From 4faa75ad8c6c978669610cbe022fc1054ef38950 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2022 04:11:39 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 01/12] 0x12 Archive past _heros posts in _0x11 --- ...lvinFung-a1_l-unfinished-nation-with-asymmetrical-neighbors.md | 0 ...2-05-06-InitiumMedia-a1_c-shanghai-lockdown-memorial-online.md | 0 ...-05-08-Philosophia-a1_r-unfinished-may-in-shanghai-lockdown.md | 0 3 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) rename _collections/_heros/{ => _0x11}/2022-05-01-KalvinFung-a1_l-unfinished-nation-with-asymmetrical-neighbors.md (100%) rename _collections/_heros/{ => _0x11}/2022-05-06-InitiumMedia-a1_c-shanghai-lockdown-memorial-online.md (100%) rename _collections/_heros/{ => _0x11}/2022-05-08-Philosophia-a1_r-unfinished-may-in-shanghai-lockdown.md (100%) diff --git a/_collections/_heros/2022-05-01-KalvinFung-a1_l-unfinished-nation-with-asymmetrical-neighbors.md 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_collections/_heros/2022-05-08-Philosophia-a1_r-unfinished-may-in-shanghai-lockdown.md rename to _collections/_heros/_0x11/2022-05-08-Philosophia-a1_r-unfinished-may-in-shanghai-lockdown.md From e6b042bf07b34429b7fca855dfcd96d5cf6280b8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2022 04:12:39 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 02/12] 0x12 Init commit _heros posts --- ...Comit\303\251Invisible-a1_l-maintenant.md" | 262 ++++++++++++++++++ ...fTheWoods-a1_c-the-uses-of-the-disaster.md | 94 +++++++ ...oAgamben-a1_r-sul-diritto-di-resistenza.md | 40 +++ 3 files changed, 396 insertions(+) create mode 100644 "_collections/_heros/2017-04-19-Comit\303\251Invisible-a1_l-maintenant.md" create mode 100644 _collections/_heros/2018-10-22-OutOfTheWoods-a1_c-the-uses-of-the-disaster.md create mode 100644 _collections/_heros/2022-06-02-GiorgioAgamben-a1_r-sul-diritto-di-resistenza.md diff --git "a/_collections/_heros/2017-04-19-Comit\303\251Invisible-a1_l-maintenant.md" "b/_collections/_heros/2017-04-19-Comit\303\251Invisible-a1_l-maintenant.md" new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c9b35595 --- /dev/null +++ "b/_collections/_heros/2017-04-19-Comit\303\251Invisible-a1_l-maintenant.md" @@ -0,0 +1,262 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "现在" +author: "Comité Invisible" +date: 2017-04-19 12:00:00 +0800 +image: https://i.imgur.com/QtPndmD.jpg +#image_caption: "" +#description: "" +position: left +--- + +#### 明天被取消了 + +一场革命的所有理由都在这里。什么都不缺。 + + + +政治性的毁灭、权力的傲慢、统治的虚伪、富人的粗鄙、工业的大灾难、迎头而来的悲惨遭遇、赤裸裸的剥削、生态的启示——我们失去了一切，但没人把这些告诉我们。“气候播报：2016年打破了高温记录，”《世界报》每年此时都像这样宣布。所有这样的理由都集齐了，但这些不是革命的理由，而是尸体的理由。屏幕前的尸体的理由。 + +人们能看到，一场总统选举像一块石头那样沉了。“法国政治生活最重要的时刻”被改造成一个巨大的垃圾堆，被改编成不能再动人心魄的连续剧。凭一个人的想象力已经无法触及这坨屎的全貌了，如此令人头晕目眩又离奇曲折的情节，如此严酷的考验以及如此全方位的奇耻大辱。政治的景观以政治的腐烂分解为生。怀疑，它美美地与这片肮脏不堪的风景携手并进。民族阵线，即对政治的政治否定，即在政治层面上对政治的否定，占据了这面狼烟四起、化为废墟的棋盘的“中心”。人类乘客像脑残粉观赏一场顶级走秀那样入迷地看着他们的船只失事。他们如此神魂颠倒，以至于对海水没过大腿这件事没有丝毫知觉。最后，整艘船不免会沦为大海上的一个小浮标。非得等到抓住什么都当成救生圈，否则他们就不会知道什么叫溺水。 + +这个世界再也不需要解释、批判和谴责了。我们生活在评论和对评论的评论的雾霾中，生活在批判和对批判的批判的再批判的包围中，生活在不触及任何东西的揭露中，毋宁说，生活在关于揭露的揭露中。这片迷雾夺走了我们在这个世界上的所有机会。唐纳德·特朗普没有什么可批评的。什么是最糟糕不堪的？那就把他说到最糟糕不堪。可他早就被最糟糕不堪吸收、包含了。他本人体现了这个。他表现为一条集所有抱怨于一身的黄金链条，他作为抱怨之链而存在；而这些抱怨又是反对他的人们曾向他发出的抱怨。他是他自己的漫画，而他为此感到自豪。《南方公园》的创作者终于认输了：“这也太难办了，讽刺都在现实中实现了。”我们真的尝试笑对发生着的一切，但我们掌握不好这个节奏。因为正在发生的事情比能够想象到的事情滑稽得多的多。所以我们决定任它去，就让他们搞他们的喜剧，而我们要去做自己的事。我们生活在一个建立于任何理由之外的世界。在这里，批评不起作用，正如讽刺作品也不起作用。两者都不会产生任何影响。让人去谴责歧视、压迫和不公并期待从中收获果实吧，这是让时代精神失常。认为可以通过提升道德水平来让事情变得愉快的左翼分子犯了可悲的错误。他们可以在公众面前撕开他们的伤疤、敞亮他们的冤情，寄希望于如其所愿地唤起同情心；然而他们只会唤起蔑视，激发人对他们的摧毁欲。“受害者”在世界各地都已成为一种侮辱。 + +语言的功用是社会性的。没有人再相信它。它的兑换率下跌为零。这是一场言语的通货膨胀，是闲谈的经济泡沫。一切社会性的都是虚假的，谁都懂。不是政府当局，不是时事评论员也不是公众人物在上传下达地“执行沟通”，而是社会将每个人都变成自我营销去实践一种“公共关系的艺术”。语言已经成为一种工具，它不再是它自己的现实，而是一种在现实中运作的工具，它是根据或多或少的有意识的策略来获得其效果的。文字不再做交流之用，除非是为了歪曲事物。一切都在虚假的旗帜下航行。这已经成为普遍的篡夺。任何矛盾都不足以让人们退缩。紧急状态就是法制。战争在和平的名义下进行。而老板们则负责“提供工作”。监控摄像头是“视频-保护装置”。侩子手抱怨他们受迫害。叛徒公开表明他们的忠诚贞烈。平庸之辈到处被引为典范。一方面，这就是实践；另一方面，话语，作为纠缠不休的对位法，对所有观念进行曲解，对他人也对自己行骗。从所有方面看，这都只是一个维护或扩大个人利益的问题。与此同时伴随着的是，世界充满了沉默的人。我们已经看到，某些人的这种特定类型的疯狂行为的发作，在时间间隔上一次比一次短。这有什么好惊讶的？说什么“年轻人不相信任何东西。”还不如说直接说“该死！他们再也不吞咽我们的谎话了。”说什么“年轻人是虚无的”还不如说“主啊，就算让这种状况持续下去，他们这伙人都会在世界的崩溃中坚持到底的。” + +语言的交换价值降为零了，但人们继续写作。这是因为语言还有另一个用途。一个人谈论生活，另一个人就从生活的立场出发谈论生活。一个人谈论冲突，另一个人就从冲突当中谈论冲突。这不是同一种语言，也不是同一种风格。更加不是同一种真理观。有一种“说真话的勇气”，它躲藏在客观中立的“事实”的庇护之后说话。也不乏一种与之不同的考虑：发言不承担任何责任，它不站自己的立场，也不拿自己的地位冒险，它不付任何代价，同时也微不足道。对金融资本的整个批判，无异于挨着疲沓的银行的窗口贴一个标志性的苍白剪影，“看这里，这里有你的保险费！”。这不是“年轻人”出于无知，作为说唱歌手为他们的政治口号适当性地冲击一下边线，它是所谓哲学家的座右铭。而且，出于正派的作风，他们并不抢占打算撤出一切的好战分子的这句呼声，“我们一寸都不退让”。因为后者在谈论世界，而前者不过是在世界内部谈论。 + +真正的谎言不是对别人撒的谎，而是对自己撒的谎。相比而言，第一种谎言比第二种谎言还要好一些。最大的谎言是拒绝去看已经看到的事，在看到的时候拒绝看到。真正的谎言是所有的屏幕、所有的图像、所有的解释，它们允许一个人站在自己和世界之间。这就是一个人如何习惯性抛弃自己的感知的。以至于在不成为真理的问题的地方，那它就不构成任何问题了。什么都不会有了。除了一座地球精神病院。真理不是一种需要为之奋斗的东西，而是与在那里的东西之间的一种坦诚的关系。只有对那些已经将生活视为问题的人而言，它才是个“问题”。它不存在于一个人的表态声明中，它是在这个世界上的一种存在的方式。它不能被持有，因此，也无法被积累。从一个瞬间到另一个瞬间，它将自己显现在一个情境当中。谁能感觉到一种虚假的存在、一种代理人角色的毒性，或者一种运行在图像的戏剧之下的势力，谁就释放了那些被抓住的东西。真理对人和世界而言是完整的在场，是与现实的重要联系，是对存在着的事物的敏锐知觉。在一个人人都玩世不恭的世界上，人人都粉墨登场的世界上，在更多交流的都等同于什么都没说的世界上，“真理”这个词就不过是个寒颤，或者是对令人愤怒之事的致意，是一阵窃笑。这个时代的所有善人都如此依赖于谎言的拐杖，再也离不开这根拐杖。因此，“宣扬真理”一点都不值得推荐。对那些连一丁点真话都不能接受的人谈论真相，那只会将你暴露在他们的报复之下。在下文中，我们不主张在任何情况下传达“真相”，而是要谈论我们对这个世界的知觉、我们关心什么，以及什么使我们保持清醒和活跃。这种定见必须被拒绝：真理是多重的，但假象只有一个，因为它是对浮出表面的最微小的真理的普遍反对。 + +一整年我们都被关于包围着我们的成千上百的威胁的词语所袭击——恐怖主义、移民、内部干扰、法西斯主义、失业率。以这种方式，雷打不动的资本主义例行程序就得以永存了——一千次失败的阴谋和一百次被避免的灾难构成了它的背景。日复一日，他们努力地将焦虑移植到我们头上，通过武装巡逻、突发新闻、政府公告。人们不得不相信暴动，借由那种据说能将我们从中解放出来的模棱两可的价值观。这是那些被称之为“示威游行”的送葬队伍的爱好者、所有那些从一小瓶脂粉中尝出被击溃的好时光的苦涩的人、所有那些在爬回他们的车子之前都夸张地叫喊着“否则就爆炸吧”的人所无法理解的。在街头对抗中，敌人总是有一张轮廓鲜明的脸，不管他是穿着便服还是穿着盔甲。他的方法都是人尽皆知的。他有一个名字，还要履行一种职责。事实上，他是一个“公务员”，正如他所明确宣布的那样。至于朋友，他们也有自己的姿势、活动，以及一种可以辨认的面貌。在暴动中，他对自己和他人而言都有一种强烈的在场感，他身上有一股共和国无论如何都不能产生的清晰可感的友爱。有组织的暴动能够产生这个社会所不能创造的东西：充满活力和牢不可破的纽带。那些仅仅热衷于暴力形象的人错过了每个在一起进行冒险，当面暴揍、打击警察的机会。一个人永远不会从第一次那个无可改变的暴动中走出来。观众不想看到的正是这种暴动的积极性，它对他们的惊吓远比破坏、指控和反指控要深。在暴动中，有友谊的诞生和肯定，有一种对世界结构的聚焦，清晰的行动的可能性，以及近在手边的斗争方法。局面具有一种形式，而人们能够在其中行动。这种风险是极度明确的，而不像当局喜欢悬在我们头上的那种模糊的“风险”。作为一个真理的时刻，暴动是值得期待的。这是混乱的暂时中止。在催泪瓦斯中，事物出奇的清晰，真实的东西是易读的。很难不看到谁是谁。提到1927年7月15日的维也纳起义，埃利亚斯·卡内蒂说：“这是我所经历过的最接近革命的事件。几百页都不足以描述我看到的一切。”他从那一天的经历为他的名著《群众与权力》汲取了灵感。暴动是由将其变得可见的能力所塑造的。 + +在皇家海军中流传着一句古老的祝酒辞：“迷惑我们的敌人！”混乱具有战略价值。这不是偶然现象。它驱散了目的，防止它们再次聚合。当战斗还没有发生并有可能永远不会发生时，它有一种失败的灰色味道。法国最近的袭击都跟随一辆火车的混乱，这恰好激发了政府对于他们的更多讨论。那些向袭击者索赔的人，以及那些对向袭击索赔的人宣战的人，都对我们的混乱感兴趣。至于那些发动袭击者本人，他们经常都是些孩子——困惑的孩子。 + +这个说了太多的世界实际上并没有什么要说的：它缺乏积极的陈述。也许它相信能通过这种不断说话的方式使自己免受攻击。然而，它最想要的是，将自己置于任何严肃的指认的宽容怜悯之下。一个建立在如此之多的悲伤之上的世界，理应得到生命的肯定，以毁坏、破坏、暴乱的形式。他们总是试图把我们描述成绝望的个体，因为我们行动、我们建设、我们不抱希望地攻击。希望。现在，总算至少还有这样一种疾病不是由这个文明传染给我们的。我们对这一切并不绝望。从来就没有人展现出过希望。希望是等待的一种形式，处于拒绝看到存在的东西，处于害怕猛然地打破现状，出于对生活的恐惧。希望就是预先声明对可期待的事情不做任何坚持。这是为了使自己摆脱过程，避免与结果产生任何关系。这是想在不采取任何实现手段的前提下让事情有所改观。这是一种怯懦。一个人必须知道该承诺什么，然后作出承诺。即便这意味着树立敌人。也有可能是结交朋友。一旦我们知道我们想要什么，我们便不再孤独，世界便重新充实起来。到处都是联盟、亲密性和友谊之可能的无限的梯度。浮夸的人什么都不能接近。希望，那种日复一日传达给我们的，非常微小但持续不断地朝向明天的动力，是维护秩序的最佳代理。我们每天都会听到一些我们对其无能为力，但是明天肯定会有解决它们的办法的问题。社会组织在每个人身身上培育起这种沉重的无力感，这是一种大规模的等待教育学。这是一种对现在的逃避。但是，除了现在，从来都没有，将来也永远不会有什么。即使过去能够作用于现在，这也是因为它自身除了现在之外便什么都不是。就像我们的明天一样。理解过去的事情的唯一办法是将其当作一个现在来理解。这是为了感受昨天生活过的人所呼吸的那种微弱的空气。如果我们现在如此倾向于逃离，那是因为现在是做决定的时候了。它是“我拒绝”或“我接受”发生的场所，是“我会把它传递出去”或“我会与之同行”的场所。它是紧跟着知觉的逻辑行为的场所。它是现在，因此就是存在的场所。它是一个无穷地更新的时刻，是采取立场的时刻。以长远的眼光来思考总是更加舒畅。“最后”，事情就会改变；“最后”，人将会改变。与此同时，让我们继续走下去，让我们保持我们现在的样子。以未来为条件而思考的人无法在当下行动。这不是寻求变革，而是回避变革。当前的灾难就像是所有过去的可怕的延期积累，在一组连续的时间幻灯片上对每一天每一刻进行补充。但是生活总是由现在，现在，以及现在决定。 + +所有人都能看到，这个文明就像一列冲向深渊的火车在不断加速。火车开得越快，越是能听到迪斯科舞厅车厢里豪饮者的歇斯底里的欢呼。在这里，你要仔细地去听，去分辨出那些让理智瘫痪在沉默之中、对什么都无能作出理解的人，那些忧心忡忡地咬着他们的指甲盖的人，还有那些以虚假的沉着口吻喊人们与之一起打牌的人。在内心深处，很多人都选择了跳火车，但他们的脚仍然在踏板上犹豫。他们仍然受制于那么多的事情。他们感受到了阻力，因为他们作出了选择，但这个选择仍然是空白的。决定是目前的行动方式和可能性的轨迹，要作出一个飞跃，而不是进入虚空。我们的决定意味着沙漠，意味着进入沙漠的行列，去组织和承担一种分裂，在不知不觉中，但无论如何都是现在。 + +时代属于下定决心的人。 + +#### 崩坏的五十重阴影 + +“都不对头了，”可怜的失败者如是说。“没错，世界正处于兵荒马乱的冬天，”老气横秋的聪明人发表见解道。我们宁可说世界正在分裂。我们被允诺一个新的世界秩序，但事实恰恰相反。自由民主在全球范围内得到了广泛推广，但推广的结果是“选举骚乱”反映了它的可推广性之虚伪，正如自由主义者强烈抱怨的那样。一个地区接一个地区，世界毫不客气地、不间断地继续分裂。世界的分裂是每一领域的分裂，在每一领域，统一都成了问题。今天，存在于“社会”中的统一和科学中的统一一样少。工资工作制正在分裂成理想工作、例外情况、必要条件。“不稳定”这种说法很方便地隐藏了这样一个事实，即不再有共同的工作经验，甚至是朝不保夕的工作。结果是，也不再有罢工的共同经验，总罢工的旧神话必须被放在无用的附属品的架子上。类似的，西方医学已经被简化为修补技术，它的统一教义被打碎为针灸、催眠、磁疗等等。政治上，“大多数”只围绕着通常的议会混乱存在。在2016年春季的冲突中，最精明的新闻评论指出：两个少数派，政府少数派和示威者少数派在一群观众面前互相冲撞。我们的自我是一个越来越复杂、越来越不连贯的谜，若要使它团结在一起，除了药片和疗程，算法现在也是必要的了。讽刺的是，“墙”这个词被用来描述图像、信息和评论的固定流量，Facebook试图以此给出自我。在一个由捕捉我们兴趣的社交、电信、网络、滚动的实时信息和图像组成的世界中，当代的生活经验从根本上来说就是不连续的。尺度是完全不同的，精英阶层的特殊利益越来越难以被认定为“普遍利益”。从苏萨谷（Susa Valley）到立岩（Standing Rock），人们只需看看各地实施基础项目有多么困难，就可以意识到它已经不起作用了。