27 Comments

Thank you for your pragmatic survival strategies for small nations. I am intrigued with your first priority of building a strong national identity. This seems to be the foundation for success of the following strategies. I like your comparison to Singapore which does a remarkable job of mandating national identity with, as you mentioned, an authoritarian style that many Westerners would find offensive. Nation building is hard, grueling work yet too critical to be left to chance.

In reading about Georgia, I compared it to Israel/Palestine, another small country attempting to survive caught between great powers of the West and East. The creation of Israel is like a poster child of what not to do to create a stable national identity. For the British to leave without mandating a cohesive national identity in the region was a recipe for disaster, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. The recent fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan are also examples of failed national identity mandates. Considering the costs of not doing the basics it is surprising that nation-building basics are not well known and given the attention it deserves.

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“Considering the costs of not doing the basics it is surprising that national-building basics are not well known and given the attention it deserves.” Exactly! My feeling is that "nation-building" is often closely associated with nationalism, which is usually not what western overlords like to hear.

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As an American, I hear a lot of talk about the sanctity of individualism and an abhorrence of laws designed to foster civic structure and common good. Liberals are deemed Communists and Marxists for any attempt to devise a social safety net or to enforce equality for all. We’re still fight in our Civil War over basics of the power of individual States in opposition to a national Federal power.

It is little wonder that the nation is polarized and violent. Ironically we have a national myth of the lone pioneer dispensing “justice” at the point of a gun or the end of a rope while wondering why an Insurrection occurred at the Capitol Building with Confederate battle flags and a noose reserved for V.P. Pence.

Confucius centuries ago realized the correlation between social and political order to violence and the chaos of warring individual warlords. It seems China has a lot to teach the world about the importance of civility and a reverence of the common good. I guess I will have to write an article about it. I would appreciate any comments on the subject of nationalism.

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Hm, human capital is not an easy problem. First, a lot of people argue that birth-IQ limits education capacity, and smart people would just pick up books anyway. I don't know whether it is true. A more serious problem is that education can so often just be a prestigious bluff without any real performance, it is really hard to tell real education from fake education: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/breaking-my-universitys-machine-learning-competition/

But I agree on focusing on English, that is relatively easy, because all that needs to be done is to get kids to the level where they understand YouTube videos and then they will just bootstrap themselves on their own. My daughter at 10 already understands MineCraft channels, from here on it will just keep sticking on.

There has also been a famous rant by a Hungarian professor, that it is completley pointless to teach engineers to program excavators in C++, it will be outdated before they graduate, the important thing is to teach math, because that will enable them to pick up later technologies. And again math is relatively easy to educate, or in other words: hard to fake. It is also cheap. North Korea is doing well on international math olympics because they just don't have the resource to teach robotics. But math is cheap.

So, yes, languages and math, the rest will happen on its own.

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100% agree

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On point #2, countries act amorally anyway. The ones that make claims on morality / virtue typically have contradictory behaviour, rendering their own claims dishonest. Therefore, perhaps the only way to act morally is to actually be honest with amorality...

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Japan's prosperity aligns well with these 3 principles:

#1. National Identity: Japan has a strong sense of cultural identity and national pride, which has been pivotal in its development.

#2. Great Powers: Japan has effectively navigated relationships with major powers leveraging alliances for economic and security benefits, especially Post-WWII Alliance with the US.

#3. Human Capital: Japan invests heavily in education and innovation, fostering a highly skilled workforce that drives its economy.

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I agree with #1 And #3, but not #2. The Cold War post WW2, unlike this time, compelled nations to take a side, and Japan decidedly took the side of US (which was the right choice then). But the case of Japan is interesting. It seems Japan is still taking a side now (with US, against China.) But if my advice holds, they shouldn't pick sides but should also adopt their own brand of bamboo diplomacy. (Also it's also arguable if Japan is a "small country". It's not. It's at least a major power or middle powers. So the question remains about whether my advice still holds for major powers)

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Yes, I often hear Japan compared to the UK, but there is quite a lot of difference in their behaviors. The UK reserved it's brutal colonial behavior for far away places after England conquering it's island chain, all it's adventures in the EU were junior partner roles. Japan went straight at it's neighbors for centuries and never mastered the important skills of setting one nation against another or playing one faction of the ruling elite against another. China mostly used soft power, ie: trade and monetary policy to get neighbors like Vietnam and Korea to adopt Confucian systems, though China wasn't above backing one group of the elite against another. The only cases I know of where Japan was even half way successful in this later point was Taiwan and to a lesser extent Korea, though in Korea's case this required a huge genocide/depopulation first.

