Dear CCI Friends,
Jeffrey Sachs is a name familiar to all who watched the breakup of the USSR and the devastating period that ensued in the 1990s. The ruble became worthless, hunger and death were omnipresent as the entire country and surrounding regions were plunged into a crisis for their survival. I remember this period very distinctly. It was tragic. Sachs learned that Harvard’s approach failed the Russian people. Check “The Power of Impossible Ideas” pages 81 – 85. Fortunately Sachs was a quick learner and is one of the most astute voices in the field regarding what needs to be done today with Russia and China. He is one of the few voices willing to discuss the entire history leading to the current crisis, a crisis that could have been avoided. I offer his essay for your consideration.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
The West’s Dangerously Simple-MindedNarrative About Russia and China
The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts.
August 23, 2022
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, New York City
The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with very real and pressing diplomacy.
The essential narrative of the West is built into US national security strategy. The core US idea is that China and Russia are implacable foes that are “attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” These countries are, according to the US, “determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”
The irony is that since 1980 the US has been in at least 15 overseas wars of choice (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Serbia, Syria, and Yemen just to name a few), while China has been in none, and Russia only in one (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union. The US has military bases in 85 countries, China in 3, and Russia in 1 (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.
President Joe Biden has promoted this narrative, declaring that the greatest challenge of our time is the competition with the autocracies, which “seek to advance their own power, export and expand their influence around the world, and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today’s challenges.” US security strategy is not the work of any single US president but of the US security establishment, which is largely autonomous, and operates behind a wall of secrecy.