The World at Yale

By Fil Lekkas:

Americans take bitter pleasure in speculating about the consequences of their country’s decline. But how might the immense, energy-rich, and nuclear state of Russia respond to the wane of U.S. power? On February 21, Calhoun College, in association with the Yale International Relations Association and the Poynter Journalism Fellowship, hosted Paul Starobin, contributing editor to the National Journal and author of After America: Narratives for the Next Global Age, to discuss what Russia might be like in four potential post-American worlds.

Whatever its future context, the Russia of today—and likely of tomorrow—is in a sorry state. With a shrinking population, “abysmal healthcare”, rampant corruption, an unruly and inefficient military, and an economy dependent on resources extraction, “Russia has been a declining power for over 20 years”. The regime of Vladimir Putin—led by him as Prime Minister for 12 years, and as President for 6—has financed its doings with a vast oil revenue, a product of sustained high oil prices.

Paul Starobin gave his audience the choice of four futures; of course, given chaos theory, a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil today might completely rupture Russian policy in 2050. Or something like that. (Courtesy of Facebook).

However, as Russia has declined, so has America. This post-American world, to which Russia will have to adjust itself, will take on one of four forms: either a return to Westphalian multipolarity, a Chinese Century of Sinic preeminence, a Ancient-Greece-like world of city-states, or a homogenized universal civilization.

In the first of these, the Russian establishment would thrive. Without a global policeman to resists its moves, Russia would see few challenges to how it treated its “near-abroad”. Intriguingly, such a world could see stronger relations between Europe and Russia, as the threateningly expansionist policies of NATO—largely spearheaded by the United States—would recede along with the US.

Although it might be somewhat taken aback, Russia could manage in a Chinese Century. Having traditionally looked to Europe for cultural guidance, it would feel uncomfortable submitting to the Chinese, towards whom the Russians harbor a largely “condescending and racist attitude”. Combined with Russian fears over Chinese expansion into Siberia, this scenario would be tough to manage—but Russian energy exports to China would surely dominate the relationship.

Russia could almost be said to already inhabit the age of city states; in Starobin’s words, “everything that is happening in Russia … is happening in Moscow”. This is nothing new, as dominance by a single city—going as far back as Rus and Novgorod—is a hallmark of Russian history. In a world of city-states, Moscow’s preeminence would only be reinforced.

The final and most novel option is that of the universal civilization, which Starobin describes as a “Davos world, if you will, on steroids”, referring to the annual globalization-celebrating fête. This would be the world most foreign to Russians, as nationalism rather than cosmopolitanism colors the thinking of both the elites and the public. In a world dominated by well-enforced global standards of justice and commerce, the Russian instinct would be to resist vociferously.

How Russia engages with the world of tomorrow will have consequences not only for its own 180 million inhabitants, but also for those it might choose to trade with, imitate, or even invade. Though divining the future will never be a perfect science, it is a necessary (and fascinating) task.

Fil Lekkas ’14 is an Economics major in Calhoun college. Contact him at filippos.lekkas@yale.edu.

By Fil Lekkas:

On February 21, the Boris Kapustin, professor of Political Science at Yale, and Paul Starobin, veteran Russia correspondent and contributing editor to the National Journal, addressed a packed lecture hall in WLH. Organized by the Yale International Relations Association, their talk discussed the nature and future of the Putin regime in Russia, especially in light of the widespread protests organized in response to widely recognized electoral fraud.

Though intrigued by Russia’s current protests, Starobin emphasizes that liberalism and democracy remain very elusive. Vladimir Putin played a major role in creating the current situation, having “monopolized the assets of the country, eliminated opposition, and defanged the media”. However, a deeply ingrained tradition of “strong-man” autocracy combined with a national ethic defined by Orthodox obscurantism (the restriction of knowledge from the people), creates a public that is more willing than others to tolerate such practices. Furthermore, the disdain Russia’s educated elite and downtrodden poor feel for each other keep these two important parties tragically divided. In the light of all of the above, Starobin considers the likelihood of this “fractious” movement’s success slight. Despite that, he finds this attempt by ordinary Russians to “advance a kind of democratic possibility” (and resist their strongman) encouraging.

Boris Kapustin lectures in Harkness Hall. Kapustin and Paul Starobin split over Russia's splits, but both agreed that Putin remains unsplit. (Lekkas/TYG).