现在他们必须准备把军队及其特种部队带进国家领土以保护任何重要的建筑和场所，这一事实十分清楚地表明，事情是黑手党式的操作。 + +共和国的统一、科学的统一、人格的统一、国家领土的统一、文化的统一等等，除了是虚构的什么都不是。哦，但它们是有效的。可以肯定的是，统一的幻觉在愚弄人民、团结人民和规训人民方面再也没用了。在每一领域，霸权滚粗，奇点正变得狂野：它们在自己之中承载自己的意义，而不再寄期望于一个普遍秩序。允许任何有点权威的人向他人谈论如何评判、分类、划分级别，以及进行道德说教，告诉每个人他们需要做什么、需要怎样做，这样一种细微的监督之声是人们不再听取的了。所有的“需要”都躺倒在地。知道必须做什么的激进分子，知道你需要思考什么的教授，告诉你国家需要什么的政治家，都是在沙漠中发言。事实上，在奇异体验所在的地方，没有什么能与之匹配。人们重新发现向世界敞开自己并不意味着向地球的四角敞开自己，世界就是我们所在的地方。向世界敞开自己就是向此时此地我们的存在敞开自己。每个碎片都携带着它自己的完美的可能性。如果“世界”有待拯救，那么这就在于它的每个碎片。至于整体性，它只能被管理。 + +时代走了一条惊人的捷径。真正的民主随同阿莱克斯·齐普拉斯（Alexis Tsipras，1974年7月28日–，希腊左翼政治家，希腊议会成员，左翼激进联盟党主席，曾任希腊总理）几乎不经选举的当选方式以及谈判投降被埋葬在它两千五百年前的诞生地。讽刺地说，“我们不能让选举改变任何事情”——德国财政部长沃尔夫冈·朔伊布勒可以把他这句话刻上他的墓碑供后人瞻仰了。但最引人注目的是，碎片化世界的地缘政治的震中是五千年前统一在“文明”之名下的美索不达米亚。如果某种地缘政治的混乱似乎控制了世界，那么正好处在文明开始的地方的伊拉克和叙利亚就是最具戏剧性的。写作、会计、历史、皇家司法、议会、综合农业、科学、计量、政治宗教、宫廷阴谋和牧师权力——声称“为了臣民的利益”、为了羊群和它的幸福的这一整个统治方式——一切可以归为我们现在所说的“文明”的东西，在耶稣基督之前三千年，已经是阿卡德和苏美尔王国的鲜明标志。当然，有人会试图拼贴出一个新教派的伊拉克国家。当然，国际利益最终会在叙利亚导致以国家建设为目标的愚蠢行动的增多。但在叙利亚和伊拉克，国家主导的人类都已经死亡。冲突的激烈上升到不可能实现真正的和解的程度。巴沙尔·阿萨德政权在我们心知肚明的那种支持下对其人民发动的反-暴动战争已经达到极端，任何谈判都不会通往一个名副其实的“新叙利亚国”。在1953年工人起义反对东德的新苏维埃政权后，人们不再试图把布莱希特的讽刺诗血腥地付诸实践：“人民因自己的过错／失去了政府的信任／只有加倍努力／才能将其赢回／到那时，对政府来说／要解散人民并选举一个新的政府，岂不更加轻松？”积极的影响已荡然无存；而死者的鬼魂却还没有让自己屈服于炸药桶。任何一个曾经心系欧洲国家在其“辉煌”时期的样子的人，如今除了它的失败已经看不到任何能以“国家”之名出现的东西。与跨国势力相比，国家再也不能维持自己，除了继续以一张全息图的形式存在。希腊政府不过就是个没有发言权的指令传送者。英国政府被迫和“退欧”一起走钢丝。墨西哥不再掌管任何事情。意大利、西班牙或巴西没有任何活动，只是一味在丑闻的雪崩中求生存。无论是以“改革”为托辞，还是以“现代化”为突破口，当代资本主义国家都在有条不紊地自我解体。更不用说横扫欧洲的“分离主义诱惑”的成倍增加。不难识别，在世界许多国家恢复独裁统治的背后，一种形式的内战将不会结束。无论是以反恐、缉毒还是消除贫困为名义，各国都在分崩离析。门面依然存在，但只是用来掩盖一堆瓦砾。全球混乱现在已经超过了秩序恢复的能力。正如一位中国古代圣人所言：“当秩序统治天下，愚人一人不能将其扰乱；当混乱控制世界，智者一人难以平定乾坤。”（故世治则愚者不能独乱，世乱则智者不能独治。语出《文子·道德》） + +我们是赶上了文明的进程逆转为碎片化的进程的一代人。文明越是渴望一个普遍的完成式，它在根基上就产生越多的内爆。这个世界越是追求统一就越是分裂。它在何时转移它的坐标轴的？是“9·11”恐怖袭击带来的世界变动？2008年的“金融危机”？2009年哥本哈根气候变化峰会的失败？可以肯定的是，这次峰会标志着这一转变的不可逆转性。大气和地球的麻烦为文明的完成提供了理想的借口。以物种及其拯救的名义，以全球化的名义，以地球统一的名义，一个人将能够控制地球上每个居民的每个行为，以及它在其表面容纳的每个实体。主持会议的当局在不到一英寸的地方宣布了一个世界性的生态帝国的诞生。这是“为了所有人的利益”。人类的大多数、自然环境、风俗、生活形式、每种存在的大地特征，所有这些都会在人类物种的团结必要性前面屈服，而最终，经由那些知道什么是理事会的人，一个人将达到对它的管理。自从一小群智人逃离东非大裂谷以来，统一的进程这种合乎逻辑的结果就一直在激发“人类的伟大冒险”。时候一到，人们就希望“责任方”能达成一个合理的协议，也就是说，“责任方”要负起责任。要给个惊喜！在哥本哈根真正发生的事情是什么都没有发生。这就是为什么全世界都把它给忘了。没有皇帝，即使是大学里的那种。该物种的发言人没有作出决策。从那时起，在“经济危机”的推波助澜下，走向统一的动力逆转为全球范围内的“人人为己”。既然没有普遍的解救途径，那么每个人就要靠自己达到一定规模的解救，要么就放弃所有关于解救的念头。带着灵魂的焦虑，人们打算在技术、利润、政党、毒品和心碎中迷失自我。 + +所有的政治团结的瓦解正在我们同时代人中引起明显的恐慌。“国家认同”问题充斥了公共辩论的原则的情况正说明了这点。“法国”，现代国家的一个典范，已经走到了考虑把自己运送到废品站的一个空前艰难的时期。很明显，由于“法国感”从来就没有像现在这么空洞，我们在雄心勃勃的政治家面前所有的东西都沦为无休无止的“国家认同”上的花边绣品。而且，尽管他们一直喋喋不休地念叨着那个辉煌的“1500年的历史”，但似乎没有人清楚地知道“成为法国人”意味着什么，于是他们滚落到了基层：葡萄酒和伟人，人行道露台和警察。这些还不单单是古代政权和基督教的根本。九年级课本中国家统一的黄色图形。 + +“统一”中只有怀旧残存，但它的声音越来越大。候选人表现出想要恢复伟大国家的热忱，“让美国再次强大”或“让法国重归秩序”。与此同时，当有人仍对法属阿尔及利亚充满渴望时，还有什么是不能令我们产生怀旧感的？因此，世界各地都有以武力重建国家团结的承诺。但是，他们越是通过“归属感”来进行“划分”，就越是不能切实地感到自己属于他们头脑中那个整体的一部分。为了恢复秩序而煽动恐慌，是假装看不见恐慌中所包含的实质上只是分散的东西。普遍分裂的进程是如此地不可阻挡，以至于所有用来重组失去的统一的残暴行为最终只会加速和加深分裂，使之更加不可逆转。当除了在屏幕前再次相聚外不再有任何共同经验时，人们就可以在袭击后通过部署一种伤感、虚假和空洞的情调来创造一段短暂的国家融合的时光，可以宣扬各种“反恐战争”，可以承诺收回所有“非法区域”的控制权，但所有这些都只是BFM-TV在一间烤肉串屋子后播放的新闻快报，而且还是关了声音的。这种胡说八道就像药物一样：为了保持疗效，总是需要增加剂量，直到最后的神经衰弱开始。那些不介意在一个狭小和超级军事化的堡垒中展望他们的终结的人，那些简直像“法兰西”一样伟大的人，在周围抬升的水域和水面携带着的不幸尸体面前，极有可能会宣布那些不喜欢他们的人是“叛国者”。在他们的狂吠声中，人们只听到了他们的无力。从长远来看，灭绝并不是解决办法。 + +我们决不能被公共领域的辩论的恶化状态搞的灰心丧气。如果他们大声嚷嚷，那是因为没人再听了。在表面之下真正发生的是，一切都是多元的，一切都是局部的，一切都在揭示自身的处境，一切都在逃逸。这不仅仅是因为阙如的人民正在扮演缺席的订户的角色，不给任何消息并且对民意调查撒谎；还因为他们已经收拾好行装，朝着许多出乎意料的方向出走了。他们不是简单地弃权、退缩、不被发现：他们在飞翔，即使他们的飞翔是内在的或不动的。他们已经在别处了。这不会是极左翼的伟大的打谷机、把自己当成卡斯特罗的第三共和国类型的社会主义参议员、一个将把人民带回社会的梅伦钦。所谓“民粹主义”不仅仅是人民失踪的公然症状，这是要抓住在痛苦和迷失中剩下来的东西的绝望努力。公众的喧嚣总是试图掩盖这点：一旦一个真正的政治形势呈现出自身，就像2016年春天的冲突那样，智慧的共享、敏锐与决心以一种扩散的方式表现出来。由The cortège de tête（一种游行方式，可以称之为自主游行，区别于以往游行的地方在于，这类游行的最前线不再是xx工会代表或领袖，而是不愿意被代表的人，大概是这样）的出现所构成的事件已经相当清楚地表明了这一点。考虑到这个社会身体正准备接手包括旧的工会框架在内的各个方面，那么对每个仍然活着的示威者来说，拖拖拉拉的游行显然就是一种通过抗议来安抚的形式。因此，从一个示威游行到另一个示威游行，那些要抛弃社会这具尸体、避免承包它的微不足道的死亡的人被看到冲到了游行队伍的最前方。高中生打头阵。接下来，由各种年轻和不那年轻的示威者、斗士和无组织分子壮大队伍。最重要的是，在6月14日的示威中，整个工会部门，包括勒阿弗尔的码头工人，都加入了一支由10000人组成的失控的队伍。认为主导这些示威活动的是“无政府主义者”、“自治主义者”，或其他那些传统上让自己置身于游行队伍的尾部和迷人的小规模冲突中然后在示威结束后被视为可疑者的人，那么这将是一个错误。在那里真正发生的事情可以说是一定数量的逃亡者创造了一个产生了某些异质性的东西的政治空间，一个组织得不够充分但可以重新结合的空间，在春天的冲突期间这是真实存在的。The cortège de tête成为了一种普遍分裂的容器。几乎可以说，正是由于失去了所有的凝聚力量，这个“社会”沿着各个方向从那些自治的小中心解放出来——领土的、宗派的或政治的——让这些中心找到了一次组合的机会、一种聚集的方式。如果说The cortège de tête最终成功地磁化了在“劳工法改革”中战斗的大部分人，那不是因为所有这些人都突然变得“自治”——其组成部分的异质性反驳了这点——而是因为，在这种情况下，它有一种存在的好处，一种活力，一种在其他地方缺乏的真实性。 + +The cortège detête显然不是从别的示范中分离出来的一个主体，而是一种姿势，警察从来没有像他们一贯所为的那样对这种姿势进行管控。那么，为了结束其存在的丑闻然后重新树立劳工联盟的老板们之间的传统的联合形象，为了中和由对抗警察的年轻人及其年长的支持者和打破防暴警察的防线的自由工作者所组成的队伍，最后就需要对整个游行实行“围困”（Kettling）。因此，六月末，在阿森纳盆地，伟大的警察围观了一场羞辱——由劳工联盟和政府公同安排的漂亮的道德滑坡。那一天，人类会在头版报道一次非凡的“胜利”，一种代表性的示范——斯大林主义者用一连串的胜利掩饰撤退，这正是他们的传统。2016年法国漫长的春季确立了这样一个明显的事实：暴动、封锁和占领形成了这个时代基本的政治语法。 + +“围困”并不简单地是法国秩序从英国进口的一种心理战技巧。“围困”是当前政治权力的辩证形象。这是一个可鄙的形象，屎一样的权力除了将人口控制在它的网中再也做不了任何事情。如果这是再也不能承诺任何东西的一种权力的形象，那么除了封锁外就没有任何其他活动。一种没有人能以积极的方式提供支持的权力，所有人都尽力逃开，除了呆在它那限制的怀抱、除了围着它的边缘打转，再没有别的视角。“围困”的形象是辩证性的，它被设计用来控制我们，也把我们带到一起。这是一个尝试互相抛弃的人们之间会有相遇发生的地方。新歌，充满讽刺的发明。共同的经历在它的封闭圈中发展。警方的设备不能跟踪那些垂直性的逃脱，它们以标签的形式装饰每面墙壁、每辆公共汽车的遮挡物、每一宗生意。即使身体被困住，也能证明思想依然自由。“在混乱中取得胜利”，“在灰烬中一切成为可能”，“法国，它的酒，它的革命”，“向窗玻璃破碎的家庭致敬”，“接吻接吻，银行银行”（或“亲银行，亲银行”），“我思，故我破”：自1968年以来，墙壁上还没见过这样的精神自由。“从这里，从这个对我们来说很难呼吸到变得越来越稀薄的空气的国家，从这个我们感到自己越来越像外国人的国家，只有以空虚和欺骗的方式侵蚀着我们的疲劳走了过来。由于缺少任何更好的东西，我们用词语互相支付，冒险是文学的，承诺是柏拉图式的。至于明天的革命，一场可能的革命，我们中有谁还会相信它？”这是皮埃尔・培丘莫尔比以往任何时候都更活跃地描述的曾被1968年5月一扫而光的气氛。已经开始的碎片化的一个最重要的方面是，它影响了那个对社会团结的维护作出思考的东西：法律。随着反恐怖主义立法、劳工法的制定、司法管辖权和起诉法院的增加，法律再也不存在了。以刑法为例。在反恐和打击“有组织犯罪”的目标下，一年一年随着时间推移形成了两部截然不同的法律：一部是为“公民”制定的法律，另一部是“针对敌人的刑法”。这是由一位受到过南美独裁政权赞赏的德国法学家形成的理论。他叫冈瑟·雅各布斯。考虑到流氓地痞、激进的反对分子、“暴徒”、“恐怖分子”、“无政府主义者”，简而言之：涉及到所有那些对现行民主秩序不够尊重，对“社会规范结构”构成“危险”的人，冈瑟·雅各布斯指出，越来越多地对他们保留一种特殊待遇就是对正常的刑法的减损，以至于使他们不再尊重宪法权利。某种意义上说，把那些表现为“社会敌人”的人当作敌人，这难道不符合逻辑吗？他们不是正在做“把自己排除在法律之外”的事情吗？对他们来说，一个人难道不应该承认“敌人刑法”的存在恰恰包含着法律的完全缺席吗？举例来说，菲律宾总统杜特尔特在“禁毒战争”中通过运送到停尸房的“毒贩”尸体的数量来衡量菲律宾政府的效力，那些尸体是由敢死队或普通公民“生产”的。在我们写作的当口，死亡数字超过了7000。我们仍在谈论法律的一种形式，这得到了法学家协会的实证，他们的问题是：在这种情况下，人们可能偏离了“法治”。“敌人刑法”是刑事法的终结。所以这不是一点小事。这里的诀窍是是让人们相信它适用于以前定义的犯罪人口，而事实恰恰相反：一个人是在被电话窃听、逮捕、关押、性骚扰、索要赎金、折磨，最后被杀害后，被宣布为“敌人”。有点像警察以“藐视和妨碍”的罪名起诉那些刚刚被他们打得有点太显眼的人。 + +我们生活在废除法律的时代。法律的转移性增殖只是废除法律的一个方面。如果不是每一部法律在洛可可式的当代法律大厦中都变得微不足道，那么有必要产生这么多这样的法律吗？是否有必要通过颁布一条新法规来应对每一个将出现的小新闻事件？法国过去几年的主要法案目标可以归结为废除现行法律，以及逐步收回所有法律保障措施。如此之多的法律，原本是为了保护人们应对变幻莫测的世界，现在却成了增加他们不安全感的东西。当代主要法律的一个显著特征是，它们把这种或那种制度或权力置于法律之上。《情报法》取消了与情报部门打交道的一切手段。未能确立商业机密的The loi Macron仅仅被一则奇怪的病毒式新闻叫做“法律”：它包括撤销员工在周日工作、裁员或解雇以及受监管职业等方面享有的一整套保障。劳工法改革本身只是这场运动的延续，而这场运动开始得非常好：著名“规范等级倒置”确切来说不就是每个公司的例外状态取代了任何一般的法律框架？如果说在2015年11月的袭击之后，一个社会民主政府受到宣布例外状态的极端权力的激励是如此自然，那是因为例外状态已经以法律的形式统治了。 + +接受世界的分裂，即便在法律上也不是一件容易的事。在法国，我们继承了近千年的“正义原则”——在橡树下伸张正义的好国王圣路易斯，等等。归根结底，当我们提出：要么是国家、权利、法律、警察、司法系统，要么是内战、复仇、无政府状态和庆祝——敲诈就不断地刷新它的条件。这种信念，这种司法主义，这种国家主义，渗透在从极左翼到极右翼的所有政治上可接受、可听见的情感之中。事实上，正是在这一固定的轴线上，工人投票的很大一部分转化为国民阵线的投票，这并没有给任何相关人士带来任何重大生存危机。这也解释了人们对层出不穷的“事务”的愤怒反应，这些“事务”现在构成了当代政治生活的日常事务。我们对事物提出不同的看法、不同的理解方式。制定法律的人显然不尊重它们。那些想向我们灌输“职业道德”的人做的是一份儿虚构的工作。众所周知，缉毒队是法国最大的毒品贩子。每当一个非常偶然的机会，例如一个地方法官被窃听，人们很快就会发现隐藏在高尚的判决、上诉或不予受理背后的令人毛骨悚然的谈判。在这个世界上，呼吁正义就是让一个怪物来照顾你的孩子。任何知道权力的阴暗面的人都会立即停止对它的尊重。在内心深处，大师们一直是无政府主义者，老板们也总有一颗土匪的心，只是他们不能容忍别人那样。可正是这种可敬的看待事物的方式，一直激励着清醒的工作者去实践偷窃、暗中兼职甚至破坏。如果一个人相信无产阶级曾真正地讲过道德、讲过法律，那他就真该被称为先知米该亚。在他们的生活中，在他们自己的人民中，无产阶级表现出了他们的伦理道德，而不是与“社会”的关系。与社会及其虚伪性的关系只能是一场战争，无论是否公开。 + +也正是这条推论线激发了2016年春季冲突中最坚定的一部示威者。因为这场冲突最显著的特征之一是它发生在紧急状态的中间。在巴黎的有组织的力量促成了cortège de tête，同样的力量也在共和国广场和第21届世界杯时反对紧急状态，这并不是偶然的。采取紧急状态有两种途径。人们可以在口头谴责中呼吁恢复“法治”，但据我们所知，在“暂缓”期之前，这似乎总要付出沉重的代价。但是人们也可以说：“啊！你想怎么做就怎么做！”你自认为凌驾于法律之上，并声称这种权威来自法律！好吧，我们也是。想象一下。有抗议幻影，即抗议紧急状态的人；也有适当地注意到这一点，因而部署自己的例外状态的人。旧左翼的条件反射让我们在民主政体那虚假的例外状态前不寒而栗，这和2016年春季冲突中街上的真实例外状态、它自己对世界的存在、它的自由的独特形式形成了对照。 + +世界的分裂也是如此。人们可以为此痛惜，试着游回时间之河，但也可以从那里开始，看看如何继续下去。将怀旧的、反动的、保守的“右翼”的影响和“左翼”的混沌-变形的、多元文化主义的后现代主义进行一下对比会很简单。站在左边或右边，就是在无数种让人类变得低能的方式中作出选择。事实上，从政治光谱的一端到另一端，统一的支持者是均匀分布的。无论是右翼还是左翼，从索拉尔到拉芬，到处都是对民族伟大的怀念。我们往往会忘记，还在一个多世纪前，一位候选人曾把自己描述为是为一种团结的生活形式——工人——服务的。如果他能够做此宣称，那只是他为自己在感受、依恋、品味或情感方面做了大量截肢。这就让他看起来很奇怪。以至于陪审团一看到他就逃走了，从此他到处游荡，不知道该去哪里，该做什么，痛苦地用他那过时的荣耀拖累着这个世界。在他的辉煌时期，他拥有各种各样的团体，民族主义者或布尔什维克，甚至民族布尔什维克。在我们的时代，我们正在观察人之形象的爆炸。“人性”作为一个话题已经没有了容貌。在有组织的主观性的贫乏的边缘，我们见证了顽强的坚持和奇异的生命形式正追寻它们的道路。例如他们想在丛林游击战中把加来城的丑闻捣碎。这种生命形式在这一时代的复苏，也是来自工人普遍性的分裂。它实现了工人作为一个人物的哀悼期。但对墨西哥的觉醒来说，这并不是一种悲哀。 + +想想看，在2016年春季的冲突中，我们看到了几年前不可想象的事情，即法国总工会（CGT）本身的分裂。当马赛CGT会用它的音调针对“年轻人”时，杜埃·阿姆蒂耶斯CGT和“不受控制的人”联合起来，与里尔CGT的安全人员发生了冲突，后者更多的是不可救药的斯大林主义者。CGT能源公司号召破坏银行和电话运营商在上卢瓦尔省使用的光缆。在整个冲突期间，勒阿弗尔发生的事情与其他地方发生的事情几乎没有相似之处。示威的日期、地方CGT的立场、对警察的警告：所有这些在某种意义上都是外在于/独立于整个国家的。