars are class wars. Trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workers.” Tariffs tax the poor, but tariff revenue will fund Trump’s planned tax cuts for the rich.

Taxes, tariffs and transitions in the economy—where workers cannot even sell their labour—widen disparity. In March, Britain lost 78,000 jobs. What does the future look like? Harari’s dystopian answer: the rich search for immortality while workers become obsolete.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

wobbly-willie-and-donald-trump

Sat Apr 12 10:40:06 IST 2025

“Who is John Galt?” That’s the haunting opening line in Ayn Rand’s iconic novel Atlas Shrugged. Today, we ask, “Who is William McKinley?”, the man who profoundly influenced President Donald Trump’s tariff war against the world. Speaking in his typical hyperbolic, repetitive, vocabulary-challenged style, Trump explained to podcaster Joe Rogan, “McKinley was the tariff king. He spoke beautifully of tariffs. His language was really beautiful. We will not allow the enemy to come in and take our jobs and take our factories and take our workers and take our families, unless they pay a big price and the big price is tariffs.”

McKinley was the 25th president of the US (1897-1901), a forgotten man resurrected by Trump’s tariff obsession. McKinley introduced the 1897 Dingley Tariff Act to ring-fence America’s nascent domestic industry from foreign competition. The reasoning: expensive imports would encourage Americans to buy local products, establish factories and create jobs. Tariffs brought revenue, but also recession. Low-income families that depended on cheap imported food and household essentials suffered badly.

Trump’s punitive tariff rates seem inspired more by McKinley’s guidelines than modern math. At 50 per cent, McKinley’s tariffs were among the highest in US history. Trump’s tariff rates shock and puzzle the world. Laments American economist Michael Strain, “We are seeing shocking ignorance about how the global economy works, shocking incompetence in the planning and execution of economic policy.” Australia’s volcanic Norfolk islands, home to 2,200 inhabitants, was slammed with 29 per cent tariffs, 300 times more than the tariff imposed on mainland Australia. If the math is weird, some tariff targets are weirder. Tariff is imposed on Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic inhabited by penguins and seals. A baffled Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the tariffs as “a bit strange”.

Other than Trump-sycophants, most experts say tariff is an outdated economic tool. It made sense when the US traded in sugar and tin. Global economy now is sophisticated, complex and interwoven. iPhone has parts from 43 countries. Apple lost $310 billion in share value; global markets $7 trillion—that’s the annual GDP of the UK and France wiped out in 48 hours. “Trump dropped a nuclear bomb on the global trading system,” accuses Harvard economist Ken Rogoff. Trump promises a golden age; critics fear inflation, depression, unemployment and a currency war. His tariff goal of bringing traditional manufacturing back to the US is quixotic. He seems a 20th century populist using 19th century tools to fight 21st century economic battles.

But Trump has been consistent in his trade tirade. For 40 years, he has ranted against Japanese and Saudi trade surpluses and protectionism. In his “Liberation Day” tariff speech, Trump called foreign leaders “scavengers” who “looted, pillaged, raped, plundered… and tore apart our once-beautiful American dream”. A zero-sum warrior bearing grudges and resentments, Trump is also a nostalgic McKinley acolyte wallowing in past glory—“Our country was the richest in the 1880s, 1890s.”

McKinley hoped but failed to persuade Spain to grant independence to separatist Cuba. Dealmaker Trump struggles to be peacemaker between Russia and Ukraine. Atlas Shrugged ends loftily—“The man who will bring the world to its new height is John Galt.” That’s fiction. McKinley was shot dead at point blank range at an exhibition. His assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was an anarchist who believed the massive powers of the presidency were too big for one man. McKinley was called the “Napoleon of Protection”, a moniker implying strength and defeat. He was also a flip-flopper. His other nickname was Wobbly Willie.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

norwegians-are-cancelling-vacation-trips-to-the-us

Sat Mar 29 11:07:35 IST 2025

Donald Trump says he loves Norwegians. From his perspective, what’s not to love? They are tall, blonde, blue-eyed and rich. As Vikings, they were fearsome. Now these peace-lovers are a threat to none. Besides, there’s only 5.6 million of them. They also have something that Trump covets—the Nobel Peace Prize that they award annually. Seven years ago, Trump thundered that people from “shithole” countries should be refused entry into the US. But he rolled out the red carpet for Norwegians. Their unanimous response? Thanks, but no thanks. Norwegians love America. But Donald Trump? Not so much. That was then. Now, not at all.

Forget living in the US, Norwegians now don’t even want to go there as tourists. The US was always a top tourist destination, but Trump 2.0 is transformational. The public baiting of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office by Trump and his feral vice president, J.D. Vance crossed limits. Torild Moland, editor of leading travel magazine Vagabond, told Norway’s state television: “The sight of two bullies bullying the president of a country at war is too much. This is unacceptable.” She cancelled her upcoming three-week road trip to the US. “I go to a destination to show how wonderful it is, not what has gone wrong. To promote the US now would be very wrong.”

Since January, there has been a sharp monthly 25 per cent drop in bookings to the US. This increases with reports of US immigration officials harassing legal arrivals. Trump behaves like the top dog, but Norwegians, who empathise with underdogs, prefer a non-violent response to Trumpian threats. “Boycott America”. Travel consultant Anette Syversen says, “Norwegians are choosy consumers. We follow our conscience.” An informal campaign spearheaded by ordinary people is spreading across Canada, Europe and is especially strong in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark). After Trump threatened to seize their autonomous island of Greenland, outraged Danes forcefully initiated a boycott campaign. Says dentist Nina Madsen, “We have to use the power of our wallets. It’s the only weapon we have.”

Europeans are avoiding American goods including biscuits, boats, motorcycles, make-up, cars, cola, computers, popcorn, pharmaceuticals, shoes, soybeans, wine, almonds, ketchup and sports equipment. Oslo was the world’s Tesla capital due to the runaway sales of the car. Now, it is a shame symbol. Tesla sales slumped 48 per cent; in Germany it fell 70 per cent in two months. Sales of European, Japanese and Chinese cars are rising.

When people’s emotions are roused, can politicians be far behind? At their annual convention, Norway’s conservative party chief and former prime minister Erna Solberg urged members to “buy European” to signal disapproval of Trump’s actions. This is perfect for conservative snobs. Observes satirist Kjetil Alstadheim, “Members are thinking French wine and oysters, Spanish serrano ham and sipping chilled chablis on the terrace. Yes, this is the kind of revolution conservatives love.” Let them drink champagne!

But “buy European” has limits. It is hard for nations to switch purchases of fighter jets, frigates, aircraft from the US or shun Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Netflix. But it is also no sacrifice to boycott American brands. There are many attractive, cheaper local, regional, Chinese, European and global substitutes. As capitalists say, there is “freedom of choice”. Syversen observes, “Opting out of US is easy. The world is full of exciting products and interesting destinations.” Agrees academic Flemming Hagen, “When choosing where to travel, I consider the political situation of the destination.” He has cancelled his US trip. So where is he going instead? He answers, “Lebanon.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

the-artificial-general-intelligence-dilemma

Sat Mar 15 11:09:11 IST 2025

Spooky and powerful, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), the planet’s newest technology, has divine benefits, as also diabolical applications that can trigger our destruction. This chilling warning comes not from the usual cabal of Luddites, Cassandras and doomsayers, but from Silicon Valley’s most influential tech titans: former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, and Center for AI Safety Director Dan Hendrycks. Their strategy for a safe world: “Any state’s aggressive bid for unilateral AI dominance is met with preventive sabotage by rivals.”

In their paper Superintelligence Strategy, published on March 5, the tech pioneers urge the US not to develop AI systems with “superhuman” intelligence, popularly called AGI. AGI equals, even beats, human cognitive capabilities, reaching the “point of singularity”—when artificial intelligence irreversibly surpasses human intelligence. The co-authors warn that military or rogue use of AGI can unleash “catastrophe”. Quoting American physicist Herman Kahn, the co-authors say superintelligence strategy requires “thinking about the unthinkable”.

The trio urges the US not to pursue a Manhattan Project-style mandate to develop AGI. The 1940s’ Manhattan Project was a government-backed, top secret, well-funded mission to develop nuclear bombs. The then chief censor Byron Price said the Manhattan Project was “the best-kept secret of the war”. Disclosing project secrets was punishable with 10-year imprisonment and a $10,000 fine (equal to $1,80,000 now).

The Manhattan Project was purportedly an assertion not execution of American power, a deterrent, a means to end World War II.

But the bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war ended, the Japanese endured a catastrophe. The father of the bomb—physicist Robert Oppenheimer—famously quoted from the Bhagavad Gita to describe the explosion, “Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

The co-authors warn that an aggressive race by the US to exclusively control super intelligent AI systems could trigger fierce retaliation from China, destabilising not just international relations, but the world. The security scenario of a declining Soviet Union is different from an ascendant China. “A Manhattan Project for AGI assumes that rivals will agree to an enduring imbalance or omnicide [world-wide destruction], rather than move to prevent it,” caution Schmidt, Wang, and Hendrycks.

Is their warning too late? Last year, a US congressional commission proposed a “Manhattan Project-style” programme on superintelligence. Donald Trump announced a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure, called the “Stargate Project”. He reversed Joe Biden administration’s AI regulations. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US is at “the start of a new Manhattan Project” on AI.

Comparing AI systems to nuclear weapons sounds far-fetched, but the Pentagon already regards AI as a top military advantage, speeding up its “kill chain”. The superintelligence strategy hinges on strict protocols for AGI non-proliferation to rogue actors, boosting the economies and militaries using AI and shifting US focus from “winning the superintelligence race to deterring rivals from creating AGI”. Similar to the nuclear MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), the co-authors introduce their concept: Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM).

Rather than waiting for adversaries to weaponise AGI, MAIM prescribes that governments should proactively disable threatening foreign AI projects through aggressive cyberattacks or preventing access to open-source AI models.

The co-authors believe it is wiser to take a defensive approach. But definitions of “threatening” differ between the attacker and attacked. Military warrior spirit prefers offence to defence. Have gun, will kill. Have bomb, will detonate. Lethal weapons sneak out of hidden bunkers and clandestine laboratories. AGI, the “catalyst of ruin”, is also the catalyst of power. Experts predict AGI could arrive ahead of schedule, as early as 2026.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

no-freedom-in-appeasement

Sat Mar 01 10:42:21 IST 2025

Fearsome gods and kings are appeased, not opposed. Through history, this ingrained placatory habit is ordained by all religions and cultures. Vengeful gods are appeased with human and animal sacrifices, rituals, offerings of land, fruits, incense and jewels. In Judaism, God commands Abraham to kill his son to prove his loyalty, Aztecs sacrificed children, Ahaz, King of Judah, appeases the powerful Assyrian potentate Tiglath-Pileser III with golden gifts.

And so it is today. To oppose or to appease President Donald Trump? That is not even the question. To oppose is not an option, not until an internal rebellion erupts or much of the world unites against Trump’s arbitrary diktats. For now, world leaders parade to the White House to appease the omnipotent, bearing gifts of self-imposed tariffs and flattery. Like the wrathful gods of yore, Trump glowers, accepting the obeisance, unsmiling, unsatisfied, unpredictable.