Where Starobin saw the deep forces of tradition combined with elite snobbery, Kapustin identified a deeply antidemocratic “peripheral capitalism” as the prime agent of the failure of liberalism. Unlike Starobin, he sees in Russia a liberal public waiting to break free of a “collusion of dominators” consisting of the “top brass of the police and military” and the oligarchic super-class. Intent of protecting their plunder, Russia’s elite are “foxes that are pretending to be lions”: bourgeois and decadent, but eager to appear imperialist to threaten their neighbors and beguile their people. In his view, Putin—though by no means a puppet—is entrapped by their maneuvering despite being the figurehead of “Kremlin Inc.”. As such, today’s Russia is not an “authoritarian state” run by Putin, but “to quite a large extent, a failed state”. Kapustin has little hope for the protest movement; even if the current protests were to elect a new Prime Minister, that person would be similarly “entangled in the collusion of the elites”.

However one interprets it, the situation in Russia looks grim. Deep structural factors—whether cultural, historical or economic—constitute a significant obstacle for those Russians discontent with their lot.

Fil Lekkas ’14 is an Economics major in Calhoun College. Contact him at filippos.lekkas@yale.edu.

By Matt Williams:

A signature foreign policy initiative of in the early days in President Barack Obama’s Administration was a “reset” of relations with Russia after years of cyclical mistrust and cooperation. Yet, as Thomas Graham, a Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs explains, the reset “ended at the moment when it reached its highest point” – the ratification of the New START Treaty 2010. Graham’s talk, part of a lecture series sponsored by the Jackson Institute drew a crowd of approximately 60 students, faculty, and members of the community and focused on the future of U.S.-Russian relations. As a managing director at Kissinger Associates, Inc., where he focuses on Russian and Eurasian affairs, Graham provided insight while also engaging his audience.

Graham began his talk with two related assertions. First, former and likely future President of Russia, Vladimir Putin will continue to lead Russia and second, the “reset” is dead. Much of this has to do with the fact that Mr. Putin symbolizes the negative images Americans hold in regard to Russia. With Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s current President, both President Obama and the nation as a whole could better relate to his style, ideology, and love of technology. Yet, with the imminent “re-election” of Mr. Putin—which Putin recently revealed had been planned since his first term, with no other option for Russia’s people—the U.S. shows no signs of seeking a warmer relationship and has in fact increased its rhetoric against Russia to highlight our differences.

Thomas Graham speaks in the Sterling International Room. Given his topic, the nationless map behind him is bitterly ironic, don't you think? (Williams/TYG).

Ultimately, Graham sought to explore the question of whether or not “the U.S. and Russia can sum up the imagination to launch a new constructive page beyond the reset” or will we “continue within a cycle of hope and disappointment.” Indeed, it would seem as if we are presently within the disappointment stage: discussions relating to missile defense are stagnant, U.S. has denounced human rights abuses in Russia, and Russia has countered U.S. positions on Libya and most recently, Syria. But another reset is not enough. Like a slow computer that needs a restart, the current framework of relations needs to be scrapped in favor of a relationship defined by meeting new strategic challenges and interests.

Establishing such a relationship, Graham explained, is no easy task. The United States faces a world that is more globalized than ever before, in which it is no longer a “rising” power, and in which we can’t use traditional approaches to foreign policy (such as isolationism or the single threat framework such as containment or unconditional surrender) that defined much of 20^th Century American foreign policy. At the same time, Russia, for the first time in three centuries, is not the dynamic core of Eurasia. It is surrounded by stable, more dynamic power in China and Europe. Both countries, the U.S. and Russia continue to see each other as competitors rather than partners—but in reality, Graham notes, “neither poses a strategic threat to the other.”

Still, audience members left the talk without much hope for the warming of relations. A new constructive phase is unlikely to materialize under a renewed Putin administration in Russia and if both parties continue to view the relationship without considering both short-term and long-term goals. History and petty political differences will continue to prevent us from acting in a cooperative manner, even though this would be to both our interests—as in so much of world policy today.

Matt Williams ’13 is a Global Affairs major in Berkeley College. Contact him at matthew.williams@yale.edu.

By Ifeanyu Awachie:

The girl I am to interview sits down across from me – sharp and stylish in gold earrings, a bright teal sweater, and shining black leather boots. Her name is Marina Filiba, and she’s been wearing the same t-shirt for eight months.