勒阿弗尔的CGT通过了这项动议，并打电话给警察队和长官，通知他们：“只要一有学生被你们传唤到警察总部，事情也并不复杂，不过就是把港口都关闭而已！”勒阿弗尔有一个愉快的分裂。“cortège de tête”与工会安全人员的摩擦导致了一种显著的改善：从那时起，CGT的许多安全部门都只处于严格的防御地位。他们不再在示威游行中扮演警察的角色，不再殴打“自治主义者”并把“疯子”交给警察，而只是关注游行队伍中他们自己那一部分。一个可观的，也许是持久的转变，谁知道呢？尽管公报谴责“暴力行为”，这却是2017年2月25日南特反对国民阵线示威后必须采取的行动，CGT 44与扎迪斯和其他不受控制的人一起组织了这次示威。这是2016年春季冲突带来的幸运影响之一，而且肯定会让政府方面以及工会内部的一些人感到担忧。 + +当某种东西被忍受时，世界的分裂过程会使人们陷入痛苦、孤立、精神分裂。它可以被认为是人类生命中毫无意义的损失。是被怀旧所侵扰。归属感是那些不再拥有任何东西的人所剩下的一切。把分裂作为出发点接，为此付出的代价可能导致构成我们的纽带的强化和多元化。那么分裂并不意味着分离，而是世界的闪光。从正确的距离来看，它更像是“融入社会”的过程，揭示了存在的缓慢耗损、持续的分离、越来越脆弱的滑向，以及越来越被掩盖的脆弱。Notre-Dame-des-Landes的ZAD说明了领土分裂的过程意味着什么。对于一个与法国国家一样古老的领土国家，一部分土地被从国家连续体撕开并持久地分裂出去，充分证明了连续体不再像过去那样存在。在戴高乐、克莱门索或拿破仑的统治下，这样的事情是难以想象的。那时，他们会派步兵去解决这事。现在，警察的行动被称为“凯撒”，它迎面击败了一支撤退的林地游击队。事实上，在该地区的郊区，国民阵线的公共汽车可能会在高速公路上遭到stage-coach式的袭击，或多或少像是一辆警车，被派到郊区交叉路口检查一个用于监视“毒贩”的摄像机时，自己被燃烧弹烧着了，这表明事情确实变得有点像这个国家的遥远西部。在Notre-Dame-des-Landes，国家领土的分离进程非但没有脱离世界，反而增加了最意想不到的循环，有些波及范围很广，有些则发生在离家很近的地方。以至于一个人告诉自己，外星人不存在的最好证据是他们还没有接触到ZAD。再说那块土地的流失导致了它自己内部的分裂，它的分裂也是它内部世界的增殖，并因此导致了共存的领土叠加其上。新的集体现实、新的结构、新的遭遇、新的思想、新的习俗、各种意义上的新来者，以及从各个世界的摩擦和存在方式中产生的必要的对抗。随之而来的是，生活的极大强化、观念的加深、友谊的增进、敌意、经验、视野、接触、距离——以及伟大的战略手腕的扩散。随着世界的无休止的分裂，生活的丰富形式及其质量的提高变得令人眩晕——对于一个想到它所包含的共产主义承诺的人来说。 + +在分裂中，有一些东西指向了我们所说的“共产主义”：回归地球、任何对等的终结、所有奇点的恢复、包容的失败和抽象的失败、某些时刻的事实、地点、事物、存在和动物——都获得了它们自己的名字，清白无辜的名字。每一种创造都是从整体中分离出来的。正如胚胎学所显示的，一旦一个个体适应了即刻包围它的环境，它就有可能成为一个新的物种。如果地球的自然环境如此丰富，这是因为它完全没有统一性。要实现共产主义在世界分裂中的承诺，就需要一种姿势，一种反复表现的姿势，一种生命本身的姿势：在碎片之间创造路径，让它们接触，组织它们的邂逅，开辟从一个友好地区通往另一个友好地区的道路，而不经过敌对的领土，这是建立世界间距离的良好艺术。诚然，世界的分裂让一切继承来的确定性感到迷失和不安，动摇了我们所有的政治和存在的范畴，它消除了革命传统本身的基础：它挑战了我们。我们还记得托斯奎尔斯向弗朗西斯·帕因解释西班牙内战的原因。在那场冲突中，有些人是民兵，托斯奎尔斯是一名精神病学家。他观察到，精神病患者的数量往往很少，因为战争打破了社会谎言的束缚，对精神病患者的治疗效果比精神病院强。“内战与自我的非同质性有关。我们每个人都是由并列的碎片组成的，里面有似是而非的结合和分裂。个性不是来自于一个政治利益一致的集团。如果是的话，那就是一尊雕像。我们必须承认这件自相矛盾的事情：战争不会产生新的精神病人。相反，战争期间的神经症比公民生活中的少，甚至还可以治愈精神病。”好吧，这是一个悖论：被束缚在统一中会使我们毁灭，社会生活的谎言会使我们精神错乱，而拥抱分裂可以让我们重获这个世界的平静。在某种精神状态下，这个事实不再以矛盾的方式被感知。这就是我们的位置。 + +反对共产主义的可能性，反对任何幸福的可能性，这里站着一条有两个头的九头蛇。在公共舞台上，他们每个人都表现出他们是对方的死敌。一方面，有法西斯恢复统一的计划，另一方面，有基础设施商人的全球力量——谷歌与芬奇，亚马逊与威立雅。那些只相信两者其一的人也是落进了它们两个的坑。因为基础设施的伟大建设者所拥有的手段是只有法西斯才拥有的民间话语手段。对前者来说，旧统一的危机正是新统一的机会。在当前的混乱中，在机构的崩溃中，在政治的消亡中，对于基础设施强国和互联网巨头来说，都有一个完全盈利的市场。一个完全四分五裂的世界在控制论上仍然是完全可控的。一个破碎的世界甚至是那些管理沟通渠道的人的无所不能的先决条件。这些权力的计划是在旧霸权破碎的外墙后面部署一种新的、纯粹可操作的统一形式，这种统一形式不会陷入总是摇摇欲坠的归属感的沉重生产中，而是直接在“真实”上运行，重新配置它。一种没有限制没有借口的统一形式，目的是在绝对分裂的情况下建立绝对秩序。一种秩序，它无意制造一种新的虚幻的归属感，但满足于通过其网络、服务器、高速公路向每个人提供一种无需提出任何问题的重要性。除了界面、城市、景观的标准化，没有其他的统一；除了信息的连续性，没有其他的连续性。硅谷和基础设施巨贾的假设是，不再需要通过建立一个统一的门面来让自己疲惫不堪：它打算建立的统一将与世界融为一体，融入到它的网络中，注入到它的混凝土中。显然，我们并不觉得自己属于“谷歌人”，但只要我们所有的数据都属于谷歌，谷歌就问题不大。基本上，假设被简化到“用户”的悲惨等级也是我们能够接受的，那就什么都不说了，我们都属于云。换言之，分裂本身并不能保护我们免受“明天的统治者”试图统一世界的企图：分裂甚至是这种主动行动的先决条件和理想结构。从他们的观点来看，世界的象征性分裂为世界的具体统一开辟了空间；隔离与最终的网络化并不矛盾。相反，它给了它存在的理由。 + +GAFA统治的必要条件是，世界上的存在、地点、碎片仍然没有任何真正的接触。在GAFA声称要“连接整个世界”的地方，他们实际上是在努力实现每个人的真正孤立。通过固定化尸体。把每个人都关在他们所象征的泡沫里。控制论的权力游戏，让每个人都有这样的印象：当他们实际上越来越分离的时候，他们可以接触到整个世界；当他们越来越自闭的时候，他们有了越来越多的“朋友”。公共交通的一连串拥堵人群始终是一个独孤的人群，但人们并没有像智能手机出现以来那样，将自己的个人泡沫随身携带。一种对任何接触都免疫的泡沫，也构成了一个完美的告密者。这种由控制论所设计的分离以一种非偶然的方式使每个碎片朝着一个偏执实体的方向推进，朝着不存在的大陆漂移，对这个“社会”中有着既定隔阂的个体进行集体化整合，这迅速导致了一千个神志不清的小聚合体。面对这一切，我们要做的事情，看起来就是离开家，出发上路去和其他人见面，努力在世界的不同地方建立联系，无论是冲突的、谨慎的还是快乐的。把我们组织起来的从来不是任何别的东西，而是相爱。 + +#### 政治去死 + +如果政治只是政客们的政治，那就把电视和收音机关掉好了，用不着听它在那里夸夸其谈。法国这个地地道道的权力国家偏偏以“人权国家”的面目示人。法国所有的社会关系都是权力关系——这个国家还有什么没被社会化？以至于每个层面都存在政治。在社团和集体中。在乡村和城市。在黑夜的每个角落。它的运作、策略和操纵无处不在，不断蔓延。它从不坦诚地说话，因为它害怕。在法国，政治是一种文化疾病。任何时候人们聚在一起，无论带着何种问题，无论出于何种目的，总会在眨眼之间形成一个社会法庭的结构，总有人把自己当成太阳。那些责备福柯的人发展出一套令人窒息的权力本体论，站在善、邻人之爱和基督教美德的立场上对福柯进行艰难的质疑，不是以令人钦佩的方式而是以过于法国化的方式进行思考。法国因此仍然是一个法庭社会——尽管国家首脑会议和社会环境都宣布了它的彻底灭亡。作为一种道德体系，它就像从未死去的古老政权（1789年法国大革命前的社会及政治制度）。就好像法国大革命不过是一个维护无所不在的古老政权的反常策略，在后者就要被废除的时候，大革命换了个措辞，保护它免受攻击。那些主张一种当地政治的人，即主张“接近领土和人民”，声称这能把我们从国家政治的恶臭中解救出来的人，只能捂着鼻子来保卫他们的这种疯狂了，因为他们所提供的仅仅是一种毫无专业性的、粗野的，总而言之，当下的一个退化的版本。对我们而言，这根本不是一个“以不同的方式搞政治”的问题，而是要做一些不同于政治的事情。政治使人空虚、贪婪。 + +这种民族主义并发症显然少不了好斗的激进分子。每个小团体都想从最近的竞争对手那里抢占一部分激进市场，竭尽所能地诽谤对方。贪恋别人的蛋糕，最终结果是让蛋糕变质，闻起来像屎。一个头脑清醒、不屈不挠的激进分子最近提供了这样一份证词：“公平的战斗在今天是不存在的。”我们的教养，我们的学校，我们的家庭，还有整个社会，几乎不能使我们具有一种全面而沉静的人格。我们背负着“内在的包袱”进入的战斗生活充满伤痛，充满需要解决的生存问题和对关系的期待。借由斗争，我们都在寻求“别的东西”，寻求满足、认可、社会和朋友关系、人性的温暖、生命的意义。在大多数激进分子那里，对满足感的追求仍然相当慎重，它并不占据所有空间。然而在某些人那里，可以说，它占据了不成比例的空间。我们都能想到不断占据话题并试图控制一切的激进分子的例子，自我表演和表演他人情感的例子，极度敏感的例子，以侵犯和专横的方式表达自己的例子，等等。在我看来，这些认可、满足或权力的问题某种程度上解释了激进组织中的大多数冲突……我认为，许多表面上的政治冲突掩盖的是自负的冲突。一个推测，不一定对。但从我的经验来看，我强烈感觉到有别的东西在会议、动员和激进组织中作祟，那种并不是斗争的“别的东西”，确切说是一种人类悲喜剧，一种通畅的马里沃文体（马里沃，法国戏剧家，小说家），它的政治目标通常是将我们拉进相同的背景。这是个令真诚的灵魂感到悲哀的国家。 + +巴黎的“黑夜站立”（Nuit debout）问题很多。这里是各种匪夷所思的行动集结和开起的地方。这里是奇葩邂逅和非正式谈话的地点，是游行后的聚会场所。工会联合会感激Nuit debout为游行示威提供的日期上的连续性，这使由游行示威引发的冲突完全走了样，比经典的“社会运动”好不到哪里去。Nuit debout有可能阻挠政府的常规行动，包括以暴力或非暴力的方式将它的对手置于无能为力或互相掣肘的境地，于是它再次充当了“地方公社”，但共和国广场并没有孕育出西班牙或希腊广场运动中的那种公社雏形，更别说解放广场了，仅仅因为我们在警察面前没有强行占领广场的力量。然而，如果说Nuit debout一开始就有个根本性的缺陷，那就是它以超越古典政治为借口来再现和重演后者的主要公理，即认为政治是一个与“生活”分离的特定领域，是一种由演讲、辩论和投票构成的活动。结果，NuIT Dead变得像一个虚拟议会，一种没有行政职能的立法机关，表现相当无力，而这肯定会令媒体和当局开心。一位参与者总结了在Nuit debout所发生或毋宁说所没有发生的事情：“唯一的共同立场就是无休无止地争论的欲望……含混不清和言语搪塞无损于职位的特权，既然它是按一种据说是非包容性的规定选举出来的。”另一位参与者则对其做了如下评价：“轮流演讲的时间被限制在两分钟以内，后面避免了任何令人厌烦的讨论。 + +看到这么多人激动地表达自己，一开始还会感到惊讶，一旦惊讶消褪，危机感的缺席就让会议的氛围空洞起来，如果他们有一个会议的话……我们聚在一起，但被规则分开。我们来这里是为了驱散各自孤独的诅咒，但集会给了诅咒一种耀眼的能见度。对我来说，集会应该是集体被经历、被感受、被探索和确认的地方，最后，如果可能的话，也是它被准时宣布的方式。但要做到这一点，就必须进行真正的讨论。问题是，我们并不互相交谈，我们一个接一个地发言。最糟糕的是，我们在一种普遍理解中避免展开：这是一种集体的阳痿，错误地把孤独的景观当作集体的发明……封闭的咒语终于让我忍无可忍。毫无疑问，我们委员会的关键人物没有任何蓄意谋划的病态意志，她的独特天赋在于让人垂头丧气，用各种各样的逻辑和程序对每种态度吹毛求疵，将一些赌注重新引入集会的运作之中。”最后，“像许多人一样，有时我会产生这样的印象：存在一种不透明的权力结构在左右运动的方向……还有比普通集会更高层次的决策。”巴黎Nuit debout的小官僚机构是一种真正的微观政治操作，之所以陷入这种令人不安的境地，是因为它将垂直策略隐藏在水平状态的表象之后，每天下午6点钟由一个无能的领导者召开一个跑龙套演员组成的集会。这就是为什么说那里基本没有事情发生，特别是对组织者来说。他们的野心和策略在别处而不是广场上，换句话说，这些犬儒主义者只能在嬉皮士咖啡馆的阳台上获得自由支配权，位于最下面的台阶上的是陶醉，居于中间的是帮凶。Nuit debout是“直接民主”、“集体智慧”和“水平状态”的典型案例，超形式主义可能成为控制手段和破坏方式。看上去就非常可怕，但Nuit debout在法国各地开展的所谓“广场运动”渗透了我们的朋友，许多激进分子可算抓住了我们的丑闻，在他们的出版物中大书特书。以至于，自2016年夏天以来，每次集会都成了左派的独角戏，除了漫无边际地扯淡，除了高喊：“对Nuit debout说NO！”他们什么都没说。这笔账务必要记到Nuit debout头上：它不但在理论上而且在经验分享上制造了集会的不幸。但在集会和决策的幻想中，显然有某种东西逃避了任何争论。 + +这与幻想深深地植根于生活有关，而不是与表面上的“政治信仰”有关。在底部，政治决策的问题仅仅是集体规模的翻倍和位移，而且这种集体规模已经是个人幻觉：对我们的行动、思想、姿势、话语的信仰，对决定是行为的原因的信仰，这些都源自一个中心，一个意识，以及一个至高无上的实体——自我。（译者注：非常尼采）对“集会权”的幻想是仅仅是自主权在集体平面上的重复。既然所有的君主政体都归功于“主权”概念的发展，我们就有理由怀疑，自我的神话是否仅仅是主体理论，它将王权施加于各处的实践。实际上，为了确保国王对国家的中心统治地位，自我就要成为世界的统治中心。这样人们就能理解Nuit debout集会中那令人难以置信的自恋是来自何处了。此外，那也是杀死他们的东西，即是说，建立场地、一场接一场地演讲、个人自恋的频频爆发，或者说无能的爆发，最终杀死了他们。 + +从“恐怖”袭击到“德国之翼”的坠毁，人们忘记了新世纪法国第一个“大规模杀手”——理查德·杜恩，2002年，在楠泰尔，他已经是个对政治忍无可忍的人。在加入绿党之前，他已经加入过社会党。他是人权联盟的活动家。2001年7月，他促成了热那亚“全球转变”。最后，在2002年3月27日，他挟持了格洛克，在楠泰尔市议会开枪打死八位候选官员，导致另外19人受伤。在他的私人日记中，他写道：“我厌倦了在我脑子里不断重复的这句话：‘我没有生活过，在我30岁的时候我还没有生活过’……为什么继续假装活着？我只能在杀戮中感受到片刻活着的感觉。”迪伦·克莱伯德，哥伦比亚的大学的两位共谋者之一，在笔记本中倾诉道：“温顺的人被践踏，混蛋占上风，上帝在行骗……越行越远……这就是正在发生的事……我，以及毫无生气的僵尸们所认为的一切真实事物……只是图像，并非生活……僵尸和他们的社会团结在一起，试图摧毁一切优越的、为他们所不理解的和令他们所害怕的事物。”有些人明确地选择了报复，而不是继续在怨恨中煎熬。他们经营死亡和毁灭，因为他们在任何地方都看不到生活。就连存在主义也不再适用于私人生活了。每一次袭击都提醒我们：存在主义具有政治爆发的力量。 + +把政治放在一边，把生活放在另一边；在那边，所说的一切都不是真的，在这边，活人不能开口说话。一个巨大的谎言，一个天大的政治灾难。一个世纪以来，首相的演讲就是鸭叫般的尖刻讽刺；而伟大的激进分子用长篇演说的方式折磨他的同胞，也以这种方式更加严酷地引导自己，因为他认为自己在政治上无可指摘。一边是流利的话语，一边是无声的、孤零的、残缺不全的生活。这需要哭出来，因为说话不再有任何目的。真正的地狱就是说话变得毫无意义的地方。今天，所谓的“辩论”就是语言的文明谋杀。官方政治明显是个骗局，那里唯一仍然还在发生的事情就是看似非常矛盾的对政治的仇恨。如果唐纳德·特朗普真是一个仇恨的形象，那是因为他首先是个仇恨政治的人物。正是这种仇恨将他带进了权力。政治不是暴徒，而是国民阵线手中的玩物。 + +媒体、打卡的激进分子以及政府不能原谅“暴徒”和其它“黑块”的是：1、他们证明无力不是一种命运，这对那些满足于抱怨和更喜欢旁观暴乱的人来说是一种侮辱性的侮辱，因为反过来看，这些人更像是“领着银行的薪水去资助政府”。2、表明一个人在生命中的任何时刻都有不搞政治而作出政治行动的勇气。“暴徒”通过他们的行动所展示的是，政治上的行动不是话语的问题，而是姿势的问题，这可见于他们在城市墙壁上喷涂的词句。 + +“政治”永远不应该成为一个名词。它应该一直是形容词。一个属性，而不是一种内容。有抵抗，有冲突，有行动，有“政治性”的话语干预，因为它们发明的特定情境反对一个给定的情境中的事物，也因为它们是对世界的欲望和肯定。政治是面向未来的爆发性，它形成一个事件，在灾难性的秩序中冲出一个洞。这造成极化，划出界限，选定立场。但是不存在作为“政治”的事物。没有一个特别的领域能够聚集所有这些事件，所有这些火山爆发都独立于它们出现的时刻和地点。没有一个特别的领域事关所有的人问题。没有一个特别的领域是从总体中分离出来的。这样想问题就足以揭露欺诈行为。一切政治的事物都与冲突、摩擦有关，与生命形式、感知的组织方式、识别力之间的对抗有关，与一旦互相接触就获得某种强度阈限的不同世界之间的对抗有关。跨过这个阈值马上就会产生效果：前线被勾勒，友谊和敌意被确定，社会的统一表面出现裂痕，分裂的部分重新交错在一起，不同碎片之间的地下交流。 + +2016年春天发生在法国的不是一场社会运动，而是一场政治冲突，正如1968年。它的影响、它产生的不可逆转性、它所选择的截然不同的道路、它所坚决抛弃的东西、从那时起在一部分青年中和更远的地方形成的可共享的感性，都表明了这一点。一代人很可能变得难以驾驭。甚至社会党也感受到了这种影响，它存在于由当时的极端分化导致的分歧之间，这种裂隙注定了最终的内爆。社会运动都有一个结构，一种礼拜仪式，一个对不在它的界限之内的事物定义过多的协议。而现在，这场冲突不但没有停止打破各种政治的、工会的和警察方面的限制，而且是且仅是一系列连续不断的激增。陈旧过时的政治形式是绝无希望追赶上这一系列激增的。2016年3月9日的所谓的第一次示威游行不过是YouTube名人联合起来走过场，这就是为什么不得不进行后面的游行。随后的游行见证了队伍的不断壮大，远远不是几个将自己置于引领地位的“青年”。Nuit debout倡议超越任何既有的动员框架。共和国广场的自由游行，例如“aperitif at [Prime Minister] Valls’ house”等等，都是Nuit debout的一次外溢。废除劳工法改革，并不是唯一的“运动要求”，也不是真正的要求，既然它没有任何讨论和“对话”的余地。如果仅仅要求废除劳工法改革，那它就完全是负面性的，鉴于那仍然只是一个拒绝统治的姿态——以这种方式继续被统治。没有人愿意进行最少的谈判，无论是政府还是示威者。