Afraid of offending Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni opts out of the annual G7 meeting that supports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and excoriates Russian President Vladimir Putin. Swallowing Trump’s slurs and at gunpoint, Zelenskyy capitulates to the sacrificial demand of a minerals deal with the US. Spouting false statistics that are contradicted by his own government data, Trump threatens to add sanctions to tariffs on Canada.

“Why such lies?” asks Professor Ilan Kapoor of Canada’s York University. He answers that Trump’s populism feeds on voter anxiety over high food prices, housing crises and shrinking jobs. Manufacturing enemies to hate—unfair trading partners, migrants, trans people—unites disgruntled voters and channels their frustration into feel-good “Make America Great Again” and “American First” inspired xenophobia. “Blatant falsehood and bullying” are the weapons of his war, says Kapoor. Europe is shell-shocked by Trump’s bullying of Zelenskyy and pivot to Russia. European media editorialises that under Trump, “America is an unabashed predator”. Such descriptions of Europe’s most important ally was unthinkable two months ago.

The word “appeasement” scares Europeans. Google “appeasement” and you are flooded with references to former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The internet labels him the “father of appeasement”. In the 1930s, Britain appeased Nazi Germany to avoid another catastrophic world war. Though respected for his earlier social reforms, Chamberlain was vilified for appeasing Hitler, a policy that backfired, wrecked Europe and destroyed his reputation. The horror of appeasement was a lesson learnt well nearly a hundred years ago.

But authoritarianism and appeasement are time immemorial global phenomena. The Oscar-nominated film I’m Still Here is the true story of a family torn apart by the terror unleashed by Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1971. While movie-goers rave about the film, its ban is demanded by supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro dubbed, “Trump of the Tropics”, who lost the 2022 presidential elections. Ironically, the film’s Oscar celebrations coincided with a poll of Generation Z in the UK. Disturbingly, it revealed over half of Britons, aged between 13 and 27, felt their country should be a dictatorship with many believing the army should be in charge. Buffeted by uncertainties and anxieties, the youth yearn for order, experts explain.

Across centuries and around the world, so many people sacrificed their lives for democracy and freedom. There is no freedom in appeasement, it is the fawning face of fascism. Attempts to appease Trump is taken as proof that his threats work. It also means more demands will come. King Ahaz’s appeasement backfired. He became a vassal, his kingdom destroyed by his false foreign ally. But in this age, memories are shorter, legends and history more easily forgotten.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

donald-trump-the-annoying-orange

Sat Feb 15 10:44:57 IST 2025

Everything is great. All is sunshine. I am an eternal optimist.” It’s the fad of our TikTok times to appear perpetually cheery and hopeful. But everything is not great, the sun sets daily, nothing is eternal. If anything, everything is ephemeral, night brings darkness, and optimism often crumbles under the weight of history. British philosopher Roger Scruton warned: “Hope untempered by the evidence of history is a dangerous asset, one that threatens not only those who embrace it, but all those within range of their illusions.”

Palestine turns into an apocalypse. Hope is good, but denial, wishful thinking and false positivity are not. B positive is a blood group, not a cure or a plan of action. Damage-limitation and recovering from catastrophe require time, perseverance, unity and strategic thinking. How can nations solve a problem like Donald Trump? Who destabilises, provokes, calls some human beings “vermin” and wants to rid Palestine of Palestinians to create a luxury, oil-rich waterfront property.

“Our golden age has just begun,” trumpets Trump. History will probably call it “America’s orange age”, characterising fiery Trump with orange hair and matching spray-painted face. If Trump’s reign is a success, orange will come to symbolise sunny days. If it is defined by conflict, orange would represent hell’s fire. He would become America’s agent orange, the toxic chemical used by the US in the 1960s Vietnam war that deformed, poisoned and killed civilians. His critics hope that like the orange setting sun, he will soon be gone.

Respected historians do not believe a golden age is dawning. Instead, they see Trump presiding over a second Weimar Republic that collapsed in Germany in the 1930s under hyper-inflation, political instability and social unrest, with angry, fearful, polarised citizens. Says historian Robert Kaplan, “The global tide is turning back to autocracy, if not chaos.” He blames the liberal order’s failure for the rise of autocrats, populists and tech trillionaires who wreck the rule-based order. Declares Secretary of State Marco Rubio: “The postwar global order is obsolete.” In 1994, Kaplan predicted West Africa’s implosion. Mainstream media that praised the region as a “stable hub” smeared his assessment as “dystopian”. But the region quickly descended into civil war and military dictatorships. If Trump is orange, historians and philosophers are blue.

Trump’s pronouncements echo Greek historian Thucydides’ view: “The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.”

From his bully pulpit, Trump warns and threatens. He appears grim and grouchy, wrathful and vengeful. But his tariff quarrels quail. He paused punishment after Mexico and Canada offered what they had already agreed to. Trump claimed victory, both neighbours played along, rather than face his fury.

But Trump is a loser in his own war. This a not a global or American war, this is a Trump trade war. Appeasement makes tormentors hungrier, so affected countries seek new trading partners to reduce dependence on an unpredictable, unreliable superpower.

The US is rich, but its 340 million population is less than five per cent of the world’s eight billion, of which 10 per cent are rich consumers. Trump’s tariff terror continues, however, right now, the wannabe tiger looks like a paper tiger. But Trump is not a pussy cat who sees a tiger in his reflection. He commands the world’s deadliest, mightiest military and has a legion of mediocre, menacing minions who strike terror among dissenters, bureaucrats and political opponents.

It is time for counter offensive-defensive preparations, not false hopes. After all, orange comes before the ‘red alert’.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

howdy-rowdies-donald-trump-and-elon-musk

Fri Jan 17 15:21:16 IST 2025

The world is already exhausted, and Donald Trump has not even begun his second term. Trump 2.0 threatens to turn into a global sound-breaking roller-coaster ride, upending the world order. Certainties implode, unpredictability prevails, foes become friends, allies are bullied, nothing is impossible and everything up for grabs—especially land. Trump’s taste for real estate endures.

“Do not meddle with our borders,” European leaders warned—not Russia, but the US, their biggest ally and military partner. The president-elect rattled Europe, threatening to use force if necessary to grab Greenland, Denmark’s strategically located Arctic Island. In 2019, when Trump first claimed Greenland, the Danes laughed at the “absurd, April Fool’s Joke”. No one is laughing now.

To appease Trump and “fulfil America’s ambitions”, risk-averse Denmark offers to further augment the existing US base in Greenland. Trump’s jabs already activated Denmark to spend $2 billion for new ships, drones and extending the runway for F-35 fighter jets—to deter hovering Russians and Chinese. Greenland, whose capital Nuuk is closer to Washington than to Copenhagen, has military uses, surveillance value and rich mineral resources. What’s not to grab? And melting Arctic ice opens the northern east-west shipping routes.

Greenland is great, but Trump also has other incendiary plans: annex Canada, seize Panama Canal, rename the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.

The officials who served as guardrails in Trump’s first term—gone. Loyalists to lead key ministries—Trump-picked. US Congress, Republican Party, Supreme Court, media, corporates—all under control. Trump is the strongest American president ever. He also has an ace—a main, not sidekick. Elon Musk. The duo is an unfunny, similar but unidentical version of Tweedledum, Tweedledee.

Trump’s nicknames are legendary—Lyin’ Ted, Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Low IQ War Hawk, Crazy Kamala, Morning Psycho, Tampon Tim, Broken Old Crow.

Mirror-image Musk is more mendacious, menacing and mean. He ranted that British PM Keir Starmer should be jailed because, as former prosecutor, he was “complicit in the rape of Britain”. He called British minister Jess Phillips a “wicked witch”, German president a “tyrant” and German chancellor a “fool”.

Musk aims to topple the democratically-elected UK government and get Germany’s far-right AfD elected in February. German mainstream politicians accuse Musk of misusing his wealth and proximity to Trump to recklessly resurrect Nazi demons of the past. The British are investigating Musk’s untrue tweets about migrant crime, which authorities fear could instigate white supremacists to street violence. Musk called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “an insufferable fool” who “won’t be in power for much longer”. He wasn’t. How did Musk know?

In this cacophony, Trump-Musk silence on Russia and China is striking. Western politicians scurry to curry favour. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, a chum of “genius” Trump, announced surveillance technology contracts would be awarded to Musk’s Starlink. Mutual benefit cements the Trump-Musk alliance. The duo can develop, destroy or self-destruct. Analysts expect the emperor-sized egos of the two men will destroy the bromance.

But Psychology Today notes male friendships are sturdy because they are “usually transactional and based around a shared activity”—in this case making money and disrupting the liberal order. “The world as it once was” could soon become a nostalgic refrain in progressive societies.

The Two Musketeers. Trumpty Muskty, Tweedledum, Tweedledee. Whatever nickname sticks, they are a perfect pair to turn the world topsy-turvy. Trump has power, but not much money. Musk has money, but not much power. Together, they are the mightiest, the rowdiest, riskiest, richest twosome the world has ever seen.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

get-ready-for-trump-bump-january-20-is-coming

Sat Jan 04 11:08:52 IST 2025

The ‘butterfly effect’ is a beautiful, mysterious metaphor of the planet’s interconnectedness. American mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz explained it evocatively: “A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.” As the new year dawns, the question is: What if it is not a butterfly, but a behemoth flapping his wings?

When the almighty Donald Trump becomes president again of the sole superpower, we could see butterfly effects on steroids. In mathematics, the butterfly effect is part of the chaos theory, or chaology: consequences are not random, they are influenced by distant actions. Chaotic behaviour exists in natural phenomena like climate or heartbeat irregularities and in human-engineered systems like traffic.

Many see Trump as a champion-in-chief of chaos. Experts expect Trump’s wrathful focus will be China. Books predict Trump today will lead to nuclear war in 2034—a terrifying butterfly effect. China values its own exceptionalism as much as the US does. But China’s exceptionalism is also fuelled by centuries-old grievance at west-inflicted injury, humiliation, for toppling it from its rightful place in world glory.

The US can miscalculate China’s unyielding determination to resist American coercion. Resoluteness underpinned by rancour becomes immune to loss. But China also miscalculates. It is convinced the US is a declining power. Maybe, but not just yet. The US democracy is failing, its infrastructure crumbling, its politics toxic, its polarisation chasmic, its underclass sick and broke. But its economy and military might are robust. A provocation—seemingly as light as flapping wings—could unleash vengeful fury in the Pacific.

Iran worries about a Trump-backed Israel. Nuclear blowout is at the extreme end of the war spectrum. Belligerence leads to manifestations of varied confrontations. The recycled architect of the recycled America First slogan was scorned as an isolationist. It is unsettling that even before he begins his second term, Trump rattles his sabre in true imperialist style—threatening to seize Panama Canal, grab the strategically located Greenland in the Arctic from Denmark, make Canada the 51st state of the US. The expanding axis of the aggrieved bristles at being treated like timid little imminent colonies of the world’s new conquistador.