Marina is participating in the I Am Challenge, a youth-led initiative that asks young people to commit to wearing a t-shirt with their name on it for 365 days while raising funds for causes they care about. Marina gave a talk on the I Am Challenge at the TEDx Yale conference this February 4^th. When I ask Marina how she found such an exclusive opportunity, I’m surprised to hear that she didn’t start out wanting to give a talk. A self-proclaimed “ TED junkie,” Marina was thrilled to hear that TED was happening at Yale and approached   TEDx Yale curator Diana Enriquez Schneider about helping to organize the event. By then, TEDx Yale had enough organizers, but Diana suggested Marina sign up for the student speaker competition. Though the idea made her nervous, Marina auditioned, became one of the most popular candidates in the online competition and won a spot on the stage.

Marina is currently the international director of the I Am Challenge, overseeing two to three regional directors of Challenge projects around the world. While the projects change depending on the region, the t-shirt remains the same in each country, establishing a connection between participants regardless of cultural separation. To Marina, that makes the world seem a little smaller—and this feeling is one of her favorite aspects of the Challenge.

Dozens of young people around the world have taken up the Challenge; those with long names might have some trouble, though. (Courtesy I Am Challenge).

In the beginning, the I Am Challenge consisted of Dan and Ben— two friends in New Zealand who dared each other to wear the same t-shirt for one year. Co-founder Dan Cullum says that he and Ben realized they “weren’t going to be able to get through the whole year if they didn’t have a cause.” So they contacted the New Zealand branch of World Vision, a humanitarian organization, and began a project to raise funds to build wells in water-deficient Tanzania. Soon after that, their friends asked to get involved, and the larger organization was born.

Since 2008, the Challenge has spread to 11 countries around the world, and over 300 young people have participated. Today, groups have adopted the challenge in Hong Kong, Marina’s homeland of Argentina, and my hometown of Atlanta. In New Zealand, a seasoned group of Challengers is working to sponsor arts programs in Christchurch, a city leveled by an earthquake last February. In 2012, they will launch a project in which each Challenger is paired with a child in a developing Asian country with the goal of raising $550 for that child. After completing the year-long Challenge, each participant gets a second assignment—to find someone to take up the Challenge and continue raising money for the same child.

In Kuwait, a team led by a regional director named Hiba is focusing its efforts on environmentalism. They plant trees and run a market where they sell goods made with recycled materials (like purses crafted from grocery bags). Marina has never met Hiba in person but says that she is “amazing.” Rather than letting their project fizzle out, Hiba’s team already has new leadership lined up for when she leaves for university. Marina says the group in Kuwait exemplifies the kind of commitment the Challenge aims to foster.

When I ask Marina whether she knows Dan and Ben personally, she tells me that Dan is her boyfriend—a detail they keep under wraps. The two met in London two years after Dan star TED the Challenge and have been dating ever since. For two years, Marina has never seen Dan without his “I Am” shirt. “I don’t know what my boyfriend looks like without that shirt,” she says, we both laugh. Dan never pressured Marina to take up the Challenge, but Marina tells me about times on her visits to New Zealand when she and Dan would be shopping at the grocery store, and Marina would see people wearing the t-shirt who didn’t even know Dan. It was this evidence of the Challenge’s impact that made Marina want to get involved.

Marina outlines the Challenge’s objectives for me: one is “getting rid of excuses”—the Challenge aims to refute the stereotype that today’s youth are commitment-challenged. Through “I Am”, kids our age show the world that we are passionate, that we can devote our lives to something. Marina and the other Challenge directors don’t try to sell their mission as an easy one—they know every participant will face days when they wake up, go to their closets, and regret their decision to wear the t-shirt. But as Marina said in her talk, “When you think back on this year, you’re not going to remember moments of hesitation, but rather the 365 days of genuine commitment to a cause much greater than one’s wardrobe.”

Another of the Challenge’s objectives is fundraising. As Dan says, the t-shirt is just a tool that Challengers can use to raise money for and awareness about causes they support. Marina points out that sponsorship is a great way for people to get involved in the Challenge if the t-shirt isn’t their style. She says, “My sister told me, ‘I’m past the age where I can wear some t-shirt and be an activist and all that, but I want to support you.’ So she became a sponsor and gives $25 a month to the Challenge.”