回顾辩证法的社会时代，冲突总有一个对话的时刻。但在这里，对话只是名义上的：在国家官僚机构，同样也在工会官僚机构面前的，是一个边缘化政党永远不上谈判桌的问题——大街上的政党，这就是全部。这是当前的两种力量——政府和示威者，两种世界和两种世界观之间的当面对峙：一个是由几个主要的投机者把持的投机者组成的世界，一个是由众多世界组成的世界，这个世界里的人可以呼吸、舞蹈和生活。一开始的时候，“全世界或一无所有”这个标语就表明了实际情况：劳工法改革从来都不在斗争范围之内，毋宁说它是导火索。永远都不会有最终和解。只有一个临时的赢家和一个渴望复仇的失败者。 + +每一次的政治爆发所揭示的都是不可削减的人类多样性，不会沉没的存在方式的异质性，以及——哪怕最小程度的求和都是不可能的。求和对每个被驱动的文明来说，都将永远是个丑闻。不存在严格意义上的政治用语或政治语言。只有一种在特定情境之中、面对确切的灾难时的对语言的政治运用。对一个防暴警察扔石头，并不会让这块石头成为一块“政治的石头”。也不存在任何的政治实体——诸如法国，某个政党或某个人。政治事关困扰着人们的内在冲突，它是统一体的美好形象在破碎的瞬间产生的对抗性张力。我们需要摒弃这种观点：在有一个梦想、程序、计划和蓝图的地方才有政治，在有一个目标、决策和一个待解决的问题的地方才有政治。真正的政只能是生活中出现的东西，是对现实的明确。它是从附近的地方诞生的，而不是来自远方的投射。附近并不意味着限制，它不是受限的、狭小的、画地为牢的。毋宁说，它意味着什么是协调的、充满活力的、充足的、在场的、可感的、发光的以及熟悉的——可把握，可理解。附近，它不是一个空间概念，而是一个伦理概念。地理距离无法把我们与我们感觉与之接近的东西分开。相反，邻居也无法把我们拉近。只有通过接触才能发现朋友和敌人。政治局面不是由一次决定造成的，而是由多次决定之间的会议和震撼造成的。从附近出发的人并没有放弃遥远的事物，他们只是给了自己一个到达那里的机会。因为远方是被此时此地给出的。我们所关心的远方总是在这里触动我们。无论有着怎样的控制论和社会隔阂，这一点仍然成立。 + +一种真正的政治力量只能从一个附近到另一个附近、从一个瞬间到另一个瞬间地形成，而不是通过陈述一个目的而形成。此外，确定终点仍然是一种手段。一个人只有在某种情况下使用手段。即使马拉松也要一步一步地跑。这种将政治置于附近而不是置于家庭中的方式，某种程度上是自治主义的女权主义最宝贵的贡献。在这个时代，它把整个左派政党的意识形态抛进了危机之中。然而，女权主义则再次抛弃了附近，“日常”通过将其意识形态化、外表的政治化，东拉西扯地让它成了女权主义遗产的一部分，这无论如何都令人难以接受。当然，世界上的一切都在有计划地分散我们的注意力，这同样离我们非常近。“日常”倾向于顽固地待在一个免受冲突的地方，倾向于避免过于强烈的影响。正是这种怯懦拉低了一切，最终让日常和我们的关系变成了浆糊。如果我们更加平静，对自己更加确定，如果我们对冲突和对抗带来的破坏少一点恐惧，那它们的后果就不那么令人讨厌了。也许根本就不令人讨厌。 + +#### 让我们废除世界 + +虽然80%的法国人声称他们再也不对政治家抱任何期待，这同一拨人对国家及其制度却充满信心。无论是丑闻、证据，还是个人经验，都丝毫未能减损对这个国家制度的尊敬。人们总是归咎于体现了这一制度的那批人。制度酿下大错，滥用权力，陷入过超常的瘫痪，但是，和意识形态一样，无论多少次反复被事实打脸，它都风雨不动。国民阵线（注：玛丽勒庞的法国极右翼民粹主义政党，2018.6后改名国民联盟）单单许诺要恢复制度，就从引人烦恼变成了令人安心。这种事并不稀奇。真实世界含有一种内禀的混乱，为了平息那种混乱，人类必须让真实世界变得可以解读，进而可以预测。而所有体制恰恰提供了一种对真实世界的静态解读，将现象凝固下来。体制之所以如此适合我们，主要是因为它所担保的那种解读让我们每个人不用再做任何肯定，不用再去冒险独自辨读生活和事物，不用再共同生产我们所独有且共享的对世界的理解。问题在于，选择不作为就相当于选择不存在，等于弃绝了生活。现实中，我们需要的不是制度，而是形式。事实上，无论是生物的、单个的还是集体的生命，都恰恰在连续不断地创造各种形式。感知它们、接受它们的出现、给它们腾点地方、和它们一同变形，这就够了。一个习惯是一种形式；一缕思绪是一种形式；一段友谊是一种形式；一部作品是一种形式；一段声明是一种形式。所有生命都只是形式和形式间的互动。 + +只不过，你看，咱们是在法国。在这个国家里，连大革命都已成了一种制度。这种矛盾性被出口到世界各地。假如我们希望有朝一日能再次谈论革命，甚或再次创造革命，那我们就得解决这种特别法国式的对制度的迷恋。在这里，最自由至上的精神疗法学派自我标榜为“制度性精神疗法”，最具批判性的社会学自称“制度分析”（注：两者注重研究外在制度对精神和行为的影响）。如果说制度的原则源自古罗马，那对它的深厚感情显然源于基督教。法国人对制度的激情是受长期基督教浸染的明显症状，这个国家相信自己已摆脱了基督教的影响——也正因如此，这种影响才绵延不绝。我们不该忘记，第一个设想出制度的现代思想家是那个疯人加尔文，他出生在法国皮卡第，是所有鄙视生命者的楷模。法国人对制度的激情正是来自于基督教对生命的怀疑。制度这一理念的大恶就在于，它主张把我们从激情那里解脱出来，从存在的不可控危机中解放出来；它主张自己超越了激情，但实际上它也只是激情之一种，还属于最病态的那一类。制度声称自己是针对人类的良方，声称没一个人值得信任，不管是人民还是领袖、邻人还是兄弟还是陌生人。它声称主宰人类的一直是人性之恶、屈从欲望、自私自利、贪婪渴望等愚行，人类不应爱世上任何事物、不该遵从自己的意愿，它们全都是邪恶的。如果说像Frederic Lordon这样的经济学家无法描绘一场不成为新制度的革命，那也不是他的问题。因为整个经济学——不仅是“制度性经济学”这一派——就奠基在圣奥古斯丁的学说上。制度通过其名称和语言许诺，在尘世中，有一样东西能超越时间，能从生成的不可预测之流中抽身，能建立一点儿有形的永恒，一种不模棱两可的意义，不被人类的束缚和境况影响——也就是决定性地固化了真实世界，就像死亡那样。 + +这整座海市蜃楼在革命爆发时烟消云散。突然间，看似永恒者在时间中轰然坍塌，仿佛跌入无底深坑；看似根植人心者原来不过是痴人说梦。宫殿人去楼空，人们在王子的废纸堆里发现，他再也不相信这一切，也许从未相信过。在制度的假象背后发生的事情，总和它声称的那一套不同，而且恰恰是制度声称能让人们摆脱的东西：人脉、忠诚、宗派、利益、血统，甚至王朝等一出出人间喜剧，残忍争夺领地、资源、可鄙头衔以及影响力的逻辑——还有性征服和纯粹疯狂、古老友谊和重燃仇恨的种种故事。每种制度基本都是一大通临时修补工作的结果，然后它又否定了那次临时修补，否则就不成其为制度。它被认为是一成不变的，从而掩盖了它饕餮般吸收、控制、制度化它边缘所弥留的一点点生命的面目。教会是制度在现实中的普遍模型。正如教会的目标显然并非带领它的人群得救，而是让它自己及时得救，制度自称具有的功能只是它存在下去的借口。“宗教大法官”（注：指陀思妥耶夫斯基小说中的剧本）在一切制度中年复一年地上演。它的真实目的就是持续存在下去。为了保护这一成果，需要压迫多少灵魂和肉体——甚至是统治集团内部的灵魂和肉体——已不必详述。要成为领头人，就得被压迫到极致，成为受压迫者之王。减少犯罪和“保护社会”只是这一监禁性制度所用的借口。即使它持续上几百年，也从未成功做到过这些——实际上总是失败，因为它根本志不在此；它只想继续存在，择机生长，也就意味着它得照料犯罪的温床，经营不法的行为。医疗制度的目的并非关怀人们的健康，而是生产病人和定义健康，以此合理化自己的存在。自从伊万·伊里奇写作《医学报应》（medical nemesis）以来，尚无新事发生。我们生活的世界被毒素浸透，把所有人弄出病，这倒不是医疗制度的失败。正相反，我们见证了医疗制度的胜利。一般来说，体制明显失败之处正是它们的实际功能。学校阻碍了孩子学习，并不是出于偶然：这是因为有学习欲望的孩子会让学校无用武之地。工会也一样，其作用明显不是为了解放工人，而是维持他们目前的境况。事实上，如果工人们真动了解放自己的念头，工会的官僚们又能干什么呢？当然，一切体制内部总有些诚实的人，真以为自己在实现目标。但假如他们发现自己总在那些乖乖闭嘴的“现实主义者”的共谋之下被阻碍、孤立、惩罚、霸陵甚至驱逐，那也不是什么意外。这些被精挑细选过的受害者们难以理解体制的谎言，没明白体制实际上要他们干什么。他们注定被当作扫兴者、反叛者来对待，而且永远对此措手不及。 + +每当法国起了一丝最微茫的革命苗头，我们总会在其中发现“自我”的制度和制度的自我。因为“作为某人”总是归结为承认和忠于某种制度，因为“成功”就意味着顺从你在社交游戏的镜厅中映出的重重影像。体制通过“自我”控制每一个人。体制对与之竞争的运动保持关注，是为了弥补自己的僵死，否则这一切都无法存续，因为太死板、不够有活力。在体制和运动之间有种不合常理的辩证关系，证实了前者的不懈求生欲。像这样古老、庞大、僧侣式的、自法国成立几百年来一直镌刻在人民身心中的实际存在，假如不是一直在容忍、监控、和弥补批评者和革命者，也不可能持续至今。社会运动的狂欢仪式在其中运作，是一道安全阀，也是管理社会和更新体制的工具。它们给体制带来它所急需的柔韧性和新血肉。一代又一代，国家明智地招安了想被买通的，镇压了不能变通的。那么多学生运动的领袖都自然而然地晋升到内阁职位，并非出于偶然；他们当然对国家颇为同情，并以对制度的欣赏作为掩饰。 + +要打破用抗争驱动统治工具的循环，要破除让革命再现它所祛除事物的宿命，要粉碎反对革命的铁笼——这正是废除的目标所在。为了把革命的图景从压垮了它的制宪梦幻和整个法国大革命的遗产中解放出来，就必须提出废除的概念。必须介入革命的逻辑，在暴动的理念当中划出派别。因为有着制宪式的暴动，它们的结局和迄今为止一切革命相同：回到它们的对立面，回到“以……的名义”构建的东西——以谁的名义？人民，工人阶级，还是上帝，区别不大。也有废除式的暴动，例如六八年五月，意大利的“蹒跚五月”（creeping May），以及许多发起暴动的公社。虽然Nuit debout展现出了许多又酷又有活力、出乎意料的事物，它仍然被陈旧的制宪渴望所困扰，一如之前的西班牙广场运动和“占领华尔街”。过去那套革命论调自动出现，把“既成（执法）权力”和人们占领公共空间的“创构（制宪）权力”对立起来。Nuit debout最初的三个星期里，共和广场上出现了不少于三个团体，都立志要撰写一部新宪法。1792年起，同一场古老的辩论就在法国不断重演，场内总是座无虚席，观众总是不厌其烦。这是一项国民体育。甚至都不用翻新内装来迎合当下的趣味。不得不说，宪法改革有两重优势，既能满足翻天覆地的欲望，又能满足一成不变的欲望——到最后，只是改几行文字，象征性地修正一番。只要人们还在做词句之争，只要革命还是根据权利和法律的语言设想出来的，那么平息这场革命的方式也已经是众所周知、昭然若揭。 + +赤诚的马克思主义者们在一份工会小册子里宣称：“我们是真正的力量！”这个说法中，起作用的仍是制宪的谎言，它使我们疏远了战略性的思考。这类旧逻辑的革命光环下，最令人迷惑的概念也能假扮成不言而喻的真理。“谈论制宪权力就是谈论民主。”托尼·奈格里在他以此为题材的著作的开头写下这句可笑的谎言，而且，还不止他一个人在鼓吹这类藐视理智的废话。只要翻开卡尔·施密特的《宪法学说》——他甚至不能算是民主的朋友——就能意识到事情恰恰相反。制宪的谎言既适合独裁，也适合君主。那句挺漂亮的总统口号，“以人民的名义”，难道不说明问题吗？西哀士神父（注：法兰西大革命、法兰西执政府和法兰西第一帝国的主要理论家之一）发明了制宪和执法权力这一极其失败的分类，一套聪明的花招，但遗憾的是，他从来不是什么民主人士。他在1789年9月7日发表的著名演讲中如是说：“指派代表的人民将避免，而且必须避免亲自立法：因为他们没有要施加的特定意志。如果他们能下达某种意志，那法兰西就不再是代议制国家，而是民主制国家。人民，我重复一遍，在一个不是民主国家的国度里——法兰西不能成为民主国家——人民不能发言，不能行动，除非是通过其代表。”谈论制宪权力并不一定意味着谈论民主，不过这两个概念都会把革命带进死胡同。 + +拉丁语的destituere一词意指：孤立，独自站起；抛弃；放在一边，任由放弃，击垮；使沮丧，欺骗。当制宪的、创构的逻辑被它本想驾驭的权力机器撞毁，废除的潜能就被纳入考虑。它逃开权力机器，避开权力机器可能对它进行的一切控制，同时慢慢掌握它所形成的独立空间内的世界。其标志性姿势是“撤离”，而典型的制宪的姿态是“迅速占领”。在废除的逻辑下，对国家及资本的斗争之所以有价值，首先因为这样就能从资本主义的正常状态中撤离，并抛开与自我、他人和资本主义世界之间的恶心联系。因此，“制宪派”把自己绕进了一种和统治权威斗争、以便取而代之的辩证关系中，在同一情况下，废除的逻辑则服从生死攸关的需要，摆脱统治权威。它并不放弃斗争；它坚持站在斗争的积极一面。它并不根据敌人的动向调整自身，而是根据增长自我潜能的需要。所以它对批判作用甚微：“要么毫不迟疑地跳出去，不费一点批判的工夫，只因为身处敌人控制区外；要么留下来批判，一只脚踏进敌区，一只脚在外。我们需要跳出圈子，在其上方舞蹈，”让-弗朗索瓦·利奧塔解释说，通过辨认德勒兹和瓜塔里《反俄狄浦斯》的姿势。德勒兹则评论道：“一般来说，人们是通过这些话认出马克思主义者的：他们说社会自相矛盾，被矛盾所定义，尤其是阶级矛盾。而我们会说，社会中所有事物都在逃逸，社会为逃逸线所定义[…]逃逸，但一边逃一边寻找武器。”问题并不在于为共产主义而斗争。关键是在斗争中过上一种共产主义生活。一次行动的丰富性蕴含于其自身。这并不意味着我们不观察行动的效用，而是说，一次行动的潜在影响力并不存在于其结果中，而在于它直接表达出的内容。基于苦劳建立的成果总是毁于疲惫。作为一个典型的例子，cortege de tete这类游行让工会游行的列队行进遭到了废除。cortege de tete表现出蓬勃的喜悦、姿态公正、充满决心，既积极又富有侵略性，它以此把所有活跃的人们吸引到斗士的行列中，并废除了示威的制度。它对其余的游行不置一词，但它不止是象征性地“占领了街道”。从制度中撤退绝不是留下一片空虚，而是以积极的方式去镇压制度。 + +废除首先并不是攻击制度，而是攻击我们对制度的需要。不是去批判它——国家的首要批判者是公务员本身；至于战士们，越是批判权力，就会越渴求权力，也越是不肯承认这种渴求——而是跳出局外，身体力行地实践体制原本的目的。废除大学意味着在远处建立用于研究、教育和思考的更有活力也更严格（应该不会太难）的场所，以此迎接仅剩的活跃头脑，他们已经厌倦了和学术僵尸打交道；到那时，才能给大学致命的一击。废除司法系统意味着学会有条有理地自行协商纷争，让审判机关瘫痪，把他们的打手赶出我们的生活。废除医药意味着去了解什么对我们有益、什么使我们生病，从制度中抢救出那些处于视野之外的具有激情的知识，再也不用一个人去医院、把自己的身体交给一个傲慢外科大夫的权威技艺了。废除政府意味着把我们自己变得不可统治。没人说要“赢过”，征服才是一切。 + +废除的姿势并不反抗制度。它甚至不打正面战，而是让制度无效化，抽空其实质，然后走到一边去，目送制度成为过眼云烟。它把制度简化为一组互不相干的实践，并对此做出决策。举一个正面例子：2016年夏天，当时的执政党社会党不得不取消其在南特举办的年度夏校（注：夏校的作用是复盘和争论重要社会问题）。六月，在名为“攻击”（Attack [A l’abordage]）的集会中所发生的事情，取得了cortege de tete在整个春季冲突期间都没能达到的效果：它使斗争中的不同成员得以在运动之外汇聚和组织在一起。工会主义者，Nuit-debout的参加者，大学生，ZAD主义者（注：ZAD是近年兴起的、出于环保目的保护一块土地不被征用的运动），高中生，退休人员，社区志愿者和其他艺术家为社会党准备了一个当之无愧的欢迎委员会。对政府来说，在整个春季中毁掉它生活的小小废除性潜能有极大风险重生为更高层次的组织。用联邦，警察和休假来掩盖冲突的共同努力将成徒劳。所以社会党撤退了，不打算和“Attack!”集会中形成的积极纽带与表现出的决心正面交战。同样，保护ZAD的是ZAD周围形成的连接的潜力，而不是其军事力量。最为精妙的废除式的胜利通常是不战而胜的。 + +Fernand Deligny说：“为了和语言及制度斗争，正确的说法或许不是‘斗争’，而是尽量远离，即使这意味着要表明自己的态度。我们为什么要走到墙边、紧贴墙壁？我们的计划并非占领和守住广场。”Deligny显然正是奈格里不能容忍的那类人，一个“废除主义者”。但考虑到在制宪的逻辑下、把社会运动和一个夺权政党挂钩后都发生了些什么，废除似乎正是可行之道。我们看到，过去几年间，Syriza这个“从广场运动中崛起”的政党成了欧洲工会紧缩政策的最佳接盘侠。至于Podemos，毫无疑问，每个人都看到它内部争权的激烈程度前所未有，一把手和二把手针锋相对。又怎能忘记Pablo Iglesias在2016年6月立法运动中感人肺腑的演讲：“我们是法律和秩序的政治力量[…]我们为说出祖国一词自豪。[…]因为我国的制度让孩子们能上戏院、上学。因此我们为制度辩护，为法律辩护，因为穷人手中只有法律和自己的权利。”或者来听听这段2015年3月在安达卢西亚做出的颇富启发性的长篇大论：“我想对这些人表示敬意：民主军人万岁！给腐败戴上了手铐的国民警卫队万岁！”近段时间，Podemos彻底投入可悲的政治阴谋，这让它的某些成员产生了动摇，并痛苦地意识到：“他们想掌权；但权力掌控了他们。”至于那些意图占领巴塞罗那市长办公室、静坐示威的“公民运动”，它们只向之前参加静坐的人们呈现出一桩仍无法公开的事实：通过进入政府机构，他们确实能够“掌权”，但是在那里，他们什么也做不了，除了拆分一些酒店项目，使一两个职业合法化，或者举办盛大典礼接待巴黎市长Anne Hidalgo的到访。 + +废除使人们有可能重新考虑革命的意义。传统的革命计划包括夺回世界，没收剥夺者的财物，暴力侵占原属于我们但被人剥夺的财产。但这就是问题所在：资本掌握了存在的每个细节和每个方面。它以其形象创造了一个世界。它已从对生命存在形式的剥削变成了一个完整的宇宙。它已经对符合自己目标的说话、思考、进餐、工作和休假、服从和叛逆的方式进行了改造和装配，让它们变得称心如意。这样一来，它极大地缩减了人们可能想要在这个世界上重新占有的份额。谁愿意夺回核电站、亚马逊仓库、高速公路、广告代理商、高速列车、达索公司、拉德芳斯商业中心、审计公司、纳米技术、超市和里面有毒的商品？谁想象得出，人们会去接管工业化农业经营？——那里，一个人在卫星导航下用巨型拖拉机的车轮犁过400公顷被侵蚀的土地。没一个理智的人会这么想。老旧的制宪立场也不再起作用了，因此革命者的任务越发繁重。结果是，最绝望也是下了最大决心拯救它的人终于找到了制胜法宝：为了和资本主义做个了断，我们要做的就是重新分配金钱本身！一名奈格里主义者从2016年春季的冲突中得出了这一结论：“我们的目标是：将从欧洲中央银行的水龙头流出的控制性金钱流转换成真正的金钱，转化为无条件的社会收入！将财政天堂带回地球，攻击离岸金融的堡垒，没收流动收益的矿藏，确保每个人都能进入商品世界——也就是我们真正生活的世界，不管这是否令我们高兴。”人们唯一喜欢的普世主义，就是金钱的普世主义！让任何想掌权的人首先去掌握金钱吧！任何希望建立反对力量的公社的人都应首先保障这股反对力量的物质条件！让想废除、想从中离开的人思考一下：客观来说，有没有可能从金钱所有权固有的对支配性社会关系的生产中退出！