The butterfly effect may also be seen in the Russia-Ukraine war. A Trump brokered armistice is widely expected. But German elections in February could well be the flapping wings that alter the course of this war. The poll could be a referendum on continued support for Ukraine, with naysayers gaining the upper hand.

For millennia, Indians have believed in the butterfly effect, not as in mathematics but as in fate. Beneath randomness lie patterns, fractals, feedback loops and interconnectedness, linking cause and effect. Cloud cover saved Kuroko, the original target; clear skies doomed Nagasaki. Byzantium’s fall in 1453 ricocheted globally for centuries. First it disrupted trade of Asian luxury goods into Europe. So, Christopher Columbus sailed to discover new routes to India, only to find riches in America, which then encouraged European nations to launch an era of global imperialism, colonisation and exploitation.

However, butterfly effects can also be falsely attributed. Archduke Franz Ferdinand takes Sophie, his bored princess-wife, for a car-ride in Sarajevo, they are assassinated, World War follows. Butterfly effect? Wrong. The assassination was a pretext. European powers were already powder dry and battle ready. Such excuses are evil engineering, not butterfly effects.

Opposite of chaos is the stable theory, where big actions lead to minor outcomes. Such stability is valid in maths and physics, but a vain hope in today’s geopolitics.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

seeking-middle-ground-in-middle-east

Sat Dec 21 11:20:33 IST 2024

The collapse of assumptions is like the end of the world—or worldview. We assumed conventional battles and nuclear bombings ended with the 20th century. But wars in Russia-Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon prove us wrong. Western defence officials now raise the nuclear threat level. Britain’s armed forces chief Tony Radakin declared, “We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age. It is defined by proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before.”

Such warnings are ominous. But western threat perceptions are also fuelled by false narratives, a kaleidoscope of selective evidence and wilful distortions. Russia threatens to use tactical nuclear weapons if NATO crosses its redlines in Ukraine. Mainstream west unreservedly accuses Russia of invading Ukraine. But respected American and European historians, left and rightwing groups, openly blame NATO expansion for triggering this war.

Nuclear drumbeat increases, but there is no mention of the US unilaterally withdrawing from its nuclear and missiles treaties with Russia in 2019. Radakin said Russia’s induction of North Korean troops into Ukraine is dangerous. But equally dangerous was deploying British agents into Ukraine to invade Russia’s Kursk region. The west sees threats from China’s growing nuclear stockpiles and maritime fortifications. Isn’t that what ascending powers do? No mention that China’s nuclear arsenal and naval bases don’t compare with the US. Radakin blamed Iran for not cooperating with international efforts, when it was Britain’s “special friend” Donald Trump who scuppered the nuclear deal.

Geopolitical changes challenge assumptions. Perched on tanks, victorious rebels raced into Damascus, cheering and jeering, shouting and shooting. Statues of the fallen Syrian dictator and founders of his dynasty were toppled, heads severed and kicked like football on streets strewn with shattered glass. Bearded men blazing guns and praising God invariably bring long-term misery to ordinary citizens. This is not prediction, it is déjà vu. We have seen such triumphal scenes before. They did not end well, not in Iraq, not in Libya, Sudan or Afghanistan.

The Middle East meltdown threatens the world as nation states disintegrate, their leaders assassinated or banished. Syria has now fallen to a scattershot patchwork of rebels, jihadists, nationalists, mercenaries, militias and terrorists with links to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. They hail from competing geographies, feuding histories and incompatible ideologies. “It’s a pretty toxic brew,” said Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.

The long arm of the US and its great games stir these toxic brews. The covert CIA operation Timber Sycamore to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was launched a decade ago by the Obama regime. As weapons and money flowed, Syria became a honeypot for swarming regional gunmen, its opposition overrun by gangsters and terrorists. Like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, Assad used brute force to keep his diverse country together. Now Syria risks being balkanised, disintegrating into separate fiefdoms tacitly controlled by big powers—the US, Russia, Turkey, Israel and a weakened, isolated Iran. Shadowy hands now rock the cradle of civilisation.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s decades-long, self-proclaimed ambition is redrawing the Middle East map. He has devastated Gaza, invaded Lebanon and Syria. Iraq, Libya and Sudan were already destroyed. War with Iran remains. As president again, Trump may reduce the nuclear threat from Russia, but increases it from Iran. The US is complicit, the UN toothless, regional Sunni powers, treacherous. Iran’s allies are distracted, dismembered or destroyed. Shia-Iran is a cornered power with nuclear weapons. Threat levels rise, alarm bells ring. What it may do is best left unimagined.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

from-sunak-to-badenoch

Sat Nov 09 11:14:45 IST 2024

The face of modern Britain keeps changing. Last time, the Tory prime minister of Great Britain had an Indian face. Now, the Tory party leader has a Nigerian face. Kemi Badenoch, 44, is the new leader of the Conservative Party, which Rishi Sunak led to its worst defeat in British parliamentary history. A spectacular blow by a descendant of a former colony on Winston Churchill’s party.

Born in London to Nigerian parents, Badenoch rose from obscurity to become a combative believer in conservative values: anti-immigration, anti-woke, pro-family, lower taxes, and small state. Conservatives advocate “small” governments that don’t regulate—until they want governments to become big and bail out businesses too big to fail. She was business secretary in Sunak’s government. Badenoch says Britain “is not a dormitory for migrants to come here and make money”. In his unauthorised biography of Badenoch, author Michael Ashcroft says she became “radicalised” into rightwing politics as a reaction to English university students whom she described as “spoiled, entitled, privileged, metropolitan elites-in-training”. Some call her the “saviour of conservatism”.

A self-proclaimed “straight-talker” who tells “hard truths”, Badenoch declared, “I never have gaffes, I never have to clarify.” She criticised “excessive” maternity pay and contended 50,000 civil servants “should be in prison because they are very, very bad, leaking documents and undermining ministers”. She had to clarify her gaffe was a “joke”.

Still, Badenoch has more allure than the other Tory leadership contestants. The moderate, uncontroversial Tom Tugendhat was knocked out early. Indian-origin former home minister Priti Patel was described as a “piranha” by her own husband. Former foreign minister James Cleverly—whose mother is Sierra Leonean—made an unclever “joke” about using the date rape drug Rohypnol. Another aspirant, Robert Jenrick, a diehard Margaret Thatcher fan, gave his daughter the middle name “Thatcher”. But now, Thatcher’s Tories is a shambles.

Badenoch must reunite a fractious, weakened party, crushed from 365 MPs to 121 in the July elections. Tories are ignored by media, their press releases unread, their speeches unreported. Commentators say the Conservative campaign headquarters now resemble a “ghost ship”. As opposition leader, Badenoch will be in the limelight criticising the Labour government, which is battling several self-inflicted woes. But her biggest challenge is to regain public trust after 14 years of Tory misrule, scandals and outrageous silliness. She must attract young voters and stop Nigel Farage’s rightwing Reform UK party from stealing Conservative voters and agenda.

As an engineer, Badenoch says she knows how to “fix problems” and “get stuff done”. Nobody expects the diminished Tory party to return to power anytime soon to be fixing problems, mostly created by their own incompetence. Badenoch’s streak of independence—defying Brexit hardliners or shunning sycophancy, has won her respect. But she is also seen as scrappy and thin-skinned, getting embroiled in trivial quarrels, divisive on gender politics, vague on details with a penchant for “policy-light” speeches. A senior Tory member described her as “high reward but high risk”.

Badenoch believes only some migrants should be allowed into Britain because “not all cultures are equally valid”. British xenophobes agree. Badenoch, who spent her formative years in Nigeria, faces racism, disdain and condescension that Sunak did—insinuations that they don’t “get” British culture. And yet, here they are. Brexiteers championed Britain going global by resurrecting visions of the empire. Instead, the face of Britain goes Asian and African. This is not what the Tories meant when they coined the Brexit slogan—“Global Britain”.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

the-us-is-today-armed-and-polarised

Sat Oct 26 10:54:03 IST 2024

This is the Trumpian version of ‘heads I win, tails you lose’. If he wins, the November election is fair. If he loses, well, that’s because it is rigged. “The only way Democrats can win is to cheat,” bellows Donald Trump from the campaign stumps. A CNN poll showed one-third of Americans and two-thirds of Republicans believe Trump’s lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 elections. Almost all elected Republican congressmen denied Biden’s victory.

The attempt to subvert the 2020 election culminated with Trump supporters attacking the Capitol on January 6. Still, it was amateurish, with the absurd press conference by Trump’s discredited, elderly lawyer-loyalist Rudy Giuliani grandstanding about voter fraud—while black hair dye dripped down his sweaty face. Giuliani was bankrupted and disbarred for peddling those lies. But 2024 is different. This time, Trump’s “election-fraud” campaign is well-planned, well-orchestrated and well-funded. Rightwing organisations are suing, smearing and challenging ballot procedures, rolls and voter eligibility, especially in swing states.

Pro-Trump Republicans are also conniving to change election certification rules before polls. In 2020, Trump pressured a few officials not to certify results, in vain. Georgia’s Republican-dominated state election board recently ruled that officials can withhold certification to conduct a “reasonable inquiry”. What is “reasonable” is undefined. The election board also mandated officials to count ballots by hand, instead of feeding them into tabulating machines—changes that delay and falsify voting results. A local judge invalidated these new rules as “illegal and unconstitutional”.

Trump describes his “election crusaders”—some say useful idiots—as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory”. Like ants, grassroots rightwing diehards are busy bombarding lawsuits and raising objections. Trump also has an ace. In 2020, a relatively unknown Republican congressman mustered many of his colleagues to support a Trump-backed lawsuit that tried to nullify the results in four key states. The attempt failed, but Trump rewarded the man. He became house speaker Mike Johnson.

Trump’s billionaire buddy Elon Musk dispenses $1 million-a-day bonanza lotteries to voters who sign a conservative petition to protect free speech and gun ownership. On X and on stage, Musk amplifies the biggest Trumpian conspiracy theory that Democrats are organising illegal migrants to vote for them—an allegation as baseless as Trump’s claim that Haitian migrants eat pets. Voting by non-citizens is rare because it is illegal, punishable by deportation or five-year jail-term.  The Washington Post investigated 14.6 million votes cast in 2016 and 2018 midterm elections—only 372 votes were suspect. That’s 0.0025 per cent. But Trumpian tactics take their toll—half the US population now doubt election results.

Anticipating trouble makes better preparation. The authorities are now extra careful and vigilant. Some officials draw comfort from courts defusing Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election. But others are unsure due to the Supreme Court’s recent pro-Trump verdicts. Institutions are combat-ready, galvanising to cope with crises. Says Michigan election supervisor Justin Roebuck, “November will be the greatest stress-test of US democracy, law enforcement and federal courts.”