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Singapore does the same👍

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The primary reason why no one remembers all the wars about Alsace-Lorraine anymore is because the European Union has removed most of the effects of having a border in the area, with an embrance of diversity in parallel to an acceptance of current borders by ethnic minorities.

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Whereas China and Russia refuse to turn against each other, which infuriates the Americans!🤣😂

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Meanwhile, Russia has turned on the whole of the EU who happens to be China's main customer. I wouldn't put too much stock in the China-Russia relationship. Russia is currently China's useful idiot and a loose canon on China's ship of world trade. History is full of many incidents of China and Russia clashing.

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If China really regards Russia in the way you suggest, that would be very foolish. But I suspect it correctly describes how the US views the EU.

China, please treat Russia with respect. 🙏🏼 Don’t be foolish like the Americans! 🤭

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Someone once described Russia as a “gas station with nukes.” China knows this and has been exploiting Russia’s self-inflicted wound in Ukraine saving billions on discount gas shipments. Historically China and Russia have been at each others’ throats. The reason Cina is so powerful today is that Nixon saw a chance to drive a wedge between China and the USSR by opening them up to Western trade.

China’s transactions are generally transactional. The West is China’s biggest customer and poor Russia can only bring a few commodities to the bargaining table. Without China’s support, Russia would descend into chaotic civil war leaving a real nuclear-armed mess on China’s border. Russia is a vassal to China’s economic and political might and both Putin and Xi know it.

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Thanks for your reply. Nevertheless it would be foolish for Chin to treat Russia as a tool. I can’t help it that people in the West treat each other as objects for manipulation. But the world would be a better place if we regard one another as subjects whose agency matters. The Global South (including China) do not have to follow the West. We can do better for the sake of future generations of humanity.

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It may be foolish, but it certainly would be predictable for China to exploit Russia and the entire Global South. I have great hopes for Asian influence throughout this century, but none for Russia and the course it has taken. I applaud your lofty thoughts but know it will be a slow evolution, not a revolution. Blaming the West for Russia’s aggression and economic woes is ridiculous and unproductive. I understand the “Century of Humiliation” thing, but when China starts acting like a responsible world leader rather than a victim then the world will begin to become a better place.

https://johnhardman.substack.com/p/asian-century

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I would add “get along with your neighbours”. So many parts of Asia and Africa fell into colonial rule because they let Europeans play off neighbours against each other. Even now the US is employing this “divide and rule” strategy in East Asia (and Burma), and Japan, S Korea and Taiwan each end up being de facto colonies of the US empire.

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"East Asia (and Burma), and Japan, S Korea and Taiwan each end up being de facto colonies of the US empire."

Burma? Colonies? US empire? While strategic allies, I doubt any of these nations would consider themselves "colonies."

"Since 1989, China has supplied Myanmar (Burma) with jet fighters, armored vehicles and naval vessels and has trained Burmese army, air force and naval personnel. Access to Myanmar's ports and naval installations provides China with strategic influence in the Bay of Bengal, in the wider Indian Ocean region and in Southeast Asia." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China–Myanmar_relations#:~:text=Since%201989%2C%20China%20has%20supplied,region%20and%20in%20Southeast%20Asia.

Why no discussion about China's "empire"? Probably because it all is a figment of your imagination and not based on facts.

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The points are alright. The message appears based on an assumption of a foreign audience passionate about saving their small country, who are in need of additional strategic clarity. In truth, in the case of many small countries, everyone wants to play the armchair strategist, and hardly anyone is able to engage in an actual steadfast, hard work that can pay off only eventually in the long term.

