Če se je prva (VELIKA) vesoljska bitka dogajala na državni ravni, na podlagi dveh državnih političnih veleprojektov, med ZDA in nekdanjo Sovjetsko zvezo, se druga vesoljska tekma dogaja na ravni zasebnih podjetij. Zanimiva pa je ironija usoda: tekma se dogaja med podjetjem ameriškega, državno sponzoriranega oligarha Elona Muska in kopico zasebnih kitajskih podjetij, ki tekmujejo v ubijalski darwinistični tekmi med seboj. Slednja je podobna tisti pri solarnih panelih, ali e-avtih, ali — v vseh panogah. Gre za tekmo med državno sponzoriranim monopolistom iz najbolj kapitalistične države na svetu in kopico zasebnih podjetij iz kvazi največje socialistične države, ki tekmujejo med seboj v učbeniški konkurenci. Arnaud Bertrand je spet pripravil odličen komentar na to temo.

Make no mistake: there is a new space race going on, but a very different one in nature from that between the US and the Soviet Union.

This time around it involves, on one side, a colossal state-backed monopoly built on government money, welded to its country’s military-industrial complex and run by a politically connected and highly ideological oligarch.

On the other side: dozens of hungry startups trying to out-innovate each other in a ruthless, Darwinian competition.

The oligarch is Elon Musk. The Darwinian competition is China.

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Chris Hedges intervjuva nemškega novinarja Hüseyina Doğruja, ki sta ga Berlin in Bruselj zaradi poročanja o genocidu v Gazi spremenila v »neosebo« ter ga sankcionirala kot »ruskega agenta«.

Pisali se bodo novi učbeniki mednarodne ekonomije:

I figured this would eventually happen, but not as quickly as it seems to be happening and, for this, Paul Krugman should get credit. For years mainstream economists were unable to understand how trade and globalization work because they were locked into trade models that implicitly assumed that trade was balanced (except, occasionally, over short time periods) and that capital flowed towards its most productive use. That is why their understanding of trade had no relevance to the actual world of trade that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s.

But this couldn’t last. As the problem of unbalanced trade became more obvious , and as policymakers were increasingly forced to ignore the advice of their economists and respond to real problems, mainstream economists would eventually begin to recognize how, in an unevenly globalized world, countries that aggressively intervene in their domestic economies and externalize the costs through trade surpluses are also effectively intervening in the domestic economies of countries that supposedly remain committed to “free trade”.

Most economists still don’t understand trade. But with Krugman now acknowledging that tariffs and other forms of trade intervention can be expansionary under some conditions and contractionary under others (as Ragnar Nurkse explained as long ago as in his 1944 book), I suspect that younger economists will develop a completely different understanding of trade, and one that is perhaps a little more realistic.

Brian McDonald je irski novinar, politični komentator in analitik mednarodnih odnosov, ki že vrsto let spremlja odnose med Rusijo, Evropsko unijo in Zahodom. Njegovi prispevki so izrazito polemični, pogosto kritični do prevladujočih zahodnih zunanjepolitičnih narativov, pri čemer poudarja geopolitični realizem, pomen gospodarskih interesov in nevarnosti ideološkega pristopa k mednarodnim odnosom.

McDonald v članku How Western Europe’s elites lost the plot over Russia trdi, da evropske politične elite izgubljajo stik z osnovnimi lekcijami hladne vojne. Po njegovem mnenju Zahod Sovjetske zveze ni premagal z omejevanjem svobode govora, nadzorom političnega prostora ali discipliniranjem nasprotnikov, temveč zato, ker je ponujal boljšo kakovost življenja, večjo osebno svobodo in privlačnejši družbeni model.

McDonald svojo kritiko usmerja proti delu evropskega liberalnega establišmenta, ki po njegovem zagovarja paradoksalno idejo: demokracijo naj bi bilo mogoče rešiti tako, da postane manj demokratična. Opozarja na vse pogostejše zahteve po regulaciji političnega prostora, omejevanju nezaželenih mnenj in marginalizaciji političnih gibanj, ki odstopajo od uradnega bruseljskega konsenza.

Posebej ostro kritizira prakso, po kateri se evropske populistične stranke in politični nasprotniki pogosto predstavljajo kot podaljšana roka Moskve. Namesto da bi politične elite poskušale razumeti nezadovoljstvo volivcev in nanj odgovoriti z učinkovitejšimi politikami, po njegovem vse pogosteje posegajo po pravnih postopkih, medijskih kampanjah, cenzuri, finančnih pritiskih in diskreditacijah.

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Bettina Arndt je avstralska publicistka, komentatorka in dolgoletna raziskovalka vprašanj spolnih odnosov, družinskega prava, moške diskriminacije ter posledic sodobnih feminističnih politik. V avstralskem javnem prostoru velja za eno najbolj kontroverznih avtoric, saj sistematično izpostavlja teme, ki jih prevladujoči mediji pogosto obravnavajo previdno ali pa se jim zaradi politične občutljivosti izogibajo. Njeno delo zaznamuje izrazito polemičen slog, s katerim odpira razprave o razmerjih med spoloma, migracijah, kazenskem pravu in kulturnih konfliktih.