Election officials are under enormous stress, having been hounded, abused and threatened previously by Trump supporters. Election clerk Marie Wicks says she is not worried about personal safety because her husband, a retired police officer, owns a gun. The world’s most powerful democracy has 170 million voters and 434 million guns. A close or contested verdict in a land that is lethally armed and poisonously polarised can awaken crouching beasts. Says Wicks, “I don’t worry about the election. I worry about the aftermath.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

leadership-targeting-and-ai

Fri Oct 11 16:12:25 IST 2024

Is killing top leaders the best way to destroy militant organisations? The word “militant” is used because one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist. This question rises now because of Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Experts are divided. Some believe: kill the leaders and the organisation dies. Others say: kill the leaders, but you cannot kill the ideology.

Four decades of reporting insurgencies lead me to believe that “decapitation”—targeted killing of top leaders—invariably delivers a death blow to militant organisations. My first experience was in Punjab in the 1980s-1990s when bus massacres and school bombings struck terror in the countryside—and in New Delhi. Questioned about his strategy to quell Sikh militancy, supercop K.P.S. Gill told me: “Kill the leaders.” He succeeded. Insurgency died, democracy returned.

Spectacles of violence were most horrifying in Sri Lanka—not during the Tamil revolt, but during the Sinhala extremist JVP uprising that brought the nation to a terror-stricken standstill. Government-backed vigilantes in the countryside raided home-to-home, dragging out young JVP suspects and impaling their body parts on compound walls. In 1989, JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera was killed in police custody. The JVP as an insurrectionist movement unravelled. A democratised JVP member is now the president of the country.

LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, Sri Lankan state’s dreaded terrorist and Tamil eelam’s iconic freedom fighter, was killed in 2009 along with his family and senior leaders. The Tamil armed struggle ended in Sri Lanka. But experts who say you can kill leaders but not the ideology are right, too, especially when governments fail to address the legitimate grievances of the discriminated people.  In most cases, the exhausted and devastated local population flee into exile in foreign lands. Sometimes, their children continue the struggle peacefully—campaigning for justice, lobbying local governments, researching into atrocities, keeping the ideology of independence alive in their hearts and minds. A few years before he was killed, Prabhakaran told me, in an interview, his motivating belief: “He who dares wins.” That became the title of my Time magazine article. A decade later, at the Dubai airport I saw a young man wearing a T-shirt with these words. His facial features indicated he was Tamil. I asked him in Tamil, “So you are Prabhakaran’s fan.” He froze.

Al Qaeda’s rise as a fearsome organisation that staged 9/11 ended after the US killed Osama bin Laden. It morphed into Islamic terror franchises with varying degrees of capabilities for local disruption. Decentralisation helps survival. When militant groups become autocratic, they are strong—until the leader dies. Paranoid about coups, leaders rarely appoint successors. But Hezbollah is different. It is big, has MPs in the Lebanese parliament and is armed by Iran to fight Israel. Iran has assisted a clear command and control structure with every Hezbollah commander having a deputy, who has his deputy. Hezbollah, and not Nasrallah, is vital for Iran’s long-term security goal to keep Israel at bay. Israel has already targeted Nasrallah’s successor.

Israel’s decapitation and weakening of Hezbollah is ground-breaking. Says Middle East expert Paul Salem, “Israel has developed AI-bolstered intelligence capacity unseen in modern warfare.” This poses existential threats to grassroots dissident movements. AI-powered intelligence systems destroyed Hezbollah’s communication networks, arms depots and top leaders—feats of advanced spyware and AI-based surveillance technologies that the US and Israel excel in. As Google’s former AI researcher Meredith Whittaker revealed at a recent event, “AI is a derivative of surveillance.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

chained-to-dollar-chains

Sat Sep 28 11:03:13 IST 2024

A dollar goes a long way…sometimes all the way to hell. The dollar stores in the US sell varieties of household goods for a dollar—a lifesaver to millions of low-income families. But investigations reveal the underbelly of dollar chain stores during hard times—from worker exploitation to unhygienic conditions. The warehouse of the Family Dollar Store in Arkansas was infested with rats, mice and birds: breakfast cereal and sunflower seeds spilled on the floor mixing with rat faeces, bird droppings on chocolate protein shakes and baby wipes stained with urine. Local authorities fined the store $42 million. After the warehouse was fumigated and closed, 1,270 dead rodents were found. The store relocated this year to Oklahoma. It is up and ailing.

Economic experts say dollar chains have become real-time indicators of the financial stress—or wellbeing—of American low-earners. They are sort of emblematic of the “state of the union”. In good times, they thrive. Over the past decade, dollar chains added 12,500 new stores—more than Walmart, Target, Costco and other big supermarket chains put together. In bad times, sometimes they thrive even more—as financially stressed Americans who were slightly higher on the income ladder struggle to make their dollar go further.

Different chains of dollar stores dot poorer urban neighbourhoods, weary suburbs and dreary countryside. Over 40 per cent of dollar store customers live on welfare—part of the 42 million citizens receiving doles that cost the US government $1.1 trillion annually. Data shows 90 per cent of Americans drop into dollar and Walmart stores.

Dollar stores popped up 70 years ago offering cheap items for a dollar—toiletries, housewares, popcorn. Over the years, most chains increased prices marginally, some just to $1.25, while others offered plastic plants, candles and frozen pizza for a few dollars more.

Covid was stressful for the dollar chains. Many workers, especially women, quit to look after at-home children. Short-staffed stores had one employee to run the cash register and restock shelves. Safety inspectors found mounds of merchandise blocking emergency exits, electrical panels and fire extinguishers. They fined Dollar General $12 million. Acute staff-shortage forced some stores to unman shop floors and introduce self-checkout. Shop-lifting exploded.

Still, Covid-stimulus doles swelled customers’pockets and dollar chains’profits soared. Their share prices surged. All was well until Covid ended and the doles stopped. Inflation and rising interest rates increased house mortgages and car loans. Precarious finances meant using credit card to buy food—emblematic of America’s huge and unsustainable national debt. Household debt alone totals an unprecedented $17 trillion. Stores now face higher purchase prices and dwindling customers. Profits and share prices have plummeted.

How the working classes feel about the economy will tip the scales in November’s presidential elections. Dollar store customers traditionally voted for Democrats. Not anymore. Some veer to Donald Trump, others to cynicism—“why vote?”Above all, dollar stores symbolise American inequality. Low-earners have no money to buy proper food as basic healthy items like fruit and vegetables are unaffordable. “We eat cheap popcorn—every day,”says Elvira Gomez, a Hispanic hotel worker. The Bulgarian economist Ivan Krastev once said, “The poor do not fear the end of the world. They fear the end of the month.”

Retail businessman Adam Ifshin, who leases properties to dollar stores, says, “You cannot overstate the importance of these types of chains to a household that lives pay cheque to pay cheque.”The Almighty dollar can take you to heaven or to hell. It all depends on your pay cheque.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

shadow-of-russia-on-germany

Sat Sep 14 16:14:07 IST 2024

Grievance triggered the biggest political earthquake in modern Germany. For the first time since World War II, a party with Nazi roots won state elections. In the Thuringia and Saxony state elections, east Germans embraced the “untouchable”, populist far-right party AfD—“Alternative für Deutschland”. Its local leader Björn Höcke hollers banned Nazi slogans; intelligence agencies categorise sections of the party “extremist”. No matter. They bagged the votes of resentful easterners.

East Germans believe history has dealt them a triple whammy. First, they got left behind when they merged with west Germany in 1990 after Soviet Union’s collapse—enduring unemployment, social upheaval and snobbery: Soviet-controlled east was clunky compared to the fashionable west. Then globalisation left east Germany behind with factory closures and immigrants. Then they were left behind by their own educated children, who sought western wages and lifestyles. Equally troubling for west German establishment is the other election winner, the populist hard-left “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” (BSW). They share AfD’s anti-immigration, pro-Russia worldview. The seven-month-old alliance is vaingloriously named after its chic and coiffed founder, a longstanding communist whom critics dub “Kremlin’s mouthpiece”. Leipzig University’s Hendrik Träger said, ”It’s a personality cult, tailored to the person of Sahra Wagenknecht.”

Price rise, costly green policies and the Ukraine war have contributed to the unpopularity of mainstream parties throughout Europe. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s federal coalition partners, the Greens and Liberals, were banished from the provincial parliaments. Scholz’s campaign speeches were drowned by boos and insults with voters jeering “Liar” “Warmonger” and “Send Scholz to the warfront”. His coalition is unlikely to win national elections next year.

The east German results also mirror the squeezing of mainstream European parties by hard right and left populists, both of whom oddly share leftist economic views while holding rightwing political, cultural beliefs. Both are anti-business, Euroskeptic, anti-immigration, anti-green, anti-elitist, pro-welfare and pro-Russia. Populists in Germany, France, Britain and Italy reject their government’s narrative that Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine, blaming instead Nato’s enlargement into Russian sphere. They resent financing Ukraine and asylum seekers saying taxpayers’ money is better spent on improving local infrastructure. Voters complain western sanctions against Russia have resulted in painfully high domestic energy prices, fuelling 33 per cent rise in food prices. They oppose Scholz’s plans to station US medium-range missiles in Germany from 2026. Thuringian octogenarian Ulricht Hoffmann grumbled, “Earlier the Soviets dictated everything, now it’s the Americans.”

Germany’s firewall to keep ultranationalists out of government means AfD will be unable to find partners to form a ruling coalition. But AfD already exerts influence from outside. Prior to these polls, their growing popularity forced Scholz to introduce stricter immigration controls, deport illegal migrants, ban knives in public places and reduce welfare benefits for asylum deportees. But business leader Marie-Christine Ostermann warned that populism pushes “Thuringia and Saxony to the brink of an economic catastrophe.” AfD’s Höcke retorted, “Companies should shut their traps when it comes to politics”.

But he would be wise to listen. In recent years, new factories and investments have flowed into eastern Germany, but steep demographic decline portends economic decay. Thuringia will lose close to four lakh of its 10 lakh workers, Saxony faces around 3.6 lakh vacancies in the coming decade in factories, schools, hospitals, care homes. Migrant workers are needed to do the job, but xenophobia frightens foreigners away. The far-right threatens “remigration”—returning migrants to their countries even if they have acquired German citizenship. Unless populists dial down, another chapter in east Germany’s “left behind” saga may yet unfold.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

ukraine-knows-it-will-be-pressured-into-a-peace-deal

Sat Aug 31 11:01:38 IST 2024

The name “Kursk”pierces Russian history like a dagger. At its worst, it stirs gruesome memories ranging from mass slaughter to claustrophobic terror. At its best, high-cost victory. Once again, Russia’s southwestern Kursk area is a battlefield fraught with ominous omens. Ukraine has launched a cross-border offensive into Kursk—the first invasion of Russian territory since World War II.

Deafening was the initial silence from all concerned—Russia, Ukraine and its western allies. For the west, silence is better than defending Ukraine for violating an international border, a crime they accuse Russia of for invading Ukraine. Experts explained the incursion aimed to divert Russian forces away from the eastern battlefront where Ukrainian troops are failing and that staging a successful offensive bolsters flagging western support, inducing reluctant allies to supply more weapons.