The current problems of the small countries can hardly be faced without addressing

1) The problem of there being 'no pilots in the plane.' Namely, countries across the world experienced a "hollowing out" (Alexander Mercouris) of the institutions, their emptying of expertise that has the will and ability to address the country's problems. The neoliberal ideology and its off-shoots made conscientiousness, long-term thinking, and even professionalism itself, appear antiquated and ineffective.

2) The difficulty of creating alternatives to the said institiutions: new, alternate centers of national concern, new parties and movements. This difficulty goes well beyond the difficulties faced by the generations of our forefathers. It is a problem that one might call social atomisation, though giving it a name doesn't mean that it is properly understood. If it were, some of the most successful societies in the world, like China and Singapore, would have been halting the trend of their falling birthrates, and the marriage rates in China wouldn't have halved within this past decade. If strong societies can't solve the problem of people's failing to associate for plain reproduction, what are the chances that weaker societies can produce associations for renewal at a national level?

Your article also makes the point that " It’s no easy matter for a small country to grow to its full potential in a world where rich countries already sit at the top of the food chain. Everyone will sound as if they care, but few will shed a tear for you if you fail. " Let me note that this goes counter to the oft-repeated thesis of "an interconnected world" where the failure of one country must negatively affect the others, and where "we" all share "a common destiny." ... What's the truth here?

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Useful and valid points, it's a useful primer and also a good hook to start setting down one's own thoughts. I do have two quibbles:

Irredentism isn't dead in EU: Irredentist claims are still a problem between Poland and Germany, Czech and Poland, Poland, Czech, and Ukraine, etc. These problems have been recently aggravated by maneuvers between the US, it's EU vassal state, Russia, China (yes, China, by belt and road projects, if unintended consequences). There are some still simmering, but kept out of sight in Western EU by the EU project which I'd fully expect to boil up again if the EU were to break up, which financially seems more likely recently.

Money and monetary control. Soft power is really money and monetary power. For example, the USA is able to use it's exorbitant privilege of printing free dollars to buy up influence over media, education, politicians, etc. It's those nations that have enacted monetary controls and influence pedaling regulations which have been able to better resist being turned into a tool of external powers. Georgian is trying to enact more such controls and has been under attack by USA for doing so. Huge amounts of foreign investment have poured into China, and with the exception of a brief moment, the control over the media, monetary system, education, etc, has been successful for the most part in keeping foreign influence under control. A counter example would be the USA vis Israel.

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"Soft power is really money and monetary power. For example, the USA is able to use its exorbitant privilege of printing free dollars to buy up influence over media, education, politicians, etc."

Yes, the US dollar is predominately used on the international currency exchange because it is usually quite stable. It is stable because the US does not generally print "free dollars" and avoids devaluation of the currency. Yes, the US economy is huge and powerful but the EU and China rival it in size.

What you are possibly referring to is "SWIFT" the international banking exchange system. "SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative controlled by its shareholders (certain member financial institutions), representing some firms worldwide. SWIFT is overseen by the Group of Ten countries' G-10 central banks. These countries are Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The European country of Belgium acts as the lead overseer alongside other members such as the U.S. Federal Reserve." Denying access to SWIFT is a deterrent but is determined internationally, not on the whim of the US. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/050515/how-swift-system-works.asp#toc-who-owns-the-swift-system

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“Michael Hudson’s in-depth and highly controversial study of U.S. financial diplomacy explores the faults built into the core of the World Bank and the IMF at their inception which — he argues — were intended to preserve the US’s financial hegemony.”

Controversial indeed. I contend the World Bank and the IMF were formed post WWII and during the Cold War to keep poor and developing countries from falling prey to Soviet Communism. The intention was not to preserve U.S. financial hegemony but to counter Russian Communist hegemony. They are international organizations who freely chose the U.S. dollar for its stability at the time. The Yuan, Euro, and Yen are freely used in international trade but none of these currencies want the hassle of monetary discipline required. Financial “hegemony” is a two-edged sword.

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Look forward to reading your books and journal publications.

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I will probably pass on your's...

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Well, I still want to read yours, I can always use a good laugh.

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