任何赞成广泛、可持续罢工的人，都应该思索：社会化收入所赋予的工资自主权的边界在哪里，能不能对得起它的名字！让任何希望下层暴动的人不要忘记“让我们掌握金钱”这句口号中包含的强大的解放承诺！一个关心自己的心理健康的革命者，会想要把这类制宪的逻辑及其背后金钱之河的图景抛到脑后。 + +因此，革命的姿态不再只是对这个世界的简单暴力侵占；它分成了两部分。一方面，得创造一些世界，创造脱离统治的生命形式，为此得抢救可以从目前的事物状态中抢救出来的东西；另一方面，必须进行攻击，摧毁资本世界。这两种姿态再次分殊：很明显，如果建造出的世界要和资本保持距离，只能在事实上攻击和密谋反对后者；很明显，如果攻击不是被一种不同寻常且由衷的有关世界的想法所激发，就不会有真正的影响力，只会耗在无果的激进主义中。在破坏中，得先构成同谋；在此基础上，破坏才有合理性。反之亦然。只有从废除的立场出发，才能理解破坏中建设性的部分。否则，就很难理解工会示威中的某群人怎么会在一家车行的窗玻璃终于被砸碎坠地、或一件家具摔成碎片时欢呼高唱。一万名cortege de tete游行者打破一切该打破的东西，甚至像2016年6月14日在巴黎那次，在整个示威游行过程中持续破坏途经的一切，似乎也不是很自然的事情。还有，政府机器准备的那套特别完善、一般情况下又特别有效的反对破坏的话术，这次怎么失灵了，再也没人信服了呢？撇开别的解释不谈，破坏可以被理解为公开进行一次针对所有权的开放性辩论。“他们总是破坏不属于他们的东西。”这类存心不良的指责需要被扭转过来。如果在破坏的那一刹那，那东西不是在你手里——因此一定程度上也属于你——你又怎么能破坏它呢？民法典中写道：“至于家具，占有就可视为拥有。”事实上，破坏的人所做的不是一种否定的行为，而是一次矛盾的、反直觉的肯定。他们不顾一切表象，肯定道：“这是我们的！”因此，破坏就是肯定，就是掠夺。它揭示了现今主宰一切的财产制度的问题所在。或至少它就这个棘手问题展开了辩论。而且，几乎没有其他方法可以启动这场辩论，假如以和平方式开始探讨，讨论马上就会终结。此外，每个人都能看到，2016年春的那场冲突是如何平息了公众辩论逐渐恶化的态势。 + +只有肯定才具有完成毁灭的工作之潜能。因此，废除的姿态既是当逃兵也是攻击，既是创造也是破坏，这一切都包含在同一种姿态中。它同时挑战了世所公认的异类主义（alternativism）和行动主义的逻辑。它将长时间的创造和瞬息间的干预联系起来，将享受世界一隅和将这一隅置于险境的两种倾向联合起来。假如不爱冒险，生活的理由也将消失。安逸——它遮蔽了感知，抽干了词语的意义并以重复它们为乐，宁愿陷于无知——才是真正的敌人，内在的敌人。这无关乎一种新的社会契约，而是一种新的战略性地组合世界的方式。 + +共产主义是废除一切事物现存状态的真正运动。 + +#### 工作的结束，奇妙的生活 + +似乎在这场因为新劳动法而爆发的冲突中，人们谈论的问题都围绕着政府权力、民主、宪法第49条第3款、暴力、移民、恐怖主义、或者随便其他什么问题，但都不会去讨论工作本身。相比之下在1998年的“失业者运动”当中，人们只拷问工作这个问题，甚至考虑的是我们如何拒绝工作。早些时候，人们在街上遇见一个熟人，会很自然地问：“最近在哪上班？”答案也来得很自然。当时的人们都能够说出自己在整个生产体系中的地位。他们甚至可以打印出一张名片，来标识一下自己是什么职务的。而如今广大工薪阶层的社会地位已经分崩离析，以至于人们会回避这类容易让人感到不安的问题。现在许多人的生活也就是四处寻找一些不稳定的短工，然后遭遇失业的动荡，休息一下然后重头再来。“工作”已经失去了它的光彩和曾经的中心地位，不仅是人们所处的各种社会位置不再稳定，而且工作本身也是如此。 + +慢慢地，我们中越来越多的人成了多余的人，“对世界毫无用处的人”——起码对经济世界毫无用处。60年代，诺伯特•维纳（Norbert Wiener）等人预言，自动化和计算机化“将导致大规模失业，当前的就业困难和1930-1936年的经济危机相比不过是小场面。”最新证据来自亚马逊，他们计划在美国开设2000家完全自动化的便利店，没有收银机，因此也没有收银员，全面监控之下的顾客可以通过面部识别和实时分析的手势信号来支付。一进门，你的智能手机就会发出哔哔声，然后你就可以自己给自己收银了。多亏了一款应用程序，你从货架上拿取的商品会自动记录在你的账户里，而你放回货架上的东西会被重新记入商店库存。它叫Amazon Go。在这个未来的购物反乌托邦中，不再有现金、排队、盗窃，当然也不再有员工。据预测，如果这种新模式得以大规模实施，将会颠覆美国最大的工作岗位提供者——分销行业。最终，广大便利店所提供的工作岗位将消失四分之三。如果我们把目光看得更远，按照世界银行的预测，到2030年左右，在“创新”的压力下，富裕国家现有岗位的40%将会消失。“我们永远不会工作”不再是诗人兰波的一句虚张声势的话。它将成为整整一代年轻人对自己人生的清晰评估。 + +从极左到极右，到处都有向人们信誓旦旦地保证“恢复充分就业”的屁话。那些想让我们对经典工资制度的黄金时代感到遗憾的人，无论是马克思主义者还是自由主义者，都不反对对其起源撒谎。他们声称，工资制度把我们从农奴制度、奴隶制度和传统结构中解放出来——总而言之，它是一种“进步”。但是，任何认真的历史研究都会表明，工资制度不过是奴役制度的一种延伸和强化。事实上，要使一个人成为“劳动力量的拥有者”，并使他倾向于“出卖”这种劳动力，也就是说，要使工人的形象进入日常生活和风俗习惯，是需要相当规模的毁灭、驱逐、掠夺，大量的恐怖、纪律措施和死亡的。一个人最开始对自己的经济政治特征一无所知，直到他们认识到，劳动与其说是生产商品，不如说是生产工人——也就是说，与自己、与世界、与他人的某种关系。有酬劳动是维持一定秩序的形式。但它所包含的隐藏暴力，那些被装配线上的血汗工人、死于甲烷爆炸的矿工、或在极端管理压力下精疲力竭的躯体所掩盖的暴力，都与生命的意义有关。通过出卖劳动者自己的时间，通过把他们自己变成他们被雇佣去做的事情的主体，有工资的工人把他们自身存在的意义放在那些根本不关心他们的人的手中，而这些人的目的就是要对劳动者横加统治。工资制度通过“使自己有用”、“创造事业”、“服务社会”等麻痹自己的想法，让几代人能够逃避“生活的意义是什么？”的问题。领工资的员工总是可以自由地把这个问题推迟到以后——比方说，等到退休以后——去享受体面的社交生活。但是一个劳动者一旦退休，一切都显得“太晚”了，那些想做的事根本无力再去做，剩下要做的就是耐心地等待死亡。因此，我们将度过一个完全不存在意义的生活。蒙克的画作《呐喊》描绘了当代人的真实面貌，这是有充分理由的。这个绝望的人在通往死亡彼岸的长桥前，还是没有找到“我该如何生活?”这个问题的答案。 + +对资本而言，工薪社会的解体既存在着掠夺的机会，也伴随着很大的政治风险。风险在于，人类可能会设计出一种新的对时间和生命的不可预见的使用方法，甚至可能会重新把生命意义的问题放在心上。因此，那些负责人早早的宣布，我们这些被迫空闲下来的人没有自由来随心所欲地利用自己的时间。这就好像我们作为消费者时需要做更多的工作，而作为生产者时却要做更少的工作。仿佛消费不再意味着一种满足，而是一种强制的社会义务。此外，休闲的技术设备越来越类似于工作。我们在互联网上冲浪时，所有的点击都会产生GAFA所转售的数据，通过引入分数、等级、奖金和其他幼稚的诱饵，工作的性质就会被娱乐的诱惑所掩盖。与其把当前大规模的政府安全计划和监控狂欢看作是对9/11恐怖袭击的回应，不如把它们看作是对经济上已确立的事实的回应，正是在2000年开始，技术创新开始减少就业机会，而失去工作的人需要被监视起来。现在有必要监控人们所有的活动，人们所有的交流、姿势、表情、话语。在街头巷尾布满了摄像头和传感器，因为挣工资的纪律已经不足以控制人群了。管理者认为只有完全处于控制之下的人，资本才能提供普遍的基本收入。不是工资带来秩序，而是秩序带来工资。 + +但秩序其实不是最主要的事情。最重要的是要保持经济的统治地位，而不只是废除工资制度。与这样一个事实有关：如果工作量越来越少，那么人们的生活都更多地受到金钱的影响，即使是很小的金额。由于没有工作，为了生存必须维持一个必要的工资水平。即便像许多自由派经济学家所建议的那样，有一天建立起全民基本收入，其数额也必须维持在一个基本温饱的水平，足以让一个人免于饿死的边缘，但绝对不能让人得到一个有尊严的生活，即使再怎么节俭也不行。我们正在目睹经济体制的变化。工人的勤劳崇高形象正被贫穷的投机客的渺小形象所取代——因为如果金钱控制要渗透到世界的每一个角落，那么就需要四处制造贫困与缺乏。从今往后，每一件事都必须遵循一系列原则：是不是能赚点小钱、是不是能提高我这个人的价值、是否有利可图。目前的技术攻势也应被理解为一种新型资产占领，如何让那些不能再通过有酬劳动被剥削的人压榨出更多价值。世界正在从两个方面被快速的“优步化（uberization）”，一方面优步（Uber）、Deliveroo等公司提供一种不需专精技术的工作机会，而是要人们把自己的旧车作为资本。每个司机/外卖员都要想尽办法自我剥削，因为他们知道，必须每周工作一定时长，才能挣到相当于最低工资的钱。另一方面然后是Airbnb,BlaBlaCar等网站，还有一些网络约会，“共同办公”，现在甚至是“拼车回家”或“共享仓储”，以及所有能使可估价范围扩展到生活中方方面面的应用程序。与“协作经济”相关的，是其无穷无尽的资产价值评估的可能性，它不仅仅是对生活方式的简单改变——它是对生活可能性的改变，对人们认知的改变。在Airbnb出现之前，人们家里的空置房间是为可能到来的客人准备的“客房”，或可供其他新用途的房间。而现在一间空置的房间是收入的巨大损失。在BlaBlaCar出现之前，一个人的驾驶旅途是做白日梦的机会、分享给朋友的搭车机会，或者诸如此类其他非功利用途，但是现在它是一个错过赚钱机会的愚蠢行为，因此，从经济上来说，任何的资产空置都是一个骇人的丑闻。人们捐赠给回收站、慈善机构或送给朋友的东西，现在统统送往了Le bon coin。从各个角度来看，人们总是希望自己的生活每一面能够参与到资产增值计算当中去。对“错过机会”的恐惧会激励我们在生活中前进。重要的不是怎么每小时挣一欧元，也不是通过为亚马逊的Mechanical Turk扫描内容赚几个便士，而是这种参与未来可能会带来什么。从此以后，一切都必须进入赢利的领域。生活中的一切都变得有价值，即使是垃圾。我们自己也变成了贫穷的投机客，即使是无业的“人类垃圾”，也得打着“共享经济”的旗号互相剥削。越来越多的人注定要被排除在稳定的工资体系之外，但这也不是是为了让他们有时间早上拿着手机四处玩Pokémon Go抓口袋妖怪，下午去悠闲地钓鱼。新市场的出现说明了一个很难让传统马克思主义者解释的事实：资本主义并不只在于出售生产出来的东西，而在于对任何尚未被染指的东西负起评估的责任，在于为前一天似乎完全不受影响的东西赋予可衡量的价值，在于开拓新市场。如何去无止境的扩充市场容量。资本主义是无限的、普遍的估值扩张。 + +在经济学中，关于如何管理这些贫困的投机商的理论被称为“人力资本理论”。经济合作与发展组织（Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development）如今将其定义为“有助于创造个人、社会和经济福祉的个人知识、技能、能力和属性”。左翼经济学家约瑟夫•斯蒂格利茨（Joseph Stiglitz）估计，“人力资本”现在占资本总额的三分之二到四分之三，这似乎证实了斯大林那句不带讽刺意味的话：“人是最宝贵的资本。”约翰·洛克在著作《论政府》中认为：“每人对他自己的人身享有一种所有权，除他以外任何人都没有这种权利。他的身体所从事的劳动和他的双手所进行的工作，我们可以说，是正当的属于他的。”在他看来，这是无关殖民和奴役的。马克思让“人”成为他的“劳动力”的所有者——当你思考这个问题时，你会发现这是一个相当神秘的形而上学的实体。但在这两种情况下，人类都是某物的所有者，他可以在不受损害的情况下将该物转让给他人。一个人在自身存在形式上和他所卖的东西不一样。根据人力资本理论，人类与其说是无限资本的拥有者（文化上的、人际关系的、专业能力的、金融资产上的、象征性的、性能力上的、健康方面的资本），不如说资本就是他自己。他就是资本本身。他不断地在增加自身资本和在某个市场出售资本之间进行权衡。他既是产品的生产者，又是产品的销售者。从逻辑上讲，足球运动员、演员、明星和受欢迎的Youtube博主是人力资本时代的英雄，他们的价值与他们的身份完全吻合。微观经济学因此成为指导人们行为的基础科学，无论是在商业、宗教还是爱情中。每个人都成为一个企业的思想指导下，人们不断关注自我价值增长，不放过每个至关重要的自我提升机会。从本质上说，人变成了优化资产的生物——一群贫穷的投机客。 + +在20世纪60年代，针对贫穷的投机客的统治被称为资本的拟人化。正如资本认识到的那样，在这个星球上，在每个人的一生中，存在的被称为真正支配的全部殖民化模式——自我为资本——是价值贬值后资本主义采取的新形式。资本正在从内部激励每个人卖命工作，这是资本占有人的一切属性的诡计，是人使自己成为资本主义价值观支持者的诡计。资本不再仅仅决定城市的样貌、人们的休闲娱乐、人群的想象、现实生活的话语、亲密关系，时尚潮流的走向、人们的需求和满足，它也产生了资本主义自己的新人类。它产生了自己需要的最佳人选。在这里，所有关于价值理论的老掉牙东西都被放进了博物馆。以当代夜总会的舞池为例：没有人会说自己来是为了钱而不是为了玩。没有人是被迫以工作的方式去那里的。没有明显的剥削，没有明显的金钱流通。他们仍然选择在一起扭动身体。然而，那里发生的一切都与评估、定价、自我定价、个人偏好、战略、供给和需求的理想匹配有关，都在资产优化思维的约束下——简而言之，一个纯粹的新古典主义人力资本市场。现在的价值逻辑就是教你如何管理自己的生活。经济作为一种与世界交互的关系，早已超越了经济作为一个社会部分的地位。愚蠢的价值评估显然支配着当代生活的方方面面，但它也统治着一切逃离那个领域的事物。它甚至决定了孤独的慢跑者与自己的关系，为了提高他们的成绩，慢跑者需要详细地了解他们自己。为自己估值已经成为所有意图在社会上存在的人的义务。社交媒体也非常符合逻辑地勾勒出我们所面临的全方位评估的未来是怎样的。在这一点上，你可以相信网络剧《黑镜》的预言，也可以相信这位对当代市场充满热情的分析师的预言：“想象一下，明天，随着网络上的每一个小字眼被扣出来，不管你在网上有什么胡言乱语、交流、会面、交易、分享或行为，你都需要考虑这可能对你的声誉产生的影响。”其次，你的名声将不再是一种看不见摸不着的东西，某些人只能够通过向你的朋友和专业合作伙伴打听你的名声。而是一种真正的评估你全面能力的证书，它是由复杂的算法建立的，基于网络数据中关于你的一千零一条信息的交集计算，而这些信息本身又与你所接触的人的名声相互参照！欢迎来到这个即将到来的未来，在那里，你的“声誉”将被具体地记录下来，作为一个公开的文件，所有人都可以访问。这是一个关系型的、专业的、商业的敲门砖，能够允许或阻止你在应用程序上拼车的机会，与温顺或有吸引力的男女进行浪漫约会的机会，你在eBay或亚马逊上的销售机会，以及更多：一次与医学专家的约见，一次房地产交易，或者一次银行贷款。我们在网络上的行为越来越成为我们声誉的基础。此外，我们的社会价值将成为我们经济价值的主要指标。 + +资本主义在这个时代有了新变化，它现在有了技术手段，可以对人类的各个方面进行概括的、实时的评估。对评级和交叉评级的热情已经逃离了教室、股市和主管的档案，侵入了生活的方方面面。如果人们接受“使用价值”这一矛盾的概念，并将其定义为“商品的本体、其自然属性、多种特征的集合”，那么价值领域就被提炼到这样一个程度：它与著名的“使用价值”、地点、人的特性和事物的特性紧密地契合在一起，就像与身体的第二层皮肤一样。这就是经济学家、社会学家卢西安•卡皮克（Lucien Karpik）所称的“奇点经济学”。事物的价值往往与它们的具体存在难以区分。法国-黎巴嫩裔金融家伯纳德•穆拉德（Bernard Mourad）把这一说法变成了一个概念：肉体资产（Les Actifs corpo）。在成为埃马纽埃尔•马克龙竞选期间的特别顾问之前，伯纳德曾在摩根士丹利商业银行担任Altice传媒集团的董事。Altice是帕特里克·德拉希（Patric Drahi）的控股子公司，控制着解放报（Liberation）、快报（L’express）和i24 News等媒体。在小说中，他想象了如何将一个人进入股票市场，以对他的精神分析、专业能力以及生物学上检查作为估值依据。在“新个体经济”的背景下，将一个“社会人”插入一个交易市场的故事，在2006年出版时颇具未来主义色彩。目前，法国雇主联合会MEDEF正在提议，在每位法国公民出生时，为他们分配一个SIRET号码（企业识别号码）。人的价值成为了他们“个人特征”的集合——他们的健康、他们的幽默、他们的美貌、他们的知识、他们的社交关系、他们的“社会技能”、他们的想象力、他们的创造力，等等。价值域包含了如此多的维度，以至于它已经成为一个复杂的空间。在正式意义上属于社会的价值已经变成了真正意义上的社会价值。随着货币失去了其非个人的、匿名的、中立的特性，变得可追踪、本地化、个性化，货币也活了起来。“现代世界，”夏尔·佩吉写道，“不会因为欲望而去卖淫。它完全不可能做到这一点。这是卖淫的普遍化，因为它是普遍的，所以一切都是可以互换的。”无论我们的“社会价值”在哪里，无论我们用自己的一部分换取的报酬是多么的少，无论它是经济的、象征的、政治的、情感的还是性方面的，卖淫性质的东西都会进入我们身体的方方面面。当代的交友网站形成了一个有趣的互助卖淫的典型案例，卖淫无处不在，每时每刻都在发生，无论什么时候，人们都在出卖自己。如今，当所有的名誉资本都可以轻易转化为性剩余价值时，谁又能说我们不是处在“工业生产的一个新阶段，在那里生产者能够要求消费者把感官享受作为一种支付方式，所有的一切都鲜活了起来。即使鲜活的肉体货币与无生气的货币市场并行，一旦它被植入人们的习惯并在经济规范中确立，它也完全有能力取代金本位的作用。” + +金钱带来的眼花缭乱源于其纯粹的潜力。货币积累实际上是延后了任何其他的实际享受;因为金钱带来了等价的可能性，世界上有什么东西是用钱买不到的呢？每一笔支出、每一笔购买首先都是一种丧失，相对于金钱所能带来的每一种具体享受而言，它首先是对金钱所包含的其他潜在享受的否定。在人力资本和活体货币的时代，生活的每一刻和每一种与客体交互的关系都被一组可能的等价物围绕着，这些等价物在啃噬着它们。生活在这里，意味着我们不能放弃这种生活到其他地方去，因为那里的生活显然更紧张，因为我们的智能手机已经担负起通知我们的责任。和一个特定的人在一起是一种无法忍受的牺牲，所有其他的人都可以和他在一起。每一种爱都被其他可能的爱预先破坏了。因此，在那里是不可能的，在那里是不合适的。普遍的不满。普遍的虐待。疾病、死亡。“绝望”，正如克尔凯郭尔所诊断的那样。 + +经济不只是一个我们必须退出的系统，如果我们要停止成为贫穷的投机客。为了生存，为了活在这个世界上，我们必须逃离经济。每一件事物，每一个存在，每一个地方其实都是不可估量的，因为它们先于评估者而存在于世。一个人可以随心所欲地从各个角度和各个方面去衡量一个事物，但它的具体存在永远是无法衡量的。如果仅仅从现在的事实来看，每一个存在都是不可简化的个体。最终，我们的现实是不可估量，不可控的。这就是为什么要采取如此多的政策措施来维持表面上的秩序、统一和平衡。