Ukraine’s incursion appears to have caught Russia off-guard. President Vladimir Putin’s silence and his soldiers’absence from the Kursk battlefield revived memories of Russia’s “unsinkable”500-feet long nuclear submarine “Kursk”. In 2000, it sank in the Arctic with 118 trapped men on board. Even a day later, Putin was filmed partying and barbecuing in his Black Sea holiday villa. The slow and inept Russian rescue operation culminated with British and Norwegian divers eventually opening the hatch—to find no survivors.

Days after Ukraine’s offensive, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his western allies for “supporting”the incursion—a fait accompli that arguably exposed allied complicity. Putin said the Ukrainian attack aimed to seize Russian territory for use as leverage in future negotiations with Moscow. Analysts concluded this was a compelling, though dangerous, motive—because it invites brutal Russian retaliation. Besides, conquering territory is daring, holding it, perilous.

Whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the US elections, Ukraine knows it will be pressured into a peace deal—American voters are bothered by their own problems. Ukraine also expects the deal’s terms to be worse under Trump, whose bromance with Putin is legendary. The US will largely determine the trajectory of war and peace. Experts here are baffled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine. China, Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other peacemakers circle the Russia-Ukraine war zone, but the US arguably prefers India as an interlocutor given its non-aligned and democratic status.

Historically, Russia thwarted invaders at great cost. Napoleon and Hitler failed to conquer the Russian heartland. The Battle of Kursk in 1943 between the Nazis and the Soviets was a turning point in World War II. Russia won the battle but lost seven lakh soldiers, 1,100 aircraft and 6,000 tanks. It was the biggest tank battle in history. In today’s war, Russia and Ukraine have already lost an estimated five lakh soldiers. Both bleed, but Ukraine bleeds more with smaller population and higher civilian casualties. Territorial barter seems a natural face-saving manoeuvre to end the war. Until then, defying expectations, Putin aggressively bombards Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and eastern areas.

The threat of a nuclear attack or accident has thrummed throughout this war. More so now. Kursk, a region of 1.2 million people, has a nuclear power station well within the range of the Ukrainian invaders’ artillery, fired from western-supplied howitzers and rocket launchers. Rafael Grossi, head of International Atomic Energy Agency who is inspecting the Kursk plant on Russia’s invitation, said, “It’s a Chernobyl-type plant with no protective dome and totally exposed reactor core. Since there is combat, I’m very concerned.”In 1986, a reactor in Ukraine’s Chernobyl plant exploded. It was and remains the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

joe-bidens-debate-debacle-a-morality-tale

Sat Jul 06 10:36:29 IST 2024

Con Man vs Old Man. That’s how analysts described the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Con Man, a congenital liar, did what he always does best—fibbing through every question. Old Man did what he is prone to, mumbling and fumbling to ignominy, for which he was clobbered by TV commentators. They pronounced that Democratic party members and donors are in “pain and panic”, wanting Biden to drop out of the presidential race. But no Democrat showed up in the TV studios to make this demand. No one was even named.

Left- and right-leaning experts said they received a tsunami of reactions from Democrats shocked by Biden’s pathetic performance. Republican commentator Scott Jennings said he was swamped by messages from Democratic governors and officials worried by Biden’s bungling. Why would Democrats bare their tormented souls to a Republican commentator? Perhaps, the Biden barrage was an AI driven mass and social media campaign. This has happened before.

No one disputes that Biden fared badly. Doubts about his cognitive decline reached a crescendo. Instantly, commentators pronounced Biden’s political death sentence. But what are the chances of Biden being defeated in the presidential race because of this dismal debate? “Zero,” says historian Allan Lichtman emphatically, asserting “historically debate performances have no impact on election outcomes”. In 2004, John Kerry debated superbly, but lost to George W. Bush. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama debated poorly, but won. Debates are watched only by a portion of the population. Most voters worry about real issues, not how nominees sound and look in debates. Former Trump supporter Anthony Scaramucci says, “Debates are popularity contests, but that’s not where hiring decisions are made.”

The New York Times, among other media organisations, urged Biden to “serve his nation” by withdrawing, arguing Democrats could then field a new candidate to defeat Trump—the “existential threat to democracy”. Biden claims he is the best candidate to do just that. Lichtman agrees. He says his “Keys to White House” model shows “more than any other Democrat, Biden has the best chance to defeat Trump”. His keys include incumbency, good economy and no-contest primaries. Lichtman has correctly predicted the US election results for four decades.

Away from the spotlight, Biden’s debate debacle is a morality tale signifying important life lessons. Commentators blasted Biden, but none mentioned his speech impediment. People who stammer, stutter more when they are nervous or tired. It is remarkable that despite this disability, Biden rose to the highest office in a treacherously competitive political landscape. Maybe his voice was hoarse due to excessive preparations. Maybe aides coached him inadequately on his appearance, so cameras caught him blank-faced and open-mouthed several times. Interrogation under a microscope for 90 minutes is hard, even harder to speak without crowds and teleprompters. It’s easier for Trump who doesn’t bother to remember facts.

Instead of feeling shamed and licking his wounds after the blistering criticism, Biden rebounded, like the boxer he is, saying, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.” The very next day, Biden gave a spirited performance at an election rally in North Carolina. The event was staged with chants and charts, but the crowd was good, teleprompters in place and Biden feisty, as he was in the State of the Union address four months ago. He crisscrossed the country that day to attend four major events, ending with a massively attended fundraiser gala in New York.

Still, many Americans wonder: “Con Man vs Old Man—is this the best we’ve got?”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

the-heat-is-on-elon-musk

Sat Jun 22 12:26:05 IST 2024

It is Europe’s “coolest” dinner. So said Nicolai Tangen, the host of the celebrity dinner and CEO of Norway’s $1.7 trillion Oil Fund—the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. He promised to cook “moose” and other delicacies for a small, super-select group of guests—CEOs of Novo Nordisk, Adidas, Nestlé and a few others. The dinner location was undisclosed for obvious security reasons, but the date was April 28, 2025, timed with the Oil Fund’s next annual investor conference in Oslo. The sous-chef: Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna. The superstar guest: Tesla’s Elon Musk, who accepted the invitation, posting “sounds good” with a thumbs-up icon on his X. Tangen delightedly replied on X, “Very cool and confirmed. We’re going to make something fantastic.”

And then, the budding bromance of smileys and cheesy icons, fell apart. The Norwegian Fund voted against Musk’s $56 billion (not million) dollar, over-the-top remuneration package—as it did in 2018. Considered a gold standard in ethical investing, the Norwegian Oil Fund has divested from companies engaged in landmines, tobacco and coal production, child labour, human rights abuses, pollution and other unethical corporate practices. Since 2017, as part of its crusade against inequality, it has been campaigning against astronomical CEO pay. The Fund owns only one per cent of Tesla’s stock, but the moral signal ricocheted around the world.

Musk was enraged, reacting “this is not good” with a thumbs-down. He instantly stopped following Tangen on X. He fumed the Fund was wrong because 87 per cent of Tesla shareholders supported his pay, the biggest in the history of humankind. He is now the richest man in the world, overtaking Louis Vuitton’s Bernard Arnault with a big lead. In 2018, shareholders supported Musk’s giga remuneration on the condition that he would achieve results that then had seemed unachievable. But he delivered. Shareholders minted money.

But then a judge even in Delaware—America’s leading tax haven—invalidated the “fundamentally flawed” pay package and its “unfathomable sum”. Musk reacted with characteristic pique, shifting Tesla’s incorporation from Delaware to Texas, another tax haven, but more friendly to Republicans. Musk has a so-far-intact-brewing bromance with Donald Trump.

As an entrepreneur, Musk is gutsy and visionary, often conquering the impossible. But he is also volatile, unpredictable, quirky, even ungenerous, miring himself in endless controversies. Tesla’s factory strikes spread from Sweden to Denmark, Norway and Finland because he fought with unions, refusing to accept high local labour standards. He tried to back out of the Twitter deal. He performed clumsy jigs at car launches and appeared more spaced out than his SpaceX at a shareholders’ meeting. His employees filed lawsuits against him, accusing him of gender bias, discrimination and illegal firings. He is venerated for his brilliance, vilified for his flaws. His biography is a gripping tale of jawdropping highs and gut-wrenching lows. He once told an interviewer “I don’t think you’d necessarily want to be me.”

Now, some in sensitive positions may not even want him as a guest. With the controversy over his remuneration making headlines around the world, Musk and moose are unlikely to be paired anytime soon. The coolest dinner became too hot to handle. Asked at a conference how the Oil Fund could be trusted when its CEO was friends with a controversial figure like Musk, Tangen replied “If we were friends before, we are not now.” Chefs are well acquainted with a culinary wisdom: “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

what-if-donald-trump-returns

Sat Jun 08 10:50:47 IST 2024

The world has darkened. The prospect of a democratically elected convicted felon becoming the world’s most powerful man says more about US democracy than the felon. Across the world, menacing thunderclouds are gathering with ordinary people, the planet and popular democracies undergoing unprecedented stress. It is like the absurd Hollywood comedy-drama—Everything Everywhere All At Once. It is absurd and dramatic, but there is nothing comic about what’s going on in the world.

While people focused on Donald Trump, Gaza or Indian elections, NATO authorised Ukraine’s use of their—including American and German—weapons to attack Russia’s Kharkiv territory. Until now, their weapons could be used only in defence within Ukraine. NATO’s policy shift aims to bolster Ukraine’s flagging war efforts, but it risks inviting Russian retaliatory attacks, imperilling 550 million Europeans. The European governments are already asking their citizens to stock up emergency supplies like drinking water, candles, batteries, matches, cash and dry rations.

Russia and NATO members—the US, Britain and France—have nuclear weapons. But there is no looming threat of nuclear war. The quantity of items required to be stocked suggest European authorities are preparing instead for a Russian hybrid response—attacks on communication lines, water supplies, banking systems or electricity grids, disruptions that can be repaired in a few days. But as American historian Barbara Tuchman warned: “War is the unfolding of miscalculations.”

Away from Europe, the danger of confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan persists. Now the Philippines—a US ally—threatens war if China kills even one Filipino in their ongoing clashes over disputed maritime territories. The China-US relations are brittle. If the US is hyper, demanding immediate attention, then China is passive-aggressive. When China is furious, it doesn’t rant, it chooses radio silence, ignoring US calls. Said American journalist David E. Sanger, “China’s silence drives US crazy.”

War is extreme and appears distant to citizens until they hear rockets and warplanes. The first sign that the New York jury’s verdict (which Indians noted was delivered at 4:20pm) had gone against Trump was the vigil of whirring helicopters overhead, scanning for trouble. Optimists say even after the darkest night, dawn breaks; there is always light at the end of the tunnel: economic growth in China, peace in Gaza, ceasefire between Republicans and Democrats.