The Challenge’s third objective addresses fashion. This was an especially interesting part of Marina’s I Am Challenge story. She hails from Buenos Aires, Argentina, one of the fashion capitals of the world. When she started the Challenge, friends and family questioned her. “Are you crazy?” her dad asked when she talked about donning the t-shirt just before heading to Yale. Marina was unruffled: she saw the beginning of the school year as a great time to introduce her new classmates to the Challenge. She got some positive attention for it at the Orientation for International Students (OIS): at the end of the program, she received the award for “Best Wardrobe.”

I had to ask: doesn’t it get hard, wearing the same shirt every day? Marina answered that the longer she does the Challenge, the less she thinks about what she wears. She has become convinced that “[her] time is better spent in other ways.” She tells me that the Challenge pushes you toward this kind of self-discovery. She regularly hears stories of people who finished their long year of fashion suppression to find that they couldn’t return to life without the t-shirt. They figured if they were going to put effort into the clothes they wore, they might as well do it for a cause.

The Challenge has renewed Marina’s faith in today’s youth. Each week, she gets emails from people wanting to take up the Challenge in their communities. In New Zealand, an entire infrastructure—shirts, fundraising tools, moral support—already exists for those who wish to begin, but building project groups from scratch in other places leads to trouble with unwieldy logistics and heavy bureaucracy. But despite it all, they follow through with the Challenge. Seeing that, Marina says, is when she is most impressed.

So, are you thinking of signing up for the Challenge yet? If you are, you’ll be glad to hear that, along with a group of four fellow Yale freshmen, Marina is bringing the I Am Challenge to campus. The group includes Luis Schachner, Marina’s suitemate Nancy Xia, fellow international student Christian Rhally, and Monica Hannush, who met Marina immediately after her talk to learn how to get involved. The group is still deciding which cause they’ll adopt; one option they’re considering is fundraising for and volunteering with local tutoring programs. Marina stresses that they are open to suggestions from anyone for projects to support.

Marina is certain that even after she’s done wearing the t-shirt, the Challenge will still be part of her life—especially since she’s dating Dan. Service was a big part of her life before the Challenge and will be after it. She may even be starting an initiative of her own next year. Her studies at Yale have given her new ways of thinking about her work: last semester, Gateway to Global Affairs prodded her to examine the role of women in international activism. As for a major, she’s thinking Psychology or Political Science, or both.

Before concluding our interview, I ask Marina why her t-shirt says “I Am Maru” instead of “I Am Marina.” She explains that in Argentina, everyone goes by nicknames—if her mom calls her Marina, she probably hasn’t done her laundry. The “I Am” t-shirt allows one to present herself as she wants to be perceived, and Marina has always thought of herself as “Maru”—she’s still getting used to being called Marina in college. As the interview wraps up, another function of the shirt comes to mind—it’s a surefire way to bring about meaningful conversations with strangers and reporters alike.

Ifeanyu Awachie ’14 is in Timothy Dwight college. Contact her at ifeanyu.awachie@yale.edu.

By Ifeanyi Awachie:

Pierson College and the South Asian Film Society (SAFS) invited Bollywood film critic Rachel Saltz to hold a Master’s Tea this Wednesday, February 15^th. A New York Times editor and writer, Saltz got to watch the biggest film industry in the world found a home in New York as the city’s Indian population shot up, Hindi video stores filled the streets, and Times Square aired its first Bollywood films. The films Saltz watched in the 80s—three hour-long movie-musicals with “strange” storytelling and low production value—are the lovable grandfathers to today’s hip, urban sons, flicks that feature sleek cinematography, clear plots, even animation—and much less of Bollywood’s trademark singing and dancing. Soundtracks like that of 2007’s “Om Shanti Om” even satirize traditional Bollywood music.

Rachel Saltz shows off a scene from modern Bollywood hit "Delhi Belly". (Awachie/TYG).

In the age of YouTube and Netflix, anyone in India–like the 15 members of Saltz’s audience did Wednesday–can go online and watch videos from any corner of the world. As a result, today’s Indian movies have a more global perspective than ever before. Contemporary Indian filmmakers aim to tell stories that Bollywood has never told. According to Saltz, traditional Hindi movies took a “masala” approach to filmmaking, weaving everything from tragedy to comedy to action to romance to song and dance into one elaborate plotline. Modern movies are more streamlined—they might focus on two of these themes to tell a much shorter story.

