Campaign Diplomacy: Why America May Take A Harder Line Against Russia

For seven years George W. Bush heaped praise on Vladimir Putin, saying that he had looked into the Russian president's soul and liked what he saw. That was before clashes over U.S. plans to expand NATO's reach into former Soviet territory put some distance between Bush and his "good friend" and provoked talk of a new cold war. Now, as Bush prepares to step down, all of his potential successors are preparing an even harder line on Putin's Russia.

Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all support the Bush plan to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, an idea angrily rejected by Russia and opposed by U.S. allies like France and Germany. All three contenders, or their advisers, have taken a much harder rhetorical line than Bush, at times almost stretching to pique Putin. Clinton has declared that Putin "doesn't have a soul," and said he "thwarted" a United Nations plan for Kosovo's independence, "attempted to use energy as a political weapon," suppressed freedom and "created a new class of oligarchs." Obama has made few public comments on Putin, but his point man on Russia, political scientist Michael McFaul, says Obama will reach out to Putin while also pressing him much more aggressively on Russia's failures—in the same way Ronald Reagan invited Russia to open to the world and urged Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." Another adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, recently compared Putin to Mussolini. McCain is fiercer still: he has said he wants to kick Russia out of the G8, and called Putin a "revanchist" who has committed "nuclear blackmail" and "cyberattacks" to revive Russian power. He has repeatedly said that he sees in Putin's eyes three letters: "KGB."

Why the special vitriol for Russia? Anatol Lieven, a political scientist at King's College London, says that Clinton and Obama may feel the need to talk tough on the campaign trail to mask a lack of real foreign-policy experience, while McCain's long background could explain an old-fashioned perspective on Russia. The presidential advisers all reflect U.S. conventional wisdom—that Putin has undone the democratic reforms of his pro-American predecessor, Boris Yeltsin—even though Russians remember Yeltsin as a failure (and Reagan as a nemesis). Finally, Russia may be less of an economic and military threat in the long term than China—with an equally bad human-rights record—but that makes it easier to criticize. After all, why provoke a future superpower when tough talk against a rising middle power will do?
—Michael Freedman

Big Deals: The Fallout Of Colombia
Free marketers recoiled as rising U.S. protectionism stalled a new trade pact with Colombia in Congress and toppled Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist. But the next victim could be a much bigger deal: the faltering Doha round of global trade talks, which had finally been showing some progress. With wealthier nations making a critical concession on agricultural tariffs, European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson had said on April 5 that Doha should be on track to wrap up this spring. Now, experts like Sallie James, a former Doha specialist for the Australian government, says that Colombia dims prospects for Doha. One key: the American president's authority to negotiate deals without congressional meddling expired in June 2007. Congress is no longer compelled to vote within 90 days; it can stall indefinitely. And Colombia shows where Congress's mind is. Stuck at home, in campaign politics.
—Adam B. Kushner

Protofeminism: Blame Oil, Not Islam
The curse of oil, not the ways of Islam, may explain the poor status of women in parts of the Middle East and North Africa. In a new study reviewing four decades of data from 169 countries, UCLA political scientist Michael Ross finds that oil money clogs the paths that have allowed women to advance in other developing societies, from India to Morocco. Typically, women enter the work force in manufacturing jobs, then independent income allows them influence in the home. They also rise in politics, as factory settings give them a place to organize and governments recognize their growing economic clout.

Not so in oil states, where petrodollars raise the value of local currency, making imports cheap and stifling local production. As oil wealth drives up wages, there's also less pressure for women to earn a second income.

Islamic countries tend to have high occupational segregation and lower rates of female education, but oil sharpens the divide. Compared with petrol states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, oil-poor nations like Syria and Djibouti have a greater share of women in the work force (30 percent vs. 5 percent) and Parliament (9 percent vs. 3 percent). The contrast becomes clearer in culturally similar neighbors with discrepant levels of oil income per capita, like Algeria ($937 per capita, with 6 percent of parliamentary seats held by women) and Tunisia ($61 and 22 percent). As Ross writes, "Petroleum perpetuates patriarchy."
—Katie Baker

The International Monetary Fund predicts that unemployment will rise sharply in the United States but decline slightly in Europe and Asia, where domestic demand and petrodollars will insulate economies from the crisis.

35.9 Estimated percentage increase in unemployment rate by 2009, United States

0Estimated percentage increase in unemployment rate by 2009, Japan and Britain

4.8 Estimated percentage decrease in unemployment rate by 2009, France

9 Estimated percentage decrease in unemployment rate by 2009, South Korea