Trump’s conviction is a triumph of America’s fearless, independent judiciary. But the opposite is equally true—a Trump-appointed judge has delayed ruling on his immunity from prosecution for acts committed as president. Besides, all Trump cases can be overturned by his appointees in the Supreme Court. The New York court showed no man is above law in the US. But the “people’s court” can resurrect Trump when they vote in November. The US presidential historian Alexis Coe noted, “One big difference between the Richard Nixon and Trump situations is that American voters demanded accountability from Nixon.” Polarisation has wrecked that consensus.

So, the felon’s fate is far from sealed. If Trump wins, a lawbreaker becomes the chief law enforcement officer and commander-in-chief of the world’s mightiest nation. As president, he vows to ignite the “rites of retribution”, wreaking havoc on American systems, institutions, opponents and whistleblowers. Violence can erupt. All options are on the table, and it is not a banquet. Compulsive optimists should keep in mind Murphy’s Law—“the light at the end of the tunnel can be the headlamp of an oncoming train.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

in-britain-boring-is-good-and-that-could-help-keir-starmer-become-next-pm

Sat May 25 11:04:05 IST 2024

These days in Britain, boring is good. After the hangover of Boris Johnson’s wild escapades, Liz Truss’s wilder financial swings, Brexit’s economic nosedives, and Rishi Sunak’s flipflops, British voters find the unexciting rather appealing. The turbulent Tory decade has been an era when entertainment trumped issues, sloganeering outgunned policy and drama beat governance. Now everyone is fed up. Labour Party’s staid leader, Keir Starmer, is likeable precisely because he is a boring lawyer who shuns Johnson-style gimmicks like sliding down a zip wire, only to get stuck midair.

Johnson is Tories’ best vote-getter, but polls predict a Labour win in the upcoming elections. Starmer is offering voters a porridge of policies—boring, but healthy for the nation. In his “pledge card” to the nation, he makes six promises: to deliver economic stability, cut national health service (NHS) waiting times for treatment, establish a state-owned energy company, tackle anti-social behaviour, recruit more teachers and launch a border security force to stop illegal migration. Denying that the pledges were a dilution of his earlier climate and economic plans, Starmer said these “ready-to-go pledges are a means to the end, a down-payment on the first steps to change Britain”. The rest to be announced after election victory, he said.

Underfunding has undermined NHS’s ability to provide adequate health care, provoking public outrage. NHS doctors saved Covid-afflicted Johnson’s life. He was effusively grateful, but was unwilling or unable to upgrade NHS, perhaps because of the Tory obsession with cutting public services. Starmer, who comes from a working-class background—father a factory toolmaker, mother an NHS nurse—is sincerely grateful for the NHS care and hospitalisation his mother received for lifelong crippling arthritis. His wife is an NHS nurse. His commitment to revive NHS is deep and personal.

Unlike Johnson’s life of revelry and privilege, Starmer is the first from his family to go to university. As a lawyer, he defended the rights of victims of domestic, criminal and political violence. He was knighted for his role as chief prosecutor in 2014. For the ceremony in Buckingham Palace, he invited his parents—who brought their family dog along. Starmer knows tragedy. By 2018, his mother had succumbed to disease, his father died heart-broken and the dog perished when their family home burned down.

In contrast with Johnson’s hype and hyperbole, Starmer is almost dour. But that apparently is the need of the hour. Labour presents Starmer as mature, solid, family-oriented. His seriousness promises “dull dividends” say experts. The uncertainties triggered by Brexit and the chaotic reign of Johnson and Truss instigated businesses to withhold investments, dampening growth. Now, people and businesses crave for stability, the markets yearn for fiscal policies without the fizz and fissures that marked Truss’s tenure. Uncertainty brings bad economic outcomes, but certainty usually improves employment and industrial production. A traumatised Britain appears soothed by Starmer’s ‘Boring Bonus’.

Helping Britain’s transition from populism to policy is Labour’s research group, “Labour Together”, which is growing in clout, staff and donations. They are preparing the policy groundwork for an “incoming” Labour government and road maps for its implementation. It is pulling the party to middle-ground from the leftist positions of previous Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Even as it prepares for the future, Labour looks back in history to borrow some winning tactics. Its “pledge card” is a repeat version of the card it published before its landslide victory in 1997. But the tone is different. This time the message is “Steady hands on the wheel”. The adults return. Boring is back.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

western-art-pushes-ahead-with-gritty-current-issues

Sat May 11 11:51:25 IST 2024

The past doesn’t always remain in the past. Sometimes, it emerges in the present, reminding us about the universality and repetitiveness of the human experience. Berlin’s George Grosz Museum, a tiny gem, is a startling reminder that modern political and social ills are not modern. Grosz lived through World Wars I and II, shining a torch into the heart of darkness in high-ranking men and women—who were complicit in the collapse of the world as they knew it.

Satirical and subversive, playful and profound, Grosz’s cartoons and drawings represent art as political protest, a resistance to “blood-stained nationalism”. He digs deeper, offering insightful, stinging analysis. Hyperinflation threw Germany into chaos. But with surgical precision, Grosz depicts a catastrophic cause for the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler: grotesque inequality. His cartoons are a testament that neither war nor inflation affect the power elite—the monarchy, military, church and bourgeoisie.

Through clean, sharp strokes that could be drawn with a dagger, Grosz rips apart social veneers to show the streets of corrupt, carnal Berlin. The times are promiscuous. Lust is in the air. The affluent crave for power, money and sex. The testosterone-driven generals, the voracious fat cats of capitalism, the plundering black marketeers, the complacent, covetous petite bourgeoise profiteering from war and human misery, the macho men and voluptuous women eyeing each other rapaciously—all are utterly indifferent to public desperation. Such inequality dooms, destabilises and destroys societies… again and again. Using data, today’s economists like Thomas Piketty and Joseph Stiglitz warn about the malevolence of inequality. Artists use their imagination to offer lateral perspectives on history’s unconscionable predator-prey human dynamic.

Sometimes, the past is the present. Another gem of a museum—Urban Nation—offers a glimpse into five-feet-high cardboard model of a bombed apartment building made by two Iranian artist brothers “Icy and Sot” who live as refugees in Brooklyn, New York. Shattered rooms are smothered in thick gray concrete dust. The entrails of wiring, plumbing and beams pierce the eye. Jagged shards of furniture reach out for their dead owners, weaving imaginings of the once thrumming universe of these destroyed families—flattened pianos, overturned tables, legless chairs. The ghostliness of broken belongings that don’t belong, the heartbreak of tender detail, the senselessness of destruction are overwhelming. Unlike TV footage, these scenes are still—precisely why they are so moving. Rooms become urns, full of ash, drained of colour.

But the rear of the building, unscathed in the bombing, bursts with colour and hope. Though uninhabited, the interiors are bright with colourful wallpaper, comfortable sofas, even a beautiful white abandoned piano, yearning for its owner’s return. The building is an image of the 2011 war in Aleppo, Syria. But it symbolises Ukraine yesterday, Gaza today. History repeats itself, elites wage war, masses suffer.

Several years ago, the Kochi Biennale highlighted political art—biting, brutal, brilliant depictions of the social, economic and environmental evils that characterise our times. Then the self-absorbed contemporary western art had seemed obsessed with form for forms’ sake—dramatic, but not particularly relevant to ordinary people, just like haute couture that wins critical acclaim but is unwearable. There has been a sea change and western art pushes ahead with gritty current issues. Urban Nation showcases artists’ quirky, accessible, forceful take on our contemporary struggles—climate change, war, globalisation, polarisation, deep fakes, social media that divides and unites, silences and shouts. Artists despair: “Everybody is talking, nobody is listening.” But then, this is our Tower of Babel.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

has-rishi-sunak-s-lustre-dimmed

Sat Apr 27 10:38:12 IST 2024

The British are polarised on taxes, welfare, politics and the Israel-Gaza war. But they agree Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party will be mauled in the May 2 local elections in England and Wales. Opinion polls give the opposition Labour party a 20-point lead over the Tories. An election debacle could tempt Sunak’s opponents within the party to topple him. Or he could limp along, wounded and weak, only to crash-land in the looming general elections. That would bring back Labour.

An invigorated Labour party is ahead in the thousands of seats in the upcoming local councils and mayoral races, including London. In traditional Tory strongholds of West Midlands and Tees Valley in England, conservative candidates shun Sunak in their leaflets and request toxic Tory MPs to stay away. Tories could also lose their Blackpool South parliamentary seat, vacated by Tory MP Scott Benton after a lobbying scandal.

Experts agree the problem is the Tory party. Its legacy after a 14-year rule—some say misrule—is public fatigue. Brexit was a folly characterised by drama, deceit and disruption.

Tory obsession with low taxes weakened public finances, hurting infrastructure, leaving health services dysfunctional, schools crumbling and roads potholed. “All symbols of a nation in decline,” say Labour leaders. While citizens endured economic hardship, Tory ministers and parliamentarians swirled through scandals, sleaze and swinging parties during Covid lockdowns. Famous for reinventing themselves to stay in power, Tories have now run out of steam, options, ideas and public patience.

In 2022, Sunak began well as PM by capitalising on his popularity as chancellor (finance minister) during Covid when he distributed £200 billion in public benefits. He was young, clever, competent and cosmopolitan. He became “Mr Brexit Fix-it”, clinching agreements to mend fences on Northern Ireland, trade and repairing relations with the European Union.

But he epitomises the cautionary tale about rising too far too fast. Politically inexperienced, his attempts to relate to ordinary folks seemed grating, gauche and glib. He claimed he ate “wraps” at McDonalds—when wraps were discontinued years before; was a “coke addict” (meaning Coca Cola). He gallingly stole credit from the Bank of England for falling inflation and from bad weather for the reduced illegal migrant boat crossings; a technocratic, tactless “fiscal hawk” who asked a homeless person, “Do you work in business?” In winter, high energy costs left voters shivering in their unheated homes. But media reported that North Yorkshire’s electricity grid was upgraded because Richie Rich Sunak’s swimming pool consumed so much electricity. There is no penalty in politics for being rich, but there is a price for appearing out of touch.

But Sunak’s problem is less with voters than with partymen loyal to his foe and proven vote-getter, former PM Boris Johnson.

Even if he survives these threats, Sunak will be maimed and his party in meltdown-mode with the infighting. This harms Tory prospects in the general elections. Already, Sunak’s lustre has dimmed, his ratings have plummeted—though its better than his predecessor Liz Truss’ minus 70 per cent. He looks like just another Tory in a social media operation.

Sunak’s advisors say he prefers to hold general elections in autumn so voters have time to see the economic benefits of his policies—and the US election chaos. But analysts say Sunak may call for snap general elections in June to avoid a humiliating leadership challenge.

To borrow 19th century British statesman Benjamin Disraeli’s quip against his political opponent William Gladstone’s administration, it is the Sunak government’s turn to look like “a range of exhausted volcanoes”.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

addictive-nature-of-social-media-a-problem

Fri Apr 12 11:33:46 IST 2024

Parents don’t need research. They know when their children get addicted to social media. Just like wives know when husbands become alcoholics or fathers know when sons’ clandestine smoking turns into addiction. But research is necessary if household misery is to be addressed by impactful public policy.