They also might add swearing and sex, two things you would never have seen in Hindi movies 20 years ago. The modern films are also more likely to be shot outside of India. Those shot in the country take place in the big cities—Delhi or Bombay—and show “a more antiseptic version of the India you see if you go.”  To put it simply, these films feel more and more like American films. And as SAFS Event Coordinator Shunori Ramanathan attested, Indian audiences are loving them.

From artsy movies like “Dil Chahta Hai” to gritty political films like “Rang De Basanti,” Bollywood movies are building a legacy of one country’s rich and ever-developing culture. “Movies are alive in India in a way they aren’t here,” Saltz said. Hollywood, take notes.

Ifeanyi Awachie ’14 is a student in Timothy Dwight College. Contact her at ifeanyi.awachie@yale.edu.

By Amal Ga’al:

On Monday afternoon in Sterling Library’s International Room, Michele Malvesti, Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute, led a rapt audience into her past. Today, she is a Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute and Vice President of the Intelligence, Security, and Reconnaissance Group at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)—a top defense contractor—but it hasn’t been long since she was an undergraduate trying to figure out what to do with her life. En route to her current status, she held several positions from terrorist analyst at the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to Senior Director for Combatting Terrorism Strategy at the White House. Malvesti credits her impressive career to a mixture of hard work, luck and effective networking.

Michele Malvesti spoke in Sterling Library on how she kept smiling even as she climbed the selective rungs of the national-security career ladder. (Jackson Institute).

Many of the students attending the event wanted to gain insight into the mysterious field of intelligence, and Malvesti didn’t disappoint. She walked the audience through her academic and work experience – starting with her days at the University of North Carolina as an undergraduate student in Political Science. Like many Yale students, she sampled a variety of disciplines before choosing her major, a decision guided by reason more than undying passion – she didn’t want to miss out on a discipline she might end up loving. Finally, an internship with the State Department as a junior not only informed her interest in security, but allowed her to get her foot in the door of the office she’d—metaphorically—someday inhabit.

Throughout her talk, Malvesti stressed the importance that mentors played in developing her career. Her supervisor at the State Department internship and her family contacts along with her own persistence secured her first job as a Middle East terrorist analyst for JSOC. In the interest of being transparent, Malvesti told the audience that she comes from a military family and that her background did give her some leverage in finding her first job straight out of college. However, her family contacts alone did not lead to her employment. Strong performance at the State Department and relationship she cultivated with her employer were vital elements of her success.

Whether students are interested in joining what the intelligence community or find U.S. counter-terrorism strategy completely off-putting, Malvesti’s advice took some of the mystery out of choosing a field of interest and advancing to a high-level career within it. She advocates for keeping one’s options open and growing one’s employment repertoire in order to learn new skillsets. As we all know, there is no easy route to success, but Malvesti’s experience should give students an idea of where to direct their efforts.

Amal Ga’al ’14 is in Saybrook College. Contact her at amal.gaal@yale.edu.

By Marissa Dearing:

On Thursday afternoon, Elaine Pearson, Deputy Director of the Asian Division of Human Rights Watch, spoke to a group of faculty and students at the Law School.  In her talk, entitled “Between Rhetoric and Rights: Political Prisoners, Ethnic Conflict and Reform in Burma,” Pearson outlined recent developments regarding the state of human rights in Burma as well as government reforms.

The greatest changes Pearson has witnessed in Burma over the last year and a half have been in media and political freedoms and the mass release of political prisoners.  The government-controlled Myanmar Times, for example, now features stories unimaginable a year ago (e.g., covering Aung San Suu Kyi, Human Rights Watch, and Burma’s ethnic conflict).  The Burmese parliament has also taken steps toward democratization, passing laws aimed at guaranteeing basic human rights, such the right to unionize, strike, and assemble peacefully.

Elaine Pearson's Law School discussion outlined the good, bad and ugly elements of recent events in Myanmar. (Dearing/TYG).