“现实事物的的琢磨不透／是我的日常发现／每一件事都只是它自身而已／很难向其他人解释我有多高兴，对我来说有多满足／只有事物本身的存在就足够了／如果我把胳膊伸过去，我也只能碰到胳膊够着的地方／也就是连一厘米也碰不到／我触摸着我所触摸之物，而不是我所想之物／我坐在我所处的位置／而真正可笑的是，我们总是想着别的事情，游离于肉体之外”作为它的指导原则，经济让我们像老鼠一样跑来跑去，以至于我们永远不会去揭开经济篡夺的秘密：事物本身的存在。 + +逃离经济就是把它所欺骗掩盖的现实平面抽离出来。商品交换和它所包含的所有东西，包括苛刻的谈判、不信任、欺骗，而且正如美拉尼西亚人所说，并不完全是西方的。在人们懂得如何生活的地方，人们只会与外来的人建立这种欺骗关系，因为与他们之间的距离足够遥远，这样混乱就不会发展成普遍的冲突。支付，在拉丁语中，来源于pacare，“为了满足，为了平静”，例如，给士兵们分发钱，这样他们就可以给自己买一些盐——这就是工资。一个人为了和平而付出。整个经济词汇基本上是一个避免战争的词汇。“敌对关系与互惠承诺之间存在联系和连续性：交换是和平解决的战争，而战争是不成功交易的结果。”（列维—斯特劳斯）。目前经济的缺陷是把一切可能的和平关系都化约为敌对关系，它以这种方式覆盖了所有的范围，所有的层次，所有的异质性。根据人类之间的的距离，存在着某些事物的共享、互惠的交换、商业交换或完全没有交换。每一种生命形式都有它自己的语言和表达多样性的概念。当人想让一些混蛋付出代价时发动战争。而当人们爱的时候，不会计较代价。金钱却把种种话语的可能性都消磨殆尽了。因此，逃离经济就是能够深刻地区分可能出现的分歧，并从一个分歧所在出发，部署一整套关于距离的艺术。这是把敌对关系——包括金钱、算计、估值——尽可能地推远。是将当前的经济的规范、核心和必要条件都驱逐到生活的边缘。 + +现在有大量的人试图逃离经济的规则。他们正在成为面包师，而不是商业顾问。他们想尽办法丢掉毫无意义的工作。他们成立了合作社，例如SCOPs和SCICs。他们试图“以不同的方式工作”。但经济设计得如此之好，以至于现在有了一个完整的部门，即“社会团结经济”，它依靠那些逃避经济者的能量运行。这种经济模式成型将占法国GDP的10%。各种各样的网、话语和法律结构已经建立起来，以捕获逃犯。他们真心实意地致力于他们梦想的事情，但他们的活动被社会重新记录，这种编码最终掩盖了他们所做的一切。有些人负责维护他们村子的水源，但某一天他们发现被宣布从事“管理公共资源”。出于对公正、透明度或模范性的关注，很少有部门像社会团结经济那样，对簿记如此迷恋。相比之下，任何中小企业都是一家记账的妓院。然而，我们超过150年的合作社经验告诉我们，它们从未对资本主义构成丝毫威胁。那些幸存下来的公社迟早会成为和其他公司一样的企业。没有“其他经济”，只有与经济的另一种关系。确切地说，是一种距离和敌意的关系。社会团结经济的错误在于相信它所采取的结构。坚持内部发生的事情符合法规，符合官方的运作模式。人们与所采用的结构之间的唯一关系，就是把它们当作保护伞，做一些与经济授权完全不同的事情。所以在使用方式和距离上社会团结经济成为了资本主义的同谋。一家由朋友照管的商业印刷厂，在空闲的周末就会提供机器，印刷一些不上台面的印刷物，所以没有记录。一群木匠朋友偷偷使用他们公司所有的设备建造一个小屋。一家餐馆的名字在全市都很有名，也很受人尊敬，它在工作之余会在同志之间进行讨论，而情报部门根本听不到这种讨论。我们只有在把经济结构撕开一个洞的条件下才能利用它。 + +作为一种经济结构，没有任何企业有任何意义，它什么也不是。它的意义只能从一个与经济无关的因素来理解。一般来说，给经济结构披上它所缺乏的含义是“沟通”的任务，而且，社会和团结经济的实体如此喜欢给自己强加模范道德意义和存在的理由，必须被视为一种陈腐的“沟通”形式，既要面向外部，也要面向内部。这使得这些实体中的一些进入了小众市场，一方面允许他们实行奇怪的昂贵的定价，另一方面以一种更加厚颜无耻的方式进行剥削，因为这是“为了一个好的理由”。至于有漏洞的结构，它的意义不是来自它所传达的，而是来自它所保守的秘密：它秘密地参与了一项比它大得多的政治计划，它的目的是在经济上中立，不是说毫无意义，而是在政治上明智的，它的目的是作为一种经济结构，它的目的是无休止地积累。以一种革命性的方式组织起来，通过整个法律结构的反抗网络，在他们之间进行交换是可能的，但也是有风险的。除其他外，这可能为国际阴谋关系提供理想的掩护。然而，我们总是面临着这样的威胁：重新陷入经济困境，迷失方向，看不到阴谋的存在。事实是我们必须组织我们自己，根据我们喜欢做的事情来组织，并为我们提供做这件事的手段。 + +衡量资本危机状态的唯一标准是那些试图摧毁资本危机的人的组织程度。 + +#### 人人痛恨警察 + +类似物理定律——社会秩序越失信就越武装警察，机构越不作为就越增订监督条例，当局激发的尊重越少就越试图通过武力逼我们就范。这是一个恶性循环，因为武力从来就没有丝毫可敬之处。以至于日益纵肆的武力得到的回应就是其不断减弱的有效性。维护秩序是已经失败的秩序的主要活动。人们只需去家庭援助基金（CAF）就可以了解那些无法持续的事情。当这样一个尚且温和的机构都必须用警卫、花招和威胁来袒护自己对付客户时，人们就意识到某种理性已经走到了尽头。当示威活动超出了有序把控，警察除了使用手雷和围堵战别无他法时，被迫在“反犯罪小组”的LBD 40s绿色激光面前掉头奔逃的示威者导致其他人被误伤，这表明“社会”已经到了姑息治疗的阶段。当郊区的平静是以被自动步枪武装起来的“共同申报准则”为代价时，我们知道世界上的某个（经济）数字消失了。一个民主政权养成让它的民众发火的习惯，这还从来不是什么好兆头。随着政治的缩减，一种大规模的警察操作开始日复一日地运行在每个领域，治安将不可避免地成为一个政治问题。 + +让我们回到几个月前。在宣布紧急状态之后，在接下来的《没收国籍法案》、《情报法》、《马克龙法》、雷米·弗雷泽遇害、竞争力与就业税收抵免及其对老板们的数百万补贴之后，劳工法改革的意图就是彻底扑灭据说被带到了深渊边缘的“左倾民族”的气势。权力之所是，无能于了解：失去所有希望也构成了纯粹反抗的先决条件——反抗是不再寻求否定它的事物的支持，而只从它自己那里得到它的理由。在反对劳工法改革的冲突中，被明确的并不是拒绝灾难性的改革，而是要反对大规模名誉扫地的政府机构，包括工会机构的严重失信。在华盛顿抗议唐纳德·特朗普就职时，“法国之春”那道“Soyons ingouvernable（让我们无法控制）”的横幅以“Become ungovernable（成为无法控制的）”重新呈现并不奇怪。既然在政府机构内，警察的职能是确保个人在上述情况下的服从，确保把人民制造成人口，制造成无权力者和可以治理的非政治化的群体，那么一场表达拒绝被治理的冲突将从向警察下手开始就是合乎逻辑的了，最流行的口号是：“人人痛恨警察。”逃离牧羊人的羊群找不到比这更好的战斗口号了。更让人意外的是，这条标语出现在雷米·弗雷泽在西文斯遇害后的示威游行中，更是在警察强奸西奥后一路传到了博比尼，成为那里“年轻人”的标语，被扔在穿制服的畜生们面前，后者正在由一条抬高的金属管道改成的观景台上盯梢。 + +《世界警察报》不仅仅表达了对警察的简单仇恨。17世纪初，对第一批主权思想家来说警察只不过是国家的宪法，确切说是它的形式。当时，它还不是后者手中的工具，巴黎也没有警察中尉。因此，在17、18世纪，“警察”的含义非常宽泛：la police是“一切能够给城市带来一种装饰、一种形式和一种辉煌的东西”（Turquet de Mayerne），“一切有助于整个国家的辉煌和所有公民的幸福的手段”（Hohenthal）。据说它的作用是“引导人类走向今生能享受的最完美的幸福”（Delamare）。治安工作要负责的是街道的清洁、市场的供应、公共照明、流浪汉关押、谷物价格的公平、运河清理、城市环境健康以及强盗逮捕。福奇和维托还没有给它一张现代的、受欢迎的脸。 + +如果一个人想了解维持治安这一突出的政治问题中的利害关系，那就有必要搞清在治安作为手段和治安作为目的这两者之间耍了哪些花招。一方面是理想的、合法的、虚假的社会秩序——作为治安的目的——另一方面，真正的秩序其实是真正的混乱无序。治安作为一种手段，其作用则是确保所期望的那个表面秩序看似占据主导地位。它通过使用混乱这一武器，同时利用贯穿在它的难以捉摸的行动中的对可见事物的统治，来确保事物的秩序。它的日常行为——诸如绑架、殴打、间谍活动、窃取、威胁、欺诈、撒谎、杀人、武装——遍布整个非法行为的登记册，基本上停不下来。为其合法性提供证明的东西并不是真实的，既然社会并不是由它自己的力量凝聚起来，那么这种秩序就不占主导地位，社会也就不会团结，治安经常被遣于阴暗处，在那里占据思维世界中的盲点之一。这对统治秩序来说就像脸部中间的胎记。每个主权国家都希望将持久和恒定的例外状态隐藏在这块胎记之下进行表达，但为了使自己感到害怕，它就要有规律地被迫展现出来。如果例外状态是通过最武断和血腥的措施暂时中止法律，从而有可能重建法治的条件，那么警察的行动在其日常中，也就是在条件得到恢复的日子里，也一直维持着例外状态。正常情况下，警察的日常行动就是他们在例外状态中的行动。这就是为什么他们的主权行动成为了主权本身这一点是如此的隐蔽。当警察对一个顽固不化的被逮捕者咆哮：“法律，我就是法律！”这话总是不在听力所能理解接收的范围内。还有，某天在示威中防爆警察无故把一个同志拖走时含讥带讽地说：“我想干什么就干什么，你看，今天对我来说也是无政府状态。”就政治经济学和控制论来说，警察仍然是一摊不可思议的可耻遗迹，一个提醒记起秩序的纪念品，秩序想把自己看作自然的，但仍然不是自然的，而且无疑永远不会是。因此，警察所监督的表面秩序就其内部来说只是混乱无序。它是谎言世界的真理，因此是一个持续不断的谎言。他们证明了这样一个事实，即这个秩序是人造的，迟早会被摧毁。 + +我们生活在一个由警察所构成的这种淫秽和不透明手段被全天候曝光的时代，这不可小觑。像是去年秋天，戴着头盔的武装警察以未经授权的士兵身份在爱丽舍宫向着高呼：“腐败的工会”和“共济会成员入狱”的人平静地行进，根本没有人敢谈论煽动性活动……像是美国总统发现自己面前有个偌大的“情报界”，后者在迫使他的国家安全顾问辞职后，显然是想让他下台……被法律废除的死刑显然又被针对“恐怖分子”进行干预的警察重新制定出来。警方已经成功宣布他们最不可辩解的疯狂行动几乎完全不受司法制裁……警察机构中的某些机构越来越公开地宣布他们与国民阵线结盟……2016年5月18日被认为有新闻价值的并不是某些警察联盟将共和国广场据为私有——“黑夜站立”正在那里集会——他们在吉尔伯特·科拉尔（劳工事务方面的代理律师）和埃里克·乔蒂（人民运动联盟代表）或玛丽昂·马雷查尔·勒庞（国民阵线的率领者？）在场的情况下开会，但一辆警车在圣马丁运河沿线起火，这些人事儿凑在一起勾勒出一个重大转变的轮廓。这正是媒体将一场小争吵提升到一桩意图被隐藏的大交易地位的本意所在。此外，为了防止警察队伍在燃烧着的车辆面前几米处放置一块写有“烤鸡，钱看着给”的小牌子作为游行的结束，用感染整个人群的一阵笑浪来回应这种令人喷饭的造作是必要的。这当儿，内政部长觉得自己有义务及时提出“杀人未遂”的指控。如此一来，他就可以用恐惧感和严肃感来代替穿越人群的那股憋不住的滑稽冲动，最终达到复仇的目的。治安行动也是以这种影响为目标的。正是由于这种行动，司法系统才一直为瓦尔米码头袭击中的被告而感到困扰。西奥被强奸后，一名警官向巴黎人坦白了这一事实：“我们属于一个帮派。不管发生什么，我们都在一起。” + +“人人痛恨警察”的口号并不是对一种观察的表达，那将会是错误的，而是一种感情，这是至关重要的。与执政当局和社会评论家所担忧的相反，不存在“警察和民众之间的逐年加深的鸿沟”，无数人和警察之间的鸿沟已经很深了，当他们不拥抱警察的时候，他们有憎恨警察和心怀恐惧的大众中那些拥抱警察的人的极好的理由。实际上我们正在见证政府和警察关系中的一场重大转变。很长一段时间里，秩序的力量是那些无知的傀儡，被鄙视但残酷，向不安的民众挥舞而去。介于跳伞者、避雷针和吊球之间，执政当局现在已经到了严重失信的程度，以至于他们引起的蔑视已经超过了警察，警察也知道这一点。尽管迟钝，警察也慢慢了解到，自己已成为政府的先决条件，成为其救生包，其移动呼吸器。所以他们的关系已经逆转了。从今以后，管理当局在警察手中成了摆设。他们再也没有选择了，只能带着痛苦和对屈服于武力的奇想冲向最低级的警察的床边。在拿到杀人、匿名、逍遥法外、使用最新式武器的许可证后，他们还想得到什么？即便如此，警察队伍中也不乏派系，他们幻想自己长出翅膀，变成一支有自己政治议程的自治力量。俄罗斯在这方面可谓天堂，特勤局、警察和军队已经掌握了权力，并为了自己的利益而治理国家。虽然警察在物质上肯定无法实现自治，但这并不能阻止他们在所有哀鸣的警笛面前拿他们的政治自治进行威胁。警察因此在两种相互矛盾的倾向之间左右为难。在他们当中，一个保守的、官僚主义的“共和主义者”更愿意继续仅仅作为一个手段，为越来越不受尊重的秩序服务，这是肯定的。另一个则贪图一时，要“扫除乌合之众”，把不回应任何人作为自己最后的归宿。基本上，只有一个决心“扫除乌合之众”和百分之百支持警察机构的政党上台，才能调和这两种倾向。但这样的政府将轮到内战政府。 + +作为为自己辩护的一种手段，国家被留给了伟大的民主选举的公民投票的合法性，但合法性的最后一个源泉已经枯竭。无论总统选举的结果如何，从目前的情况看，哪怕是“强权”胜出，这样的选举也势必会产生一个虚弱的政权。选举好像从来没有举行过似的。少数人动员起来把他们最喜欢的东西运到胜利的地方，无异于指挥一艘正在沉没的船。正如我们在美国看到的唐纳德·特朗普的情况，发誓要残酷地恢复国家统一，结果却适得其反：一旦执政，恢复秩序的候选人发现自己不仅与整个社会，而且与国家机构的整个部门冲突。重建秩序的承诺只会加剧混乱。 + +在一个像法国这样的国家，也就是说，在一个很可能是（鉴于它没有公开宣布这点）警察国家的国家，寻求军事上对警察的胜利是愚蠢的。用石头块儿瞄准穿警服的家伙，不等于用武力进行近身格斗。警察是目标而不是目的，是障碍而不是对手。以警察为对手的人阻碍了自己突破由警察构成的障碍。为了成功地把他们扫到一边，我们必须瞄准他们以外的地方。对抗警察，唯一的胜利是政治上的。解散他们的队伍，剥夺他们所有的合法性，使他们变得无能为力，与他们保持良好的距离，在适当的时机和地点给自己更多的回旋余地：这就是我们如何使警察一贫如洗的。“在没有革命党的情况下，真正的革命者是那些与警察战斗的人。”人们需要听到1968年皮埃尔·佩克马尔德在这篇评论中表达的所有忧郁。 + +与警察相比，革命者在当前可能表现得软弱、缺乏武装、无组织，以及处于被监视的状态，然而，他们的战略优势在于，他们不是任何人的工具，不需要有个秩序让他们去维持，而且也不需要是一支军队。我们革命者不受任何服从的约束，我们与各种各样的同志、朋友、势力、社会背景、帮凶、同盟者都有联系。这使我们能够对某些警察干预行动施加压力，以执行命令为威胁得到的回报只会是触发无法控制的混乱。如果说，自警察的凯撒行动失败以来，没有一个政府敢尝试驱逐ZAD，那并不是因为他们害怕在军事上输掉这场战争，而是因为数万计的同情者的反应可能被证明是无法控制的。一句玩笑话导致的“失误”引发了数周的大范围骚乱，对专业部队的资格认证造成了羞辱，代价不可谓不大。警察的干预比重建秩序的方式引发了更多的混乱，这正是他们被质疑的原因。所以，他们要么坚持下去，最终兴起一个新的政党，以有利于自己的利益；要么就滚回自己的窝。不管怎样，他们都不再是有用的手段。他们一贫如洗。 + +警察和革命者之间有一种基本的不对称。虽然我们的目的远远超出了他们，但他们却把我们作为其行动的目标——这是非常有组织性的，这就是我们视线范围内的一般的社会治安。警察特权的蛮横及其控制手段在技术上的惊人扩张，勾勒出一个新的战术视角。纯粹的公共存在将革命者置于立即的镇压面前或被迫选择实际的阳痿的境地。纯粹的阴谋的存在确实允许更大的行动自由，但却使人变得在政治上无害，并且易受压制。因此，这是一个结合大众传播的能力和必要的阴谋水平的问题。革命的组织意味着有形与无形、公众与私密、合法与非法之间的微妙互动。我们必须承认，我们的斗争本质上是犯罪的，因为我们面对的是一个一切都已成为犯罪的世界。即便是帮助移民的激进分子也必须使用巧妙的手段来躲避以他们为目标的监视，然后才能自由行动。革命力量只能被构建为一个网络，一步一个脚印，依靠可靠的友谊，甚至在敌机内部偷偷地建立不可预料的纽带。这就是“tanzikiyat”如何在叙利亚形成的，它是一个由革命者组成的little autonomous pockets网络，后来成了民众自我组织的骨干。同一时期的第一个法国抵抗网络也与之相似。叙利亚的情况和old maquis一样，通过成功地恢复城市地区和农村地区，通过建立相对安全的区域，有可能超越不连续的、作为小组的一部分匿名活动的阶段。“Life is in the use, not in the time，”正如马努钦所说。 + +#### 致即将到来的人 + +我们内心充满了对束缚我们的枷锁的渴念。 + +我们内心如此病态地依附于生存条件，尽管它们并不牢靠。 + +在烦恼、震惊和需求中牺牲的东西，在未来的某天会比月亮还遥不可及。 + +在臀部咖啡馆的丛林背景中抿着拿铁，一头扎进苹果笔记本的网络世界，渡过一段愉快的时光，这是周末生活与历史终结的合金。 + +在这段愉快时光中期待着解决方案。城市转型，社会与团结经济，第六共和国，另类自治主义，普及基本收入，电影的明天，移民太空，一千个新监狱，驱逐所有来自地球的外国人，人机融合。 + +无论工程师、管理者、活动家、政治家、生态学家、演员还是单纯的杂货商，所有声称为当前的灾难提供解决方案的人都在做一件事：把他们对问题的定义强加给我们，让我们忘记他们自己在问题中所扮演的角色。正如一位朋友所说：“解决你在生活中看到的问题是一种压住问题（让问题消失）的生活方式。” + +我们没有任何程序、任何解决方案出售。穷困（To destitute）这个词，在拉丁语中也指失望。所有的期望都是失望。从我们独特的经历中，从我们的遭遇、成功和失败中，我们形成了我党的世界观，它清晰地体现在朋友之间的简练对话中。任何一个有洞察力的成年人都足以从中把握重点，至少具备一种自己的方法。 + +不管多么压抑，共产主义问题仍是我们时代的核心，如果说，这恰好是因为与其相反的经济规则从未如此完善。每年去伦敦的马克思墓前献花的中国代表团不会蒙蔽任何人。当然，我们可以避免共产主义的问题。每天早晨，人们都可以对移民和无家可归者熟视无睹地踏上去办公室的路。人们可以实时追踪极地冰盖的融化情况，洋面的抬升，动物的恐慌迁徙以及与之相似的人类行为。人们可以继续在吞下每一口土豆泥时为癌症的到来做准备。人们可以告诉自己，只要被治愈，只要有某种权威或只要有生态女权，就能最终搞定一切。以这样一种方式继续下去是可能的，代价是，我们要压抑对这个我们生活于其中的社会的感觉，无视它本质上是个罪犯，而且不会错过任何机会提醒自己，我们是它的恶棍中的小小一员。每次我们和它产生关系——通过使用它的任何一种设备，消费它的任何一种商品，或为它从事某份工作——我们都让自己成了它的帮凶，我们成了作为它的基础的契约中的一部分：成了剥削、侵蚀、毁灭等每种尘世存在的条件。这个世界再也没有清白无辜的地方，我们只能在两种犯罪之间作出选择：加入它，抛弃它并把它打倒。如果对罪犯的追捕以及审判和惩罚的狂欢在当下如此流行，那是因为它们为观众提供了一个无罪的瞬间。