V članku Clash of Sexual Civilisations Bettina Arndt postavlja provokativno tezo, da se Evropa in širši Zahod ne soočata zgolj s klasičnim »spopadom civilizacij«, temveč s spopadom dveh popolnoma različnih spolnih kultur. Gre za srečanje družb, v katerih prevladuje patriarhalno razumevanje odnosov med spoloma, z zahodnim modelom, ki ga Arndtova razume kot sistem, v katerem so se institucionalna razmerja moči v veliki meri prevesila v korist žensk.

Arndtova vidi osrednji paradoks progresivnega projekta v tem, da iste elite, ki odpirajo meje milijonom priseljencev iz patriarhalnih družb, hkrati gradijo vse bolj zapleten in feminizmu podvržen režim spolnih pravil, kjer lahko že kulturni nesporazum postane kaznivo dejanje.

Članek Arndtove se začne s klasičnim kulturnim stereotipom, ki pa je dokaj realističen:

It’s a pretty sick joke. A young man from Syria or Morocco or Afghanistan risks everything to reach Europe. He survives the crossing, the camps, the bureaucracy. He arrives in a civilisation that surrounds him with female flesh on a scale his culture considers obscene – on billboards, on public transport, in the gym, on his phone. And every centimetre of it is legally mined — one wrong look, one misread signal, one drunken encounter, and he becomes not a man who made a mistake but a criminal.

The man is broke, he is foreign, and to the women surrounding him in their skimpy gym wear, he is either invisible or a threat — rarely anything in between. If, by some miracle, he stumbles into a relationship he may end up in a marriage where his wife holds every legal and cultural card — including the power to withdraw sex, his children, his assets and freedom. He traded a society where men rule to arrive in one where men are at the bottom of one where women rule. A better life? In some ways, perhaps. But when it comes to the thing that matters most to young men, he may have made the worst trade of his life.

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The true enemy of the European peoples is not Russia, China, or Iran.

The true enemy is the ignorance, incompetence, and arrogance of most EU leaders (ignorance and arrogance often go hand in hand), both in Brussels and in the member states.

This, and not “Putin wanting to conquer Lisbon” or “low-cost Chinese goods,” will destroy the social and economic fabric of European society.

The reason is simple: during the wave of globalization and the strong economic growth of the 1990s and early 2000s, practically no government had to do anything. The tide was high and all boats were floating. With this mindset, we have lost the ability to develop analytical thinking, data-based analysis, and now political leaders, deprived of this knowledge and these skills, are like lone sailors in the middle of a storm in the Atlantic Ocean.

There is virtually no chance that the current leaders of many European countries will succeed in addressing the economic, social, and international challenges they face.

This is also why they keep switching roles: from Prime Minister of a small country, they become NATO Secretary General; from a terrible Foreign Minister of a large country, they become President of the United Nations; from Prime Minister of a totally irrelevant country, they become one of the worst Foreign Ministers of the European Union… and so on… all graveyards of failed leaders.

What can citizens do to reverse this trend? Any ideas?

Pedro Santa Clara v članku »The Comfortable Decline: Why European Contempt for America is a Consoling Delusion — and Why, Two Years After the Draghi Report, It Is Time to Stop Waiting for Brussels« predstavi provokativno tezo, da je evropsko prepričanje o lastni superiornosti v primerjavi z Združenimi državami predvsem psihološki mehanizem za prikrivanje vse večjega gospodarskega in tehnološkega zaostajanja Evrope. Avtor opozarja, da Evropejci pogosto radi poudarjajo ameriške slabosti – politično polarizacijo, neenakost, nasilje, slabše socialne storitve in vrnitev Donalda Trumpa v Belo hišo – medtem ko poudarjajo evropske prednosti, kot so kakovostno javno zdravstvo, daljša življenjska doba, več prostega časa in boljša kakovost urbanega življenja. Po njegovem mnenju je ta pripoved sicer privlačna, vendar vse bolj oddaljena od gospodarske realnosti.

Santa Clara najprej izpodbija pogosto evropsko predstavo o ameriškem gospodarskem nazadovanju. Navaja, da je najrevnejša ameriška zvezna država Mississippi po bruto domačem proizvodu na prebivalca bogatejša od Španije, ene največjih članic Evropske unije. Številne ameriške zvezne države presegajo gospodarsko razvitost Italije, Francije in drugih tradicionalnih evropskih gospodarskih velesil. Po njegovem mnenju Evropejci podcenjujejo dejstvo, da je ameriško gospodarstvo ustvarilo bistveno višjo raven blaginje za večino prebivalstva kot evropska gospodarstva.

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