Pearson emphasized that she considers these changes far from durable and permanent reforms.  Dependent on the “good will” of a handful of key political leaders, democratizing laws remain vulnerable to reversal until they are “enshrined in law.”  Criticism of the government remains taboo and censorship persists.  Political prisoners have been released, but many have faced “a revolving door” of release and imprisonment.  Furthermore, the parliament has neglected to repeal old laws responsible for these sentences and failed to verify that new laws meet international standards.  Finally, the Burmese human rights commission lacks the independence and resources to effectively check the government.  Pearson added that the ethnic situation is actually worsening.  What’s needed is “some sort of international independent mechanism” to monitor and report current (and past) abuses.

Pressed about the organization’s continued emphasis on political prisoners in the face of the mounting crisis of the internally displaced and victims of wartime atrocities, Pearson replied that it was important for HWR to focus on advocacy for freedom of expression because those now imprisoned are the ones who can effectively challenge the government, run and organize constructive political resistance, and perhaps guide the process of national democratization.

The real test will come in 2015, according to Pearson, when the ruling junta will be forced to recognize the possibility that Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy could sweep them from power.

Marissa Dearing ’14 is in Berkeley College. Contact her at marissa.dearing@yale.edu.

By Janine Chow:

Today, Pierson College welcomed back Sarah Stillman, investigative reporter and Piersonite from the class of 2006. Before a flickering fire in the cramped comfort of the master’s house, Master G glowed as he introduced his former student.

“Sarah is a person who searches for truth.”

Stillman’s feature story in the New Yorker about human trafficking in American military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan has received much acclaim and has been named a finalist for the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting. But at the Master’s Tea today Stillman told of her own journey as a Yalie venturing out to discover and express truths about the world.

Sarah Stillman speaks at Pierson College Master's House. (Chow/TYG)

Stillman began her story in the Pierson-Davenport gym, running on the elliptical, watching a muted Fox News. The news ticker reported that a body discovered in a lake “was not” the body of a girl reported missing some weeks before. The unanswered question: who was that body?

Stillman decided to investigate. A call to the police revealed the woman’s name: Donna Cook, a known prostitute. Stillman ultimately ended up visiting the town where the body had been found and tracking Cook’s family to Ohio, with whom she visited and spent time. Her senior essay discussed the sensationalism surrounding “missing white girl syndrome.”

“I try to look at the story at the margins,” said Stillman.

And that aim has carried her into her career as a freelance investigative reporter.

After graduating Yale, going to Oxford for graduate school, and obtaining a fellowship from NYU, Stillman travelled to U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan with appropriately named Truthdig. The first sights that met her eyes, she said, were “a Pizza Hut, a Burger King, and a beauty salon.”

It was in the beauty salon, over a manicure, that she began uncovering stories. Here was a Fijian woman, Stillman found, one of many who had been promised jobs in a luxurious hotel in Dubai but who instead found themselves in Iraq giving soldiers manicures in U.S. bases. Here were women who had been sexually assaulted with no means to attain recompense through thick layers of bureaucracy, what Stillman called “legal black holes.”

It was such stories as these that Stillman brought to light in her journalism.

When asked why she had chosen to go to Iraq, Stillman explained that she wanted to do something “meaningful.” After having experienced on-campus Yale efforts in protest of the war in Iraq, she wanted to gain a personal, more real understanding of the war.

“I wanted to find a way to take these abstract horrors from my head—something I could read about—and make them into something I could engage in kinetically.”

With regards to investigative journalism, she said clearly, “I wanted to listen to people in an honest way.”

Near the end of the master’s tea, discussion turned to the power of journalism to effect real change. “It’s difficult,” said Stillman, because hearing people’s terrible stories and writing about them won’t “immediately change” or improve these people’s situations. She added that at least three people who she had talked to during her investigations contact her every day asking for help.  Stillman does what she can.

Stillman’s story is a hopeful one for any Yalie aspiring to the field of journalism. And here’s the kicker, she said as the master’s tea drew to a close: “I never wrote for the YDN.”

Janine Chow is a freshman in Jonathan Edwards College. Contact her at janine.chow@yale.edu.

By Ike Swetlitz:

Christiane Amanpour, a distinguished journalist and media personality, engaged in a conversation with The Politic, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization Ernest Zedillo, and other members of the Yale community on Monday afternoon. She touched on a variety of topics, but particularly intriguing was her indictment of American foreign policy for being superficial.