由于这个瞬间无法长久持续，为了维持被宽免的幻觉，那就有必要让谴责、惩罚和指控一次次重来。卡夫卡这样解释侦探小说的成功： + +> 侦探小说往往致力于揭开隐藏在神秘事件背后的谜团。但在现实生活中情况则不然。秘密并不隐藏在背后。恰恰相反！它凝视着人脸。它是显而易见的。所以我们看不到它。日常生活是有史以来最伟大的侦探小说。每一秒钟我们都无视地经过数以千计的尸体和罪行。这就是我们生活的常规。但是，如果还有某种东西能让我们打破习惯感到惊奇的话，那就是（现实生活这部）侦探小说，它的奇妙之处在于把生命中的每个秘密当作法律上可惩处的例外。它是一个社会的支柱，是一件遮盖着腐败的、冷酷无情的僵硬衬衫，尽管如此，它声称自己是资产阶级文明。 + +所以这是一件跳出杀手的循环的事情。 + +很少有问题像共产主义的构想那般拙劣。那不是昨天的失败；它可以上溯到远古时代。只要打开圣经的《诗篇》就会看到。阶级斗争至少可以追溯到古犹太先知。共产主义的乌托邦可以在那个时代的伪经《旧约全书》中找到： + +> 每个人都享有等量的土地，不以墙和篱笆设界……人生道路一律等同，财产不分家／永远不会有贫富之分／没有专横、奴役，没有伟大和渺小之分／没有国王和地主；普遍等同。 + +共产主义问题被构想得非常糟糕，因为，它首先被框定为一个社会问题，也就是一个严格的人类问题。尽管如此，它从未停止给世界添麻烦。如果它继续顽固不化，那并非源于一种意识形态的固执，而是源于一种基本的、不可追忆的生存经验：共同体——它销毁了所有的经济公理和一切良好文明的结构。从来没有一个作为实体的共同体，只有一种作为经验的连续性的共同体存在于生命和世界之间。在爱情中、友谊中，我们都有这种连续性的经历。我平静地置身于此，就是这里，就是现在，在这个熟悉的小镇上，在这棵树枝被风吹动的古老的红杉树面前，我经历了那种连续性。在这场骚乱中，我们都坚持我们决定的计划，同志们的歌声激发了我们的力量，提供援助的街头医生为头部受伤的陌生人带去安慰，我经历了那种连续性。朋友为我提供了海德堡这家仿古特色的版画商店作为印书场地，他过来帮忙整理纸张，另一个朋友负责胶装，第三个承担了切割工作，将我们共同孕育的这本地下出版物搞了出来，在这种热情和热忱中，我经历了那种连续性。不存在我自己和世界，我自己和他人，只有我和我的亲人、同类，不多不少，只有与这个我爱着的小小世界之间的直接接触。事实上不但在这里，任何地方都有充足的美。一位既不是时代的最小标志也不是嬉皮士的林务员发现树木之间“互相交谈”、“彼此相爱”、“互相照顾”，并且能够“记住”它们曾经历什么，他的书因此大受欢迎。他称之为“树木的隐秘生活”。然而，总会有个人类学家蹦出来真诚地怀疑森林何以能够思考。一个人类学家，他还并不是植物学家。通过将人类主体与世界隔离开来，通过将生物从周围的一切生命中分离出来，现代性不可避免地形成了一种注定要走向毁灭的共产主义制度：社会主义。而社会主义却遭遇了作为一个杂乱堆放的障碍，作为一个在国家的妄自尊大的底部令人不快的剩余物的农民、游牧民和“野蛮人”。它甚至看不到是谁在支撑他们的共产主义。如果现代“共产主义”能够想象它是一个普遍的兄弟会，一种实现的平等，那不过是因为它将兄弟会在战斗和友谊中获得的生活经验拿来当成自己的套装——对它来说，友谊是什么，如果不是朋友之间的平等？ + +我们不具备哪怕最少的共同体的经验，内心干涸衰竭，变得像沙漠一样乖戾残暴。生活成了微笑的人体模型的鬼城。我们对共同体的需求如此迫切，以至于在销毁所有现存的债务之后，资本主义只能在对“共同体”的承诺之上空洞地运转。如果社交网络和约会App不是那种承诺的永久落空，那它们会是什么？如果通信技术、爱情歌曲等等不是维持存在之间的连续性之梦——在这个梦中每种接触都会被融化掉——的方式，那么所有这些模式又是什么？巧合的是，这个令人沮丧的承诺加剧了需求，至使它歇斯底里，令操控它的那架巨大的现金机器加速运转。保持痛苦，逃避逃跑的可能性是资本主义的伟大战略。在2015年，一个名为PornHub的色情视频网站被访问了4,392,486,580小时，这相当于智人在地球上存在过的时间的2.5倍。即使是这个时代对性的痴迷和对色情文学的过度嗜好，也证明了这些迷恋者在极度匮乏中对共同体的需要。 + +当米尔顿·弗里德曼说，市场是个神奇的机制，它使得“数百万人每天聚集在一起，不需要彼此相爱，甚至彼此交谈”，他是在描述一个将如此众多的人带入市场的过程和该过程的最终结果，是市场将人们维系在那里，不是饥饿、威胁或者利润的诱惑。他甚至不需要承认建立“一个市场”这样的东西所造成的各种破坏，并把它呈现为完全合理正常的。当一个马克思主义者如罗伯特·库尔茨论证说：“在资本主义之后，疾病、死亡、爱的悲伤和混蛋们将继续收费，然而，由财富的抽象生产所造成的其与贫困之间的重大矛盾将不再存在。人们将再也看不到一个自发的、盲目的体系或一种教条主义的社会形式。”的时候也是如此。现实中，共产主义的问题同样会作为对疾病的应对，为我们的每种细微而独特的存在感受所提出。为了应对正在缓慢杀死我们的事物，应对爱的失败，应对使我们感到彼此陌生的事物，即据说使全世界患病的那种事物，我们满足了“人是混蛋”这一愚蠢的观点。拒绝看到这种愚蠢就相当于一个白痴会地把纹身当成衣服穿。这非常适合于一个经济学家的那种苍白、近视的男子气概。 + +对此，马克思主义者，至少他们中的许多人，在面对生命中最小的问题时都生出了某种胆怯，而这也是一个大胡子男人的标志。甚至有人就“共产主义观念”组织专题讨论，它似乎明确旨在确保共产主义停留在一种观念上，对生活的事务并不打算多加干涉。更不用说那些要商议出一个什么是或什么不是共产主义的法令的秘密集会。 + +随着欧洲社会民主主义在第一次世界大战中的崩溃，列宁决定通过粉饰“共产主义”一词替换掉破旧不堪的社会主义。然而颇为滑稽的是，列宁竟然是从无政府主义那里借用的共产主义，因为共产主义原本是无政府主义的旗帜！在社会主义和共产主义之间制造的这种方便的混淆为上世纪带来大量严重后果，使这个词几乎成了灾难、大屠杀、独裁和种族灭绝的同义词。自那时以来，无政府主义者和马克思主义者一直围绕着个人/社会这对夫妻打乒乓，完全不考虑这对虚假的矛盾是由经济思想形成的。代表个人反对社会或代表社会主义反对个人，是走向一条死胡同。社会永远是个人的社会。三个世纪以来，个人和社会从未停止被论断为以彼此为代价，这是一套可靠的振荡机制，使得迷人的“经济”车轮年复一年地运转。与经济试图让我们想象的相反，生活中的东西不是个人被赋予的各种或实用或可变卖的财产。存在于生活中的是连接，配置，以及处于整体的关联中的生命。通过对个人的自由的虚构，现代“共产主义”必然会将财产和连接相混淆，并将这种混淆带到它与私有财产的竞技场，让自己相信它在与私有财产作斗争。它借助了一种让财产和连接难以区分的语法。我说“我的兄弟”或“属于我的城镇一角”，而沃伦·巴菲特（美国著名投资商）说“我的所有物”和“我的股份”，这两者有何语法上的区别？毫无。然而，在第一个例子中，一个人在谈他的连接，在第二个例子中一个人在说他的物主身份；第一个例子谈论某物是我的构成，第二个例子谈论某物是我所拥有的对象。只有通过这种类型的混淆，对诸如“人类”这样的课题的想象才可能存在。人类——即所有的人，剥夺了将他们在具体的存在中维系在一起的东西，把他们聚拢在一个巨大的幻觉中，一个到处都不存在的东西中。通过擦除构成这个有特殊纹理的世界的连接，以废除生产资料私有制为借口，现代“共产主义”成功地将一切事物造成了白板。这就是发生在经济实践中的事情，哪怕对它的批判也构成了这种经济实践。正如利奥塔所说：“经济——我们需要找到一条走出它的道路，而不是对它进行批判。”共产主义不是一个“能更好地进行经济组织的社会”，而是经济的贫困。 + +经济取决于两个虚构：对社会的虚构和对个人的虚构。置入这对虚假的矛盾再将其揭示出来，这就是它如何让世界陷入贫困的。这些虚构的共同点是，让我们看到孤立存在的实体、封闭的单元以及它们之间的关系，事实上这就去除了它们之间的纽带。社会将它自己呈现为凝聚所有孤立的个体实体的最高实体。自霍布斯《利维坦》的扉页插图诞生以来，它总是相同的形象：君主的伟大身体，构成它的是所有微小的、均质的、序列化的臣民的身体。社会虚构的操作依赖的是践踏一切形成人的个体存在的事物，擦除构成我们的连接，否认我们所进入的配置，迫使枯竭的原子被虚构出来，而幽灵般的联合被其称为“社会纽带”。因此，将自己视为一个社会人往往就意味着从外部来理解自己，把自己抽象化地看待。这就是世界经济的独特标志，除了外部一无所知。皮埃尔·尼古拉，那个对政治经济学施加了重大影响的卑鄙的冉森派教徒，在1671年就提出过这种配方：“尽管任何社会都可能在内部腐败，但在上帝眼中，没有什么东西能在外部得到更好的监管，变得更文明、更公正、更和平、更体面、更慷慨。最令人钦佩的是，只有在自爱中才能充满活力和感动，自爱不会出现在别处，也不会是完全缺乏慈善的，人们将会看到，到处都是慈善的形式和标志。”这里面没能提出任何的逻辑问题，更别说解决了。一切都成了管理的问题。在法国，société一词（与人之间的关系；群居生活，群居；社交关系，社交生活；社会；协会；社团；企业）与entreprise（企业）同义并不奇怪。古罗马时情况就已经如此。如果一个人在台比留（前42-37，全名为Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar，公元1世纪14-37年间为罗马皇帝）统治下创业，他就创办了一个社会团体。一个社团，一个社会，通常就是人们根据其利益需要而自愿加入或退出的一个联盟、一个协会。总的来说，这是一种关系，一种外部的“纽带”，一种丝毫不触及我们内在的纽带，人们可以不带偏见地脱离开去的纽带，一种没有联系的纽带——因此根本就不是什么纽带。 + +任何社会所特有的结构都是因人类被拉入其中而产生，因分离他们的事物——个人利益——而产生。鉴于他们是作为个体、封闭的实体参与进去的，每每都是暂时性的参与，那么他们在凝聚时也是分离的。叔本华就社会关系特有的连续性、无可比拟的娱乐性及其作为“不爱交际的人类社交”提出了一个令人印象深刻的形象：“在一个寒冷的冬日，一群豪猪为躲避严寒挤在一起取暖。但它们很快就因为浑身的豪刺而分开。当对温暖的需求再次把它们聚拢到一起时，它们会再次被迫分开。它们在不适的摆布下来回穿梭，直到找到对彼此来说最合适的距离，使疼痛最小化、温暖最大化。在人类中，孤立自我的空虚无聊产生了对社会的需要。这让他们团结在一起，但他们的攻击性和无法容忍的缺点又把他们驱散。他们最终发现允许他们共存的最佳距离体现在礼貌礼仪上。” + +经济运作的天才之处在于它在一个隐蔽的层面上是对违法犯罪的保证，是名副其实的战争，这一运作层面就是债务的层面。以这种方式，它击败了它的潜在对手，并且显得光明正大，但这显然是出于一种毁灭对方的强烈动机。必须说，债务非常乐意于借贷。还有什么是比债务更不具实质、更微妙、更无形的？还有什么是比销毁债务更不可见、更少遭到反对但却更令人敏感的？当代人在感觉上的麻木和一贯的精神涣散，并不是资本主义的结果，它是资本主义幸存的先决条件。我们不是苦于成为了个人，而是苦于努力去做一个个体。由于个体的实存、虚构只能来自外部，“作为个体”就需要在外部保持自己，视自己为陌生人，放弃与自己和他人的接触，同样也放弃与世界的接触。显然，每个人都可以自由地从外部获取一切。只要他远离感觉，远离现在，从而也远离生活。我们更喜欢与共产主义模式相反的模式。这包括从内部理解事物和生命，从中间把握它们。从中间或内部来把握个体你会看到什么？今天在你面前会呈现出一片混乱。一种无组织的混乱，经验的贫乏，童年的毁灭，意义的碎片化，它们彼此之间经常没有任何交流。说这个时代在非常恶劣的条件下生产了人类物质，就是说它根本没有生产。它十分需要修理。我们都知道这点。破碎的世界在主体性那面破碎的镜子中得到了忠实的反映。 + +外在所呈现的人，实际上只是力量的混杂，它并不是一个新想法。来自墨西哥恰帕斯州的泽塔尔·玛雅有这样一种关于人的理论：每个人的情感、激情、梦想、体魄和气质都被精神的冒险和不幸所支配，这位精神的主人既居住在我们的内心又行动于群山之间。我们不是在自己的加工厂中被完美地组装起来的，而是完美统一的自我。我们由许多未完成的部分组成，我们充满了细小的生命。希伯来语中的“生命”一词是复数，“脸”一词是复数。因为生命中有许多生命，一张脸上有许多面孔。人与人之间的联系不是在实体与实体之间形成的。每种联系都是从一个生命的片段到另一个生命的片段，从一个生命的片段到世界的片段，从世界的片段到世界的片段。它的尺度远远不是个人的尺度，它建立在个人尺度之下。它会立即将那些发现自己处于同等水品的人们带入到对连续性感觉的参与中。片段之间的连续性就是对“共同体”的经历。这就是配置的产生。这是我们在每种真实的遭遇中所经历的。每次邂逅都在我们之中勾画出一个特定区域，世界的元素、他人和我们自己都在那里互相融合。爱情不会将个人带入关系，它像一个突如其来的特殊平面那样在他们之间穿插而过，于是他们去那个平面上寻找他们的共同道路，某种程度上是寻找一个特定的世界。爱情不是在一起，而是成为在一起的。如果爱情从来没有打破存在的虚构，那么“另一半”就不会给我们带来如此之大的痛苦。如果在爱情中，另一半最终没有成为我们的一部分，那我们就不必为分离的到来而悲伤。如果除了关系外一无所有，那么就没有人会互相理解。一切就会被误解淹没。所以，不存在爱的主体或客体，只存在一种爱的体验。 + +构成我们的片段，居于我们体内的力量，我们所进入的配置，都没有任何理由组成一个和谐的整体，一个不固定的集合，一个可移动的关节。在我们这个时代，平庸的生活经历以一连串的偶然遭遇为特征，它们一点点地作废我们，肢解我们，逐渐让我们丧失任何可确定的方向。如果共产主义必须与组织我们的集体、物质、政治相联系，这就意味着，我们自己要以奇异的、存在的和感知的方式组织起来。否则我们就得同意回到政治或经济。如果共产主义有一个目标，那它就是生命形式的伟大健康。这种伟大的健康通过病人重新接合生命中分离的部位而获得，它与生命联系在一起。一个人可以没有在没有任何经历的情况下渡过一生，小心翼翼地避免思考和感受。然后，他的存在将削减为一个缓慢退化的过程。它被磨损和毁坏，而不是给出形式。在相遇的奇迹之后，关系只能从一个伤口到另一个伤口地走向消费。与此相反，生活逐渐给予那些拒绝生活在他们自己身边的人、那些允许自己去经历的人以形式。在这个意义上，他们充分地成为了一种生命形式。 + +与此形成鲜明对比的，是积极分子所继承的建筑法，当他们如此专注于建筑，它的重大缺陷令人精疲力竭。关产主义不在于自我放弃，而在于对最小的行动的关注。这是我们的感知层面的问题，因此也是我们的行事方式。一个实践的问题。实体——个体或集体——的知觉把我们的入口封锁，防止我们进入到真正的发生事件的平面，在那个平面上所发生的是集体潜力的形成或分解，是力量的获取或消散。只有在平面上，真实，包括政治的现实，才变得清晰可感。 + +共产主义不是为了确保我们所从属的实体的存在，而是为了部署和深化总体的关联，同时也意味着切断某些关联。重要的事情发生在微观层次上。对共产主义者来说，世界的重大事实延伸到目力所不及之处。在真实的情境中，一个说出需要说出的话的“我”可以成为“我们”的非凡力量。因此，任何一个“公社”的独有的幸福都充分反映了它的奇特性，一种特定的关联，它所蕴藏的世界中的每个片段的辐射能——告别实体，告别个体和集体的监禁，与自我陶醉说再见。“唯一的进步，”诗人弗朗哥·弗尔蒂尼写道：“包括并将达到一个更高的可察觉与可预见的层次，每个独特的存在的力量和品质都会在那里得到提升。”需要抛弃的并不是“社会”或“个人”，而是两者所构成的二元对立。我们必须学会在一个不同的平面上行动。 + +存在一种臭名昭著的“社会”解体论，当然，但也存在一种意在重塑社会的运动。通常，要想看到我们所面临的问题，我们必须把目光转向海峡对岸。自2010年以来，大不列颠的保守政府就在贯彻所谓的“大社会”。正如这个说法所没有表明的那样，“大社会”所包含的问题是：对最后一个制度的最终拆解是在为“福利国家”招魂。令人感到奇妙的是，这一纯粹的新自由主义改革清单中的优先顺序：“‘赋予社会团体/经济联合体更多的权力’（地方主义和权力下放），‘鼓励个人积极参与社会团体’（志愿者工作），‘责任制从中央政府到地方当局的转移’，‘支持合作社、互助社、慈善协会和社会事业’，‘公布公开数据’（开放政府）”在当前这个再也无法掩盖它的内爆的时期，自由社会的策略是，通过小社会团体和集体数量的增殖扩散来自我复制，尽量保存它那些毫无吸引力的特殊和特别化的关系。以工作和邻里关系与基础的集体、公民的集体、活动家的集体、协会的集体、艺术家的集体，等等，每种类型的集体都是社会的未来。在平等的基础上，围绕着一个共同的兴趣/利益，以个人身份加入一个这样的集体，在适当的时候可以选择自由离开，所以，他们分享的是社会那松散和外化的质地。它们似乎只是一个模糊的现实，但模糊性/暧昧性正是其显著特征。此外，剧团、研讨会、摇滚乐队、橄榄球队都是一些集体形式。它们是由多种多样的杂乱/非均质的元素构成的集合。它们涵盖了人类分配的不同方面、不同任务，用它们的距离、间隔、节奏组成一个特定的结构。它们同样包含各种非人类的场所、设备和材料、规矩/仪式，哭泣，克制。这就它们的具体形式。但是，这样的“集体”特征恰恰在于它是无形式的，即使在它极端的形式主义之中。形式主义，它仅仅是对形式缺失的一种弥补，是形式的诡计和面具，而且一般而言都是暂时的。申请会员资格，那只是为了被和任何人都一样的人们所接受。假设的水平和地位的平等，让它在声称维护独特性时丢尽脸面，后者是毫无意义的一纸空谈，不但如此，它还散播嫉妒，以便设定一种占优势的情绪。普通成员在里面找到了可以令他们忘掉自己那不充足的感觉的鸦片。集体特有的暴政在于它是没有结构的。这就是为什么它们有一种到处扩张的倾向。因此，如果一个人真的很酷，那么他就不会只是组个“乐队”，而会建立一个“音乐家集团”。对当代艺术家来说则是建立一个“艺术家集团”。既然艺术领域也经常面临所谓每个人都面临的经济状况的问题，那么听到一个管理学研究员或“集体活动的专家”说出下面这段话就没什么好惊讶的了：“以前，人们认为团队是个每个人都可以在其中找到其定位和目标的静态的实体。人们会谈到一个生产队，一个调解团，一个决策小组。然而现在，团队被视为一种动态的实体，因为构成它的个体不断改变角色以适应同样在不断变化的环境。今天，团队是一个动态过程。”一个在“创新行业”谋职的员工甚至还不知道什么是“结构缺失的暴政”，这意味着什么？这就是剥削和自我剥削何以能够完美地融合在一起。尽管企业还并不是一个集体，但集体却已经是企业了——大多数情况下，企业除了自我生产外并不生产任何东西。正如一批集体能够很好地接管旧社会，恐怕社会主义也将只能作为一个社会主义的集体——即一小撮强迫自己“共同居住”并形成社会的人民——幸存下来。在每个人都憎恨每个人的地方，对“共同居住”的谈论也最多。最近，一名记者撰文《反对生活膨胀：集体化》。“自我创业者同样需要一片绿洲来对抗新自由主义的沙漠。但这片绿洲遭到了破坏：那些寻求避难所的人随身带来了沙漠。” + +社会越是分裂，集体的吸引力就越大。他们会策划一场虚假的脱逃。当原子化的个体痛苦地意识到他们生存处境的怪诞和悲惨之时，这种骗局就会更好地发挥作用。集体因此被设计为对这些被世界拒绝也拒绝世界的人的重新整合。他们甚至可能拙劣地模仿并承诺“共产主义”。这必然导致失望，使那些憎恨一切的大众群情激愤。然而，个人和集体之间的虚假矛盾是不难拆穿的。集体如此慷慨的施予个人的习惯——自私、自恋、虚妄、骄傲、嫉妒、占有欲、算计、全方位的幻想狂、虚伪——所产生的种种弊端，在集体自身中有更加恶劣、更加讽刺和更加顽固的表现。