This is wrt your open question on US policymaking. My 2 cents below:
#1: A major policy driver for the US is the fear of China's rise. On that front, I feel Clemenceau's quote (Generals always prepare to fight the last war, especially if they had won it) applies here. The Americans are framing policies wrt China as if it is the former USSR, i.e., military foe with no economic weight and little integration into global trade. Since China is none of those (militarily much weaker than US, economically a giant, and the mfg line for everything in the world), copying the Cold War strategies is just dumb.
#2: The US got used to being the country everyone admires. Now there are too many countries that don't look up to the US. The soft power is eroding slowly, but many of its policymakers don't seem to get it.
#3: The world is getting multipolar. If they put sanctions on Iran or Russia, they need to give exceptions to India and China. The Ukraine war evoked support only from the West; India and China were granted exceptions; and the rest of the world didn't care. Adjusting to this complex reality where everything has feedback loops of increasing complexity isn't easy.
#4: America has increasingly weaponized its currency to impose unilateral sanctions and evictions from SWIFT. All of this makes other countries nervous and rumblings of alternate systems become more attractive, if nothing as a safety net.
#5: All of the above situations are complex enough. To add to that, America now elects people (Biden, Trump) who are too old to understand or adjust to such dynamics.
Thanks. I agree with all your observations partially. However, I still don't understand why #5 or #4 is happening now. Or, what explains the domestic policy self-goals?
Either the framework or your application to policies is not making much sense to me. I'll need to read the paper to understand the framework, because your explanation is not clear. Also, it looks like in the bottom-right quadrant, you can add any policy change that got reversed, either fully or partially, which does not seem very useful.
thanks for the feedback. I did a half-assed job of explaining it, I guess.
In the bottom-right quadrant are the promised "transformative" reforms that get implemented but are soon reversed due to changes in government or circumstances. Policies in the bottom-left quadrant are tweaks rather than reforms.
I think insolvency and bankruptcy laws/ regulations can be included in Progressive paradigmatic policies. The entire framework has been strengthened since the late 90s with RBI wilful defaulter notification, SARFAESI act, and IBC...
I think resurrection of cultural and native rights as the supreme factor of voting pattern has led to such policy behaviour of the USA. This case can be seen in Europe also. If we look at this as by-product of anti immigration rallies and anti-wokism rallies on the internet which led to such voting behaviour, then we might be short-sighted to look at the bigger picture. Latest electoral results of the usa reflects that it's not trump who is imposing his policy insights on the people, it's the n number of trumps in the american society who are picking one of them so that they could lead to a self preserving and isolationist policies for their country. That's where your second reason triggered that people are not aware about the soft power benefits which USA was getting when it was trying to become big brother in the world in last 3-4 decades, otherwise they would have understood the economic anomalies of the Trump-I. If the way things are going forward continues, things can get more messier for economy as well as social fabric of their country. (P.S. please correct my understanding of the voting pattern of usa because I might be linking two different things. I am very amateur to understand geopolitics yet.)
This is wrt your open question on US policymaking. My 2 cents below:
#1: A major policy driver for the US is the fear of China's rise. On that front, I feel Clemenceau's quote (Generals always prepare to fight the last war, especially if they had won it) applies here. The Americans are framing policies wrt China as if it is the former USSR, i.e., military foe with no economic weight and little integration into global trade. Since China is none of those (militarily much weaker than US, economically a giant, and the mfg line for everything in the world), copying the Cold War strategies is just dumb.
#2: The US got used to being the country everyone admires. Now there are too many countries that don't look up to the US. The soft power is eroding slowly, but many of its policymakers don't seem to get it.
#3: The world is getting multipolar. If they put sanctions on Iran or Russia, they need to give exceptions to India and China. The Ukraine war evoked support only from the West; India and China were granted exceptions; and the rest of the world didn't care. Adjusting to this complex reality where everything has feedback loops of increasing complexity isn't easy.
#4: America has increasingly weaponized its currency to impose unilateral sanctions and evictions from SWIFT. All of this makes other countries nervous and rumblings of alternate systems become more attractive, if nothing as a safety net.
#5: All of the above situations are complex enough. To add to that, America now elects people (Biden, Trump) who are too old to understand or adjust to such dynamics.
Thanks. I agree with all your observations partially. However, I still don't understand why #5 or #4 is happening now. Or, what explains the domestic policy self-goals?
Either the framework or your application to policies is not making much sense to me. I'll need to read the paper to understand the framework, because your explanation is not clear. Also, it looks like in the bottom-right quadrant, you can add any policy change that got reversed, either fully or partially, which does not seem very useful.
thanks for the feedback. I did a half-assed job of explaining it, I guess.
In the bottom-right quadrant are the promised "transformative" reforms that get implemented but are soon reversed due to changes in government or circumstances. Policies in the bottom-left quadrant are tweaks rather than reforms.
I look forward to this newsletter every Sunday.
thanks, Gagan
Example of progressive paradigmatic policy in Indian context you asked? NREGA.
I think insolvency and bankruptcy laws/ regulations can be included in Progressive paradigmatic policies. The entire framework has been strengthened since the late 90s with RBI wilful defaulter notification, SARFAESI act, and IBC...
I think resurrection of cultural and native rights as the supreme factor of voting pattern has led to such policy behaviour of the USA. This case can be seen in Europe also. If we look at this as by-product of anti immigration rallies and anti-wokism rallies on the internet which led to such voting behaviour, then we might be short-sighted to look at the bigger picture. Latest electoral results of the usa reflects that it's not trump who is imposing his policy insights on the people, it's the n number of trumps in the american society who are picking one of them so that they could lead to a self preserving and isolationist policies for their country. That's where your second reason triggered that people are not aware about the soft power benefits which USA was getting when it was trying to become big brother in the world in last 3-4 decades, otherwise they would have understood the economic anomalies of the Trump-I. If the way things are going forward continues, things can get more messier for economy as well as social fabric of their country. (P.S. please correct my understanding of the voting pattern of usa because I might be linking two different things. I am very amateur to understand geopolitics yet.)