New American research establishes what most parents know from experience—social media harms children. In his just-published book, The Anxious Generation, renowned New Yorker and social-psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes, “When adolescents’ social lives moved onto smartphones and social media platforms, anxiety and depression surged among them.”

The turning point came in 2012, Haidt says, when social media went viral, after Facebook bought Instagram and with the arrival of high-speed internet, unlimited data and smartphones with front-facing cameras. Schoolgirls spent hours daily taking selfies, editing and posting them for buddies, rivals and strangers to comment on. Simultaneously they scrolled for the posts of friends, foes and celebrities flaunting their wealth, perfect bodies and luxurious lifestyles. Time spent on social media eroded sleep, study and activities with family and friends. Academic performance in reading and math deteriorated. Negative emotions like anger, envy, shame and sadness spiraled. Self-harm increased among pre-teens and teenagers.

Gen Z (born after 1996) suffered like no previous generation, although millennials (born 1981-1996) haven’t been spared. Over the decade, American youth suicide rose by 130 per cent.

Haidt emphasises two of the six factors contributing to this mental health crisis. First, “play-based childhood” declined because anxious parents didn’t send children for unsupervised outdoor play—which helps overcome normal childhood fears, judge risks for themselves and thus prepare for adulthood. Overanxious parents birthed an anxious generation. Second, “play-based” was replaced by “phone-based childhood”. This diminished in-person socialising. Haidt argued social media “hacked” and “rewired” children’s brains, but scientists lacked data hitherto to protect children from tech companies. “We ended up overprotecting children in the real world, while under-protecting them in the virtual world,” he says.

The addictive nature of social media is the problem. Tech investor Roger McNamee says “to encourage addiction, tech companies use techniques common in propaganda and casino gambling”—constant notifications (likes) and variable rewards (for accomplishment/novelty-seeking behaviour). Mental health is as important as physical health. So, should the production and consumption of social media be restricted like alcohol and cigarettes? Together with some leading tech founders, Haidt pleads for phone-free schools, age-guards, student digital guidance and social media regulation. Says McNamee, “Now we face the challenge of extracting the world from the jaws of internet platform monopolies.”

But Haidt has vocal detractors. Journalist Aaron Brown called Haidt’s findings “mostly junk research”. Haidt’s critics quote studies claiming social media is about as harmful as eating potatoes—almost zero. As Mark Twain says, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

For decades the tobacco lobbyists debunked evidence that smoking caused cancer. For decades, the oil lobby scorned climate change. Salt, sugar, junk food and pharma lobbies followed. And for decades, lobbyists supplied spurious statistics to confuse the public and delay, if not abort regulation.

Haidt says, “The correlation between social media and mental health is higher than the correlation between childhood exposure to lead and low adult IQ. The proper comparison is not potatoes, but marijuana use and binge drinking.” McNamee, who mentored Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, says, “It is time to disrupt the disrupters.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

motives-behind-foreign-phobia-reflect-multiple-reasons

Sat Mar 30 11:23:29 IST 2024

According to an Irish legend, when life draws to a close, you hear the doomsday clock that bears your name ticking the time away… tick-tick-tick-tick. Across the pond in the US, popular Chinese video-sharing app TikTok hears the ominous ticking clock. The US siege of TikTok is about data security. It is also about global dominance, protectionism and the comeback of an age-old mantra: “Foreign Phobia”. The line now blurs between western capitalists and eastern socialists.

As is typical in complex human affairs, the motives behind foreign phobia reflect multiple reasons. Foreign bashing—migrants or companies—resurrects in election cycles. Low hanging juicy votes can be won with promises to protect local jobs. Retaining control of national industries is part of war strategy. De-globalisation is a tool to isolate, undercut, puncture and punish rising rivals, tripping them before they trip you.

With bipartisan support, US lawmakers passed a bill that would ban TikTok unless its Chinese owner sells the app. US officials say Beijing could spy, sow discord and spread propaganda through TikTok to its 170 million American users. To protect national security, US regulators have long restricted foreign-ownership of American media companies. To circumvent this restriction, the wily Rupert Murdoch became a US citizen in 1985. But new laws are needed to regulate Big Tech.

The day after lawmakers passed the TikTok bill, President Joe Biden opposed Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9bn takeover of US Steel. Biden did not cite national security—after all, Japan is a staunch US ally. It was to protect the American industrial base by safeguarding “strong American steel companies powered by American steel workers,” he said. US Steel is headquartered in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state in the upcoming presidential elections. Donald Trump has promised to block the takeover, leaving no room for Biden to manoeuvre, even if he wanted to. Biden’s “Buy American” slogan mirrors Trump’s “America First.”

In the UK, PM Rishi Sunak plans to introduce a law to prevent foreigners from buying British news organisations. This aims to block the Abu-Dhabi backed takeover of the British conservative newspaper, The Telegraph. Tory MPs and backbenchers are in the forefront of this oftentimes xenophobic uproar. The battle queen is Kemi Badenoch, 44, the business secretary, who hopes to succeed Sunak as Tory leader—The Telegraph plays a crucial role in Tory leadership races.

Shipbuilding is the next arena of US-China superpower rivalry, potentially igniting trade conflicts that impact China’s naval and commercial shipping might. China deftly filled the vacuum left by a retreating US. Ranked number one in 1975, the US shipbuilding industry annually produced over 70 commercial ships. Now it produces 10 compared with China’s 1,000 ocean-faring vessels. This deficit has major security implications—over 90 per cent of military equipment, supplies and fuel travel on foreign, including Chinese, commercial cargo ships. These are manufactured with government subsidies. Experts attribute the decimation of US shipbuilding to Ronald Reagan’s free-marketeer decisions to axe subsidies. Ironically, free-marketeers are security hawks.

Today, trade bodies clamour for the return of subsidies, protectionism and nationalism in the US shipbuilding industry. Globalisation shifts with the winds of change. One aphorism does not. “Whoever rules the waves, rules the world,” proclaimed Alfred Thayer Mahan, the respected 19th century naval historian and strategist. Today, that truth expands from sea waves to include air waves. America’s noose on TikTok tightens. The Irish legend concludes with the listener hearing the clock ticking to the end “tick-tick-tick-ti…”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

musk-trump-partnership-can-inflate-the-trumpian-world

Sat Mar 16 11:17:04 IST 2024

Match made in Hell!” That’s how liberal European media described the “political bromance” between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the erratic, outspoken billionaire. In ideology and in temperament, chaotic Trump and quixotic Musk have common traits. Both despise wokeism, feminism, and LGBTQ activism. They have a penchant for conspiracy theories. Both are scrappy, provocative, politically incorrect and unpredictable with outsized egos. Commentator Christina Pletten noted, “This can become a dangerous alliance in so many ways, where money, power, propaganda and conspiracy theories meet in a nasty mix.”

Tesla founder turned rightwing culture warrior, Musk has been turning his Twitter-turned-X into a swamp for far-right conspiracies. Biden trails in polls but commands a campaign treasure chest. Trump brags big, but his finances are precarious, with his campaign war chest haemorrhaging due to legal fees and penalties. Worth $197 billion, Musk is money.

The New York Times reports a “collaboration” with Musk helping Trump get re-elected. Musk asserts he will not donate money to Trump. It’s a business opportunity to leverage his flagging X by spreading right-wing rhetoric that reinforces Trump’s political arguments. Musk’s Twitter takeover has been fraught with high debt, falling value, fleeing users and advertisers. For Trump, the visibility provided by a revitalised X fetches eyeballs and saves huge election costs.

Trump and Musk share ideology and contrarian tactics. American journalist Tim Higgins said, “Musk gains even more influence as he becomes more Trump-like.” Musk amplifies Trump’s message on immigration to his 175 million followers. Accusing Biden of treason, Musk echoed a right-wing conspiracy theory that the US administration is “importing” immigrants to “rig elections and wage terror bigger than 9/11”.

A Musk-Trump partnership can inflate the Trumpian world of fearmongering, disinformation and outright lies. But their giant egos can wreck the bromance. Trump wants Musk on his team. Musk wants Trump on his. Still, the alliance benefits both. Musk’s companies rely on federal subsidies and contracts. Musk is hostile to Democrats’ pro-labour, welfare oriented, ‘anti-subsidies for cash-rich business’ policies—massive federal subsidies to Musk’s Space X were cut. But until recently, Musk’s relationship with Trump was prickly. Musk said Trump was too old for reelection. Trump called Musk a “bullshit artist”, a “fawning” businessman desperate for government subsidies. “I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” Trump mocked in his Truth Social platform.

Trump was not Musk’s first choice in this election. He had rooted for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who launched his presidential campaign with a live chat with Musk on X. It was marred by technical glitches. DeSantis’s campaign soon flopped and collapsed. Now Trump and Musk see their interests converging and Biden is the common enemy. “Their combined resources as powerful reactionary figures shouldn’t be underestimated,” said MSNBC editor Zeeshan Aleem. A Trump-Musk collaboration promises publicity, drama and fireworks.

Verbal pyrotechnics could certainly sizzle this dull sequel of two old men butting for the top job again. Bristling at sneers of his advancing age and endless replays of images of him stuttering and stumbling, Biden now aims for Trump’s “jugular”. “Sleepy Joe” transforms into “Jaunty Joe”. He tries hard to look, walk and talk young, vigorous and feisty. Biden reportedly told friends he thinks Trump is unstable, both intellectually and emotionally, and if Biden goads him mercilessly, Trump will explode—“go haywire in public”. The Democrats begin the campaign season by launching Operation “Trigger Trump”. Biden’s favourite Trump taunt: “Loser”. Trump taunts right back, calling Biden a “basket case”.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

democracies-turned-upside-down

Sat Mar 02 11:03:55 IST 2024

Winston Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.” But, over the years, democracies have absorbed many sins of autocracies, theocracies, aristocracies and gerontocracies. Experts say democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box with voters electing corrupt, divisive and authoritarian leaders. Their governments may then implement racist, undemocratic, uneconomic and unethical policies. Nearly two centuries ago, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville warned that, “Tyranny of the majority” endangers democracy. Today democracy seems torn by the tyranny of the majority and minority—that even fuels war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignores global outrage and pleas from the US, bolstered by his two fringe, extremist, ultranationalist coalition partners—religious Zionism Party’s Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, and Jewish Power Party’s Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister. They have publicly threatened to withdraw support if Netanyahu backs down. “Netanyahu in 2024 is far more afraid of Ben-Gvir than he is of Joe Biden. The Israeli government is the Ben-Gvir government, at the expense of all of us,” mourns Israeli commentator Ben Caspit.

Jewish hardliners refuse emergency food and medical supplies to starving, injured Palestinian children. The loudest protestors blocking aid are women ultranationalists. In their book, Tyranny of the Minority, focusing on the US, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt assert, “Minorities of all kinds have become the decision-makers; they dominate, tyrannise or terrorise.” The tyranny of the elite minority in democracies is overtaken by the atomised tyrannies of outliers, populists, conspiracy-theorists and demagogues.