Christiane Amanpour is the Global Affairs Anchor of ABC News, as well as an anchor and Chief International Correspondent at CNN. (Courtesy of The Politic)

Amanpour said that the people of the United States are not invested enough in their country’s foreign policy, that we are “shielded” from what it means to be great power. She blames two institutions for our lack of political literacy: the media and the education system. The media fails because it does not have a plan for informing us about the world, and education fails because we do not sufficiently learn about the world – in the areas of language, geography, or history, for example – until we go to college. Because of this, we don’t sufficiently pressure our politicians to make long-term decisions that prioritize the gravity of international situations over the politicians’ chances for re-election. And our representatives know about our lack of investment, so they can get away with short-term politics over long-term problem solving.

Such long-term problem solving, to Amanpour, necessitates intervention. However, the nature of our political system lends itself to impatience and intervention that isn’t concerned with what happens after we withdraw from a country. She suggests that, rather than ceasing our meddling, we should be more concerned with its long-term effects.

But let us follow through the possible consequences of such a view. Consider a political system so longsighted that it attempts to engineer international relations to suit its interests. It cares about the gravity of such problems and tries to solve them. It creates long-term policies designed to create a stable world that is friendly to it. This case sounds much more like an imperialism with which I hope most Americans are not comfortable.

America’s foreign policy doesn’t need to fall into the latter category in order to be genuine. Education through schools and the media can help create a politically literate society. But we should not so quickly condemn America to the role of the world’s policeman without, as Amanpour suggested, considering the long-term effects of such a career choice.

Ike Swetlitz ’15 is in Silliman College. Contact him at isaac.swetlitz@yale.edu.

By Rachel Brown:

Although slight in physical stature (measuring only five feet tall), Deng Xiaoping exerted an outsize influence on China’s recent history and development. Although he never held the highest titles in Chinese politics, Deng served as China’s primary leader from 1978 until 1992 and guided the country through the turbulent era following the death of Mao Zedong.

On February 6, in a talk entitled “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China,” Ezra Vogel, author of a recent biography of Deng and the Henry Ford II Research Professor Emeritus in the Social Sciences at Harvard University, addressed the crucial role that Deng played in opening China to the rest of the world. The span of Deng’s life is far too broad to cover in a 90-minute lecture (Vogel’s book is more than 900 pages), so Vogel focused on Deng’s international travels and his contacts with foreign leaders.

Deng Xiaoping watches China from one of the billboards his policies enabled. (sstmmd99/Flickr Creative Commons).

Deng’s international exposure began at age 16, when he traveled to France as part of a work-study program. During this time he worked in multiple low-paying jobs and became involved in political activities, including joining the Chinese Communist Youth League in Europe, of which future Chinese leader Zhou Enlai was also a member. Vogel began his talk by discussing the impact of Deng’s time in France, and returned to this topic towards the end of the lecture before noting that most members of the current Chinese leadership do not have comparable experience living abroad.

Deng repeatedly played crucial roles in Chinese foreign policy throughout his complex political career (he was purged from the Communist Party multiple times due to conflicts with Mao). In particular, Vogel noted Deng’s 1963 trip to Moscow, when he was dispatched by Mao to effectively sever Sino-Soviet relations, and Deng’s 1974 speech at the United Nations, one of the first presentations of China as a leader of third-world nations.

According to Vogel, as Deng began to reform China after Mao’s death, he placed a particular emphasis on improving education, science, and technology. Deng recognized that foreign nations, particularly the U.S. and Japan, could provide crucial knowledge in these fields and worked to repair relations with these countries. For example, during a 1978 trip to Japan, Deng toured a steel plant that became a model for China’s first modern steel factory. Following the normalization of U.S.-China diplomatic relations in 1979, Deng also traveled to the U.S. where, among other excursions, he visited the White House and a Ford factory. He also attended a rodeo in Texas, where an iconic photograph of Deng sporting a cowboy hat was taken. Vogel explained that this image captured both the American notion that Deng, while a Communist, was a friendly leader the U.S. could work with, and showed Chinese citizens that it was acceptable to enjoy aspects of American culture.

Throughout his talk, Vogel emphasized Deng’s remarkably good relationships with a diverse array of foreign leaders, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore. While he offered some criticism of Deng’s handling of events surrounding the Tiananmen Square incident, Vogel’s depiction of Deng was largely positive and in response to a question about whether great men really shape historical events, Vogel answered that “in this case, it was a case where a man made history.”

Rachel Brown ’15 is a freshman in Saybrook College. Contact her at rachel.brown@yale.edu.