The biggest demagogue that democracy has thrown up in recent times is Donald Trump. Even Europe is wary. Quoting a German parliamentarian, prominent historian Anne Applebaum said, “Europe may face a world in which we are competing with three autocracies—China, Russia and the US. The fear is that the second Trump administration will be aggressive. He has no government job, but controls a minority in the US Congress and dictates US policy.”

Europe is shell-shocked that this year’s elections in the big democracies could bring leaders who are well-disposed to their enemy, Vladimir Putin. Trump is a Putin-admirer, describing him as a “genius—strong and smart”. Narendra Modi is friendly with Putin. Indonesian leader Prabowo Subianto is a Putin fan. Kornelius Purba, managing editor of The Jakarta Post, noted that many Indonesian voters support General Prabowo “because they are fanatical fans of President Putin”. Indonesian liberals fear Prabowo will rule like a Putin-style strongman.

In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak turns to rightwing populism to lure fleeing voters. He is under pressure from his minority of Tory “English nationalists” who threaten to topple him unless he tightens immigration, slows climate goals and lowers taxes. Economists agree these are bad policies for recession-mired Britain and for Tories; general voters want solutions to their crushing problems. Identifying democracy’s flaw, European leader Jean-Claude Juncker remarked, “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”

Germany’s current polarised, fragmented political landscape is “frighteningly similar to the 1930s” that gave rise to Hitler, warns German pollster Forsa Institute. The post-war law mandating parties to secure at least 5 per cent share of votes to enter parliament, kept extremist, peripheral groups out. Disillusioned by mainstream parties, voters are now flocking to radical movements. Polls show one in five Germans would vote for a fringe party. An exasperated Winston Churchill once quipped, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

Pratap is an author and journalist.

the-dilemma-of-the-japanese-today

Sat Feb 03 11:12:31 IST 2024

The child follows the moving object with its eyes. The girl sashays on the catwalk, smiles, then pouts. The child and girl are not human. They are robots made in Japan and they demonstrate the nation’s way of innovating out of crises.

Japan has the world’s fastest ageing society—one-third of its population are over 65 years old. Simultaneously, decreasing birth rate is creating massive labour shortages. Japan’s solution to this double whammy is evident in a statistic: it has the world’s highest number of robots. The void caused by ageing and unborn Japanese is being filled by AI, robots and avatars. Japan already has robots, androids and humanoids in hospitals, factories, schools, security services, and even outer space. It “employs” 2.5 lakh industrial robotic workers, set to increase to 10 lakh in a decade. All Japanese corporate giants manufacture robots and they dominate the international market.

In 2008, Japan’s population peaked at 129 million. It is projected to decrease by 10 million a decade, plummeting to 77 million in 50 years—40 per cent less than today. Warns economist Masakazu Toyoda, “Japan’s GDP will shrink, economy will decline and we will be bankrupted by the caring costs for the ageing population. Geopolitically, Japan would have to survive as a middle power in a tough neighbourhood. It could also lead to a security crisis. Pax America is in decline, no one can stop the crisis in Ukraine or Gaza. Everyone must defend themselves. But Japan’s self-defence service is unable to recruit sufficient numbers.”

Efforts to increase birth rate by providing child allowances and free college education for the third child have not succeeded in Japan or elsewhere. Migration has improved birthrates in the US and the UK, but migration is taboo in Japan. Most Japanese find the invasion of foreign residents with their alien tongues and loud behaviour into their orderly, polite, silent cocoon, disagreeable. Regarding themselves as a “pure race”, many Japanese shun intercultural marriages, pejoratively referring to children born of such wedlock as “halfu” (half). Besides, migration in most western countries is hardly inspiring.

Avoiding immigration, the Japanese prefer the robot route to fill the labour gap. Innovative Japan has a history of skilled craftsmanship. Mechanical dolls, a precursor to today’s robots, were invented 300 years ago. In 1972, Japan invented the world’s first humanoid intelligent robot. To disarm public fear of robots, manufacturers also make adorable seals, dogs and cute, comic book manga-style female robots with big eyes and girly fringes.

But in construction, farming and retail, labour shortage extracts a price. The construction of the prestigious Osaka World Expo, scheduled to open in 2025, is facing delays and cost overruns—the bill has doubled to $1.6 billion. Despite raising wages, enticing women into the work force and designing stylish uniforms, construction workers declined 30 per cent in 25 years. Many 20th century inventions are fading out. Food trolleys in trains have disappeared and vending machines are not refilled for days. Farms are abandoned and whole villages depopulated because 43 per cent of farmers are over 75.

Japanese innovators experiment to mitigate, if not solve the problem. The solar-powered robot duck churns weeds to help rice cultivation. Human hours involved in this process fell from 529 to 29. Omnipresent convenience stores provide everything from rice balls to hangover cures to grateful Japanese commuters. In a new trend, a smiling attendant greets customers—from a four-foot screen. Like the living attendants of yore, the avatar’s eyes unobtrusively follow the moving human objects—scanning for shoplifting.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

hope-and-hopelessness

Sat Jan 06 11:09:47 IST 2024

From the Élysée Palace, the citadel of power in the heart of Paris, King Jupiter, aka French President Emmanuel Macron, proclaims loftily: It is time to give citizens “a sense of hope and an appetite for the future”. It is that time of the year when words of optimism irritatingly ring louder than church bells. Politicians and celebrities who corrode hope with their policies, lifestyles and scandals are the loudest. It is like they don’t even hear their own words. Macron makes versions of this speech often, the first from the grand Versailles Palace six years ago.

Since then, France has become more divided and distrustful, like many other countries. Macron had expressed hope for Libya, Lebanon and Gaza. Life became worse there. The international mood darkens with old and new threats. Youngsters, some with families, opt to live “off-grid”, logging out of normal life as we once knew it.

Yet, beneath the blur and the cacophony, there are green shoots of hope, with some governments, activists, scientists and citizens working like ants to save the world. This phenomenon—unlike big innovation—escapes attention because the media is mostly a “dooms-day machine” grabbing eyeballs by showcasing the worst of humanity, without adequately emphasising restoration and progress. But these human ants typify the natural order of things. This is how evolution works—incremental advances through iterations—repeating the creative process to improve the species, enabling it to adapt to the changing environment. Governments, researchers, and businesses incrementally improve policies, activities and products to better serve people’s needs.

Carbon emissions are still increasing and we are not on track to achieve climate goals. Yet, there are rays of hope. The world’s two biggest polluters, US and China, aim to substantially reduce their carbon emissions. Solar technology became lucrative as iterations dramatically lowered price and improved energy yield. The US’s game-changing Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), created to fund its green transition, is a massive manufacturing drive that will show results within a decade. Electric cars are now mainstream, redefining cars’ identity as vehicles to computers-on-wheels. Recent health care discoveries give not just hope, but actual extensions of life, especially for cancer and AIDS patients. While inequality has increased, more people have risen out of poverty, more girls educated, more children fed in schools, more people have access to better sanitation and the world closer to a fairer international tax system.

Technology and innovation have been the key drivers of progress. Humanoid robots, cloud and quantum computing, digital, 5G and blockchain technologies, artificial organs and intelligence, smart electricity grids, drones and human genome mapping are a few examples that are transforming 21st century life. From the printing press to 3D printing, the journey of homo sapiens is nothing short of spectacular.

But creativity and destruction are two sides of the coin and Lord Shiva’s cosmic rhythm rests on balance. As the Buddha said, everything is good—in moderation. AI, warmongering, cronyism, grotesque inequalities have become monsters because societies and nations have gone extreme, losing their balance, their sense of prudence and priorities. Justice, vigilance and smart regulations are stepping stones to a fairer, happier, orderly world.

But smart action struggles to keep pace with accelerating change. While celebrities have more silicon than cells in them, politicians seem to need intellectual Botox. To provide hope and fresh momentum, Jupiter hinted an imminent cabinet reshuffle. Such hackneyed political games of unmusical chairs not only lack imagination, but threaten to trample the tender shoots of hope.

Pratap is an author and journalist.

elections-around-the-world-in-2024

Sat Dec 23 11:05:09 IST 2023

2024 is the biggest election year in history. Voting takes place in 40 countries, representing over 40 per cent of global GDP and population. Polling occurs against the backdrop of polycrisis—terrible wars in Gaza and Ukraine, climate change, skyrocketing global debt and stinging prices. Says billionaire investor Paul Singer, “The world is now completely dependent on the good sense of leaders to avoid an Armageddon.”

But good sense is in short supply because political leadership is in crises. Fatal failure of leadership is proven by the ongoing wars that have shattered the spine of nations and the life and limb of its citizens. The elections of 2024 are a spectacle of democracy—in glory and in disarray. IDEA, the Stockholm-based intergovernmental organisation, reported last month that authoritarianism is on the rise and democracy has declined in 85 countries.

Still, as Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried.” The year begins with elections in Bangladesh, followed by tiny Taiwan—an arena for US-China political proxy wars. Disinformation, deep fakes and demonisation are rampant as politicians divert public attention from poor governance. In Indonesia, the leading candidate Prabowo Subianto, a fiery populist and Suharto-era lieutenant general, sugarcoats his controversial image. For the first time since apartheid ended, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is expected to lose its majority, forcing a fractious coalition to tackle crime, corruption and collapsing infrastructure.

In a crowded, televised event, Artyom Zhoga, a Russian veteran from the Ukraine war, urged Vladimir Putin to run for presidential elections again. If Zhoga hadn’t, he would probably have had to run for his life. Putin graciously agreed to be the star candidate in a one-horse race that could see him rule Russia until 2036—a 36-year reign. But leaders facing elections in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are unlikely to enjoy such marathon runs. Elections also take place in many countries in Africa, South America, in Canada, Iran, Turkey and Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring. “It’s a very consequential year,” says Stanford University political scientist Amy Zegart.

Europe will seethe with elections in the UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Belgium and to the European parliament. As in the recent elections in the Netherlands, the far right waxes, riding high on public alarm over migration and impotent mainstream politicians. People now are less afraid of the far right. In Italy, Finland and Sweden, co-option into government has defanged right-wingers.

Saving the worst for the last, the US elections are the most consequential of them all. A Donald Trump victory will alter the trajectory of the two wars, NATO’s future, accelerate climate change, polarisation and protectionism. Election campaign will froth with hate, hostility and conspiracy theories. Democrats and Republicans will compete in China-bashing, a vote-getting ploy that deflects attention from rising crime, injustice, inequality and falling living standards.

The 2024 elections will end with the US voting on November 5, celebrated in parts of the world as Guy Fawkes Day. In 1605, Catholic rebels failed to blow up the English House of Lords and assassinate the protestant King James 1. Guy Fawkes, a ringleader of this “Gunpowder Plot” was hanged, drawn and quartered, becoming a terrorist to the Protestants, but a brave icon of resistance to the Catholics. Fawkes masks endures, surfacing as a symbol of 21st century revolutionary protests—and polarisation—from New York to Hong Kong, Brazil to Thailand. It would require good sense—and good luck—to avoid Armageddon. Tragically, for Gazans, Armageddon is already here.

Pratap is an author and journalist.