与集体相比，个人从来不会有如此强烈的占有欲，如此自恋、自我中心、充满信念、信仰自己的无稽之谈。 + +想想那些说“法国”、“无产阶级”、“社会”或“集体”时眼睛一眨不眨的人。任何一个耳朵正常的人都受不了听他们说“我！我！我！”。为了构建真正强有力的共同事物，我们就要抛弃“集体”的观念，放弃那些对自己和他人所传达的引发灾难效果的外在性。Heiner Muller进一步说： + +> 资本主义以提供集体协作为口号目标，但它的方式是使集体分裂。与之形成对照的是，共产主义提供了绝对孤独。资本主义从不提供孤独，它提供的是共同点。麦当劳是提供集体的绝佳例子。世界各地的人们坐在同一个空间，吃着同样的屎，分享每个人身上那点同样的内容。因为在麦当劳他们是一个集体。甚至麦当劳餐厅的面孔也越来越相似……共产主义还不是关于集体化的陈词滥调，资本主义才是集体化……共产主义是将人放逐到孤独之中。照照镜子就会发现，共产主义什么都不曾给你。这就是它的优越性。个人被削减为他自己的存在。资本主义则总能给你点什么东西，只要它能让人们与自身疏远。 + +情感、听力、思想并不是政治中立的官能，也不是均等地分布在同代人之间的。感知的光谱是可变的。此外，在当代的社会关系中，一个人是对他对自己的烦恼的反思。如果说整个社会的马戏团都在遭受痛苦，那是因为，在人们应该赞同来一次在自己内部的深潜的时候、最终能接触到一些坚固之物的时候，每个人都坚持将他们的头部保持在水面之上。在与loi Travail的冲突中，“示威游行”的出现、引导进攻的可能性，都是一种视力的结果。几百个“年轻人”早在第一次游行示威时就看到，工会组织像僵尸一样行进，对他们嘴里喊着的口号，他们一个字都不相信，他们的安全保卫队向高中生挥舞棍棒。追随这只大僵尸是不可能的，所以只能不惜一切代价要求人们进入示威前线。这种事情干了一次又一次，直到在对“示威游行”的重复中达到极限，这不再是一种情境中的姿态，而是一种媒体镜像，特别是另类媒体。所以，是时候让这片沙漠荒芜了，它是凝固的，而且变成了对自己的戏仿。多说几句，在充满活力的时代， + +“示威游行”是事物变得清晰的地方，是才能在互相感染中看到正在发生的事件的场所。斗争的存在，不同意见之间的冲突，力量的加入、凝聚和分散，战略的游戏，这一切都是发生在街道上而不是发生在电视上的事实。现实正在回归，一些事情正在发生。人们可以不同意正在发生的事情，可以用矛盾的方式阅读，但至少现状是清晰明了的。至于哪种理解是正确的哪种是错误的，迟早都会被事件的进程所决定，到那时，这将不再是一个解释的问题。如果我们不对观点作出调整，那就会在警察的棍击下付出代价。我们的错误不再是观点的问题，而要被缝针的部位和肿痛的身体来衡量。 + +提到1968年时，德勒兹说它是一种“透视现象：一个社会突然发现它所包含的东西是不可容忍的，同时也看到了其他事物的可能性。”本雅明则说：“透视是正在形成的视觉……对正在发生的事情的准确感知，远比对未来的了解重要。”一般情况下，大多数人最终都能懂得去看，然而一旦太迟——一旦它变得不可见，再去看就于事无补了。这种能力和任何伟大的知识体系都没有关系，因为后者往往是用来忽略本质的。相反，愚昧一无所见，却能将最迂腐的主张坚持到底。比如，社会生活要求每个人闭目塞听，或至少假装什么都看不见。 + +如果一个人一开始就没有观看交流的能力，那么分享就变得毫无意义了。缺乏观看能力（眼力价，seeing），共产主义的生活方式就如同在绝对的黑暗中狂奔乱舞；缺乏观看能力，人们就会撞在一起，身体和灵魂都被重创，却不知道对谁发怒。提升每个领域的人的观看能力，更新观点，不断精炼它们，从而立即提升潜能，这是共产主义发展的核心目标。那些不想看到任何事情的人，不但不会提供帮助，还会制造集体灾难。为了我们自己和他人，我们必须要有先见——必须成为先知。 + +看，意味着能够理解形式。与一种糟糕的哲学遗产对我们的教导相反，形式不属于可见的现象，而是动态的原则。真正的个性化不在于身体，而在于形式。只要反观一下思维的形成过程就可以确信：没有什么比“我”有想法更能说明个体自我的幻觉的稳固性的了，既然意识确实在向我走来，即使我不知道它来自哪里，来自神经、肌肉还是如此晦暗的象征过程，既然它在我行走和睡觉时也自然地倾泻，那么自我的边界当然也就消失了。一个正在发生的观念是形式的一个很好的例子：在一种语言环境中，在一个超个体（超人）的星座中，进入到一种对不限于个体的东西——一种感知，一个经验的碎片，一点情绪反应——的领会。一个形式是一个移动的构造，在强度和动态的统一体中，将自我和世界的异质元素保持在一起。“形式的本质，”用青年卢卡奇的理想主义行话说，“一直存在于两种绝对互相排至的原则变得无法彼此废除的过程之中。形式与物化相悖，它是真实的生活体验，是不可能的真实生活。形式不是和解，而是矛盾的原则之间的战争，转瞬即逝。”形式诞生于情境与必然的相遇。一个形式一旦诞生，就会对超出它自身的事物产生影响。在2016春天的冲突中，人们可以看到一个形式从一个具有完美的独特性和完美的可识别性的点上诞生。在奥斯特利茨大桥上，一个勇敢的小团体迫使防暴警察撤退。第一排蒙面者戴着放毒面具、手持加固的横幅前进，其他蒙面者为了支援他们在后面组成一个防止逮捕的集团，在后面的后面和马路边上，有其他的蒙面者与警察直接对干。这种小小的形式一出现，视频马上就在社交网站上传播。在接下来的几个星期里，这类视频不断更新涌现，到2016年6月14日已经数不胜数。因为形式就是如此，生活就是如此，真正的共产主义问题并不是“如何生产”，而是“如何生活”。共产主义是旧伦理的中心问题，是社会主义的历史问题，它是“形而上学的”、“早产的”或“小资产阶级的”问题——而不是劳动的问题。共产主义是一种普遍的去总体化，而不是一切事物的社会化。 + +因此，对我们来说，共产主义不是一个终结，也不存在向它的过渡，它就是转变本身：在路上。不同的生活方式从不停止摩擦和抵触，它们互相冲撞，有时还会产生激战。一切都需重新考虑。一般意义上的列宁主义者一定会通过重申一种垂直的、清晰的斗争战略的必要性来反对共产主义的这个内在概念，这一瞬我们听到的准是“组织的问题”这种笨拙的表达。“组织的问题”仍将是利维坦。在一个自我的统一体明显不再能够压制我们的力量、连接和行动的时代，我们怎么还能相信有机统一体的寓言？今天的“组织”的神话来自于古代自然心理学和基督教神学对自然官能的等级层次的描述。要说我们体内有种固有的精神器官——即是说意志，它引发了我们的其他能力——我们还不够虚无。神学家的这一巧妙发明比它看上去的更为政治化，它有一个双重的目的：首先，使人重新拥有一种“自由意志”，成为一个道德主体，以这种方式将他们交到最终审判和世纪惩罚面前；第二，基于一个“自由地”创造了世界并与他的行动相分离的上帝的神学观念，它制造了存在和行动之间的分离。几个世纪以来，这种持久地标志着西方政治观念的分离，把伦理现实搞得模糊难辨——在生命形式的平面上造成了“人是什么”和“人做什么”的难以区分的混淆。所以，“组织的问题”来自近代布尔什维克和它的教堂教父们。它是教会合法化的工具，正如它后来是政党合法化的工具。反对这种机会主义问题，反对假设存在的“意志”，这就有必要强调“我们想要的”和“我们所倾向的”绝不是一回事。这个简单的结论在某些时刻至关重要，战斗在我们内部和外部通过一个由力量、影响和倾向编织起来的网络进行，导致一个临时的配置的产生，使有的力量暂时压制其他力量。这些配置的序列产生一种可能达到极限形式的连接，这是事实。但是，始终要用同样的名词来标记某种事物，例如偶然发现自己处于支配地位或给予决定性动力，例如说服自己始终是一个权威，例如说服自己每一种形式和每一个决定都依赖于一个决定性的器官，则是一种地道的诡计，这已经重复了太久。这么长时间以来，通过对器官的信仰，通过一次又一次地刺激想象的肌肉，今天，我们所在的这个基督教帝国的晚期后代看起来正在致命衰竭中经受最后的痛苦折磨。与此相反，我们建议密切关注居于生命和穿过生命的情境与力量，进入决定性的艺术的配置。 + +面对资本主义的组织，一种潜在的贫困也不能限制它的内在发展，限制它在缺少阳光的冰层下生长，限制当地建设的一切尝试，限制一系列随时爆发的攻击，即使这个小世界总是有规律地发现它自己处于巨大的动荡之中。暴动肯定不会等待每个人都起来暴动。列宁主义者、托洛茨基主义者和其他的低级政客的错误就在于，相信这个看到了所有政治谎言已被打倒在地的时代能继续容忍一种政治霸权，甚至能容忍巴勃罗·伊格莱西亚斯·图里翁（1978年10月17日-，西班牙治学者、电视节目主持人和政治家，曾任欧洲议会议员，现任西班牙我们可以党总书记）那样的党派斗争和尚塔尔·墨菲（出生于比利时，政治哲学家、后马克思主义的代表人物）的幻想曲。他们没有看到的是在一个呈普遍水平状态的时期，水平本身就是垂直度。没有人还能够期待为他人组织自治。唯一的垂直度仍是可能的，它命令所有的构成要素，因为它超越于它们之上，因为现存力量的总和大于它们中的每一个。唯一能横贯所有要素的联合的事物，唯一能把这个社会抛弃给一个历史性政党的事物，是一种情境的智慧。所有这些都使局势逐渐变得可以理解，所有这些都在追踪对手的行动，所有这些都指明了可行的道路和带有系统性特征的障碍。基于这种智慧，一个在欲望的方向上倾向于某种情境的、偶发的垂直度计划能够很好地发挥作用。 + +这种垂直度的策略只能出自一种持续、慷慨的讨论，真诚地进行的讨论。在这个时代，沟通的方式就是组织的形式。我们的弱点在于手段不掌握在我们手中，而那些掌握手段的人不是我们的朋友。因此，除了展开一种艺术的对话之外，别无选择。但是在与形势的接触中，必须让正确的决定扩散开来。这样的讨论可以从普遍的控制中，通过在感知平面上对敏感区域的进攻——而不是通过话语——获得一个中心。我们谈论的是身体，而不仅仅是头脑。 + +> 共产主义是一个以提出可感知、可理解的物质性为目标的物质过程，此即为精神。在时间的统治下，我们可以在我们自己的身体之书中读到人类曾经做过和正在做着的事情——破译人类的旅程在地球上留下的踪迹，这将不留痕迹。 + +> 弗朗哥·弗尔蒂尼 diff --git a/_collections/_heros/2018-10-22-OutOfTheWoods-a1_c-the-uses-of-the-disaster.md b/_collections/_heros/2018-10-22-OutOfTheWoods-a1_c-the-uses-of-the-disaster.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..06ca2fbb --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_heros/2018-10-22-OutOfTheWoods-a1_c-the-uses-of-the-disaster.md @@ -0,0 +1,94 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "人祸资本主义和灾时共产主义" +author: "Out of the Woods" +date: 2018-10-22 12:00:00 +0800 +image: https://i.imgur.com/OPkfuOk.jpg +image_caption: "“气候变化正在发生。在暴风雨中，一个打破资本主义及其恶性不平等的机会出现了。让我们趁早抓住这个机会。别无他路。”——丽贝卡·索尼特" +description: "索尼特（Rebecca Solnit）声称原先认为灾难揭示人性最丑恶一面的市侩哲学具有误导性。相反，她展示了我们如何在许多诸如此类事件中发现“一种比幸福更重要，却更加深刻而积极的情感”，一种促成她谓“灾时共同体”的目标清晰的希望。" +position: center +--- + +当现有的社会秩序暂时失效时，通过集体和互助组成的一系列“强大共同体”就会应运而生。在那些短暂的瞬间，我们忘记了社会等级差异，互相帮助。可惜的是，当灾难过去，这些共同体就会消亡。《天堂》中提到，我们面临的“至关重要的当代任务”便是防止消亡，“在没有危机或压力的情况下恢复这种的共同体的亲密关系和共同目标。”考虑到变暖的地球将要迎来更多的灾难，这项任务变得更加迫切。我们该怎么废除那些使灾难雪上加霜的社会秩序，同时又使天灾人祸所引发的超凡人类行为变得平凡而恒定？ + + + +即使一个人对共同体内在价值的感受不如她乐观，索尼特的论点还是正确的。在炼狱般的生活里，我们找到了建立新世界所需要的工具，并且一瞥未曾设想的道路。这不值得庆祝，甚至不值得乐观。但这是希望的理由。 + +然而，为了实现这一希望，我们必须超越索尼特对特定灾难经历的关注，掌握资本主义下灾难的普遍特征是当务之急。这不仅仅是一系列的日期和地名--卡特里娜，哈维和伊尔玛，1755年和1906年和1985年--而是一个持续的状态。对许多人来说，过日子就是一场灾难。对这种持续不断的灾害，只有作出一致的反应，同时也必须是广泛和持久的，才能取得成功。在炼狱中创造乐园是不够的：我们需要反对炼狱的存在，比先前走的更远。比起“灾时共同体”，我们更需要“灾时共产主义”。 + +诚然，在呼吁灾时共产主义时，我们并不是说越来越频繁的生态-社会灾难的发生将不可避免地为共产主义的到来创造越来越成熟的条件。我们不能采取“越坏越好”的悖论式的宿命论，也不能等最终的飓风（所谓“大洪水”）来摧毁旧秩序。相反，我们注意到，这些规模巨大、最可怕的特大灾难会打断本身已经足够可怕的平庸之灾。这些被间断的时刻，对每个人生命的影响是可怕的，但也同样会给资本主义带来灾难。 + +灾难共产主义没有脱离现有的斗争。相反，它强调了发展我们的集体能力以抗压和萌发的革命进程：在持续不断的资本主义灾难中出现，抵抗，并寻求超越的运动。 + +如何让众多在炼狱中创造小安居所的项目融合成为比转瞬即逝的共同体更持久的事物呢？“灾难共产主义”为这些已经进行了很长时间的政治项目添加了一个明确的定语，即同国家和资本对立，并超越它们的界限。它引导着一种集体力量的运动，这种力量在特大灾难中表现得尤其明显，但平日里也一直存在，特别是在近百年来多灾多难的地方和群体之间存在。气候变化使这些斗争的核心技能有了彻底的发挥空间。 + +#### 灾难资本主义，资本就是灾害 + +地理学家尼尔·史密斯（Neil Smith）指出，纯粹的自然灾害是不存在的。将灾害归罪于“天地不仁”，掩盖了这样一个事实：它们既是气候或地质力量的产物，也是政治和社会分裂的产物。如果一场地震摧毁了一个小镇上偷工减料、缺乏维护的低收入住房，富人们的房子却笔挺的立，指责天地不仁只是为各级政府机关、开发商，地主式房东开脱罪责（更不用说首先造成这种不平等的资本主义经济应付的责任了）。灾害总是自然力量，如板块构造和天气系统，与社会、政治和经济的共谋。 + +要研究特大灾难的形成，就离不开它们发生前就存在的日常灾难。正是第4类飓风“玛丽亚”摧毁了美国波多黎各殖民地，使居民没有淡水：这是一场灾难性的事件。这样不完整的叙述掩盖了这样一个事实：根据自然资源保护委员会的报告，在飓风之前，“99.5%的波多黎各人口是由违反了《安全饮用水法案》的社区供水系统提供服务的，”同时“而岛上69.4%的人所饮用的水源达不到《安全饮用水法案》健康标准”。这种破坏性的事件也不能掩盖像在密歇根州弗林特市缓慢发生的灾害，那里几十年来对弗林特河和大湖的忽视和工业污染剥夺了工人阶级的干净水源，大多数黑人和拉丁裔社区净水稀缺。此类日常灾难容易被忽视，因为他们不像飓风或地震那样具有惊人威力，这种旷日持久的灾难模糊了灾难作为事件和灾难作为条件之间的界限。对于许多人来说突然意外的灾害冲击，对于一些人来说只不过是一个日子问题的加剧。 + +> “在地狱里建造天堂远远不够：我们必须与地狱抗争，超越地狱。比起灾难社区，我们更需要灾难共产主义。” + +气候变化大大增加了慢性或急性灾难发生的频率和严重程度。全球变暖意味着在大气和海洋表面循环的能量增加。全球变暖意味着在大气和海洋表面循环的能量增加。例如，当温暖的海洋产生低气压时，在地球旋转的影响下，热能被转化为具有动能的飓风和热带风暴。温暖的温度会“产生更多”的能量，这种能量必须以某种方式来释放。（能量不能被摧毁，它只能改变形式）这个过程的物理是极其复杂和难以建模的，但它大体能预测。联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会的最新报告指出，气候变化将破坏粮食和水的供应，破坏房屋和基础设施，并带来干旱和洪水，热浪和飓风，风暴和野火。 + +科学的进步和从仅仅一摄氏度的全球气温上升中采集到的知识能量化气候变化对个别极端天气事件的影响。我们现在可以把全球变暖与灾难联系起来，比如2003年的欧洲热浪和2010年的俄罗斯热浪，它们每次都杀死了成千上万的人，更不用说无数的风暴，洪水和其他天气事件。 + +气候变化本身就是人为的（或者更确切地说，是资本主义造成的），这进一步强调了灾难性事件与灾难性状况是密不可分的。两者之间的关系是双向的：条件导致事件，而这些事件又进一步巩固了条件。在特大灾害期间和之后，民族国家的目标通常是强化秩序，而不是援助幸存者，因此，灾害事件通常加剧了资本主义的潜在灾难。在1906年旧金山地震中，军队被派了进来。据估计50到500名幸存者被杀，自发组织的搜索、救援和消防工作被打乱。国家对治理灾难的尝试恰恰证明了自己是一种摧毁“另类秩序”的力量，摧毁了自下而上的自我组织形式。类似的打压重点是“劫匪”（即，竭力求生的幸存者），这在美国州政府对新奥尔良卡特里娜飓风的反应中体现。2005年9月4日，在丹济格尔大桥上，7名警察向一群试图逃离被淹城市的黑人开枪，打死2人，打伤4人。对寻求安全的黑人幸存者的谋杀说明了国家要对这种灾难中出现的解放之路施以强硬手段。不难看出，国家只想让穷人、移民和黑人恢复他们先前灾难性的正常生活。这种行为违背了主流灾难社会学家的建议。例如，在20世纪60年代，军事战略家兼社会学家查尔斯·弗里茨（Charles Fritz）尖锐地指出在灾难期间普遍存在的反社会个人主义和侵犯行为的刻板印象是不现实的。他还敏锐地注意到，在灾难和正常状态之间划线“可以很方便地忽略许多压力、牵制、冲突和不满的根源，这些根源都是深埋于日常生活中。” + +然而，国家和资本的灾难制造并不是本地化的和按部就班的事件，而是从邻里到全球的规模。正如娜奥米·克莱因（Naomi Klein）和托德·米勒（Todd Miller）等作者所证明的那样，特大灾难被用来延长、更新和扩大紧缩政策、私有化、军事化，警察化和边界管制这些日子里平庸的灾难。这就是灾难资本主义：一种恶性循环，在这种恶性循环中，普通的灾难条件加剧了非同寻常的灾难事件，反过来又加剧了原有的条件。灾难性事件让国家得以实施克莱因所谓的“休克主义”。这一过程包括按照新自由主义标准重新开发被破坏的住房、能源和基础设施；用价格剥夺穷人的电力或净水；迫使他们搬迁到更容易受到气候变化影响的地方；当群众试图抵制或跨越边界以逃避这种危机情况时，他们时常面临牢狱之灾。在飓风“玛丽亚”之后的几个月里，波多黎各在经历了进一步的私有化、不断恶化的劳动条件后迎接绿色殖民者的到来：像埃隆·马斯克这样的良心企业家，带着他们用“环境恢复”做包装的的超级资本主义大冒险来了。弗林特市的是相似的，马斯克也提出要解决其基础设施问题。 + +当然，为国家和资本的利益而行动的势力多种多样。卡特里娜飓风过后提供紧急救援的“共同基地组织（Common Ground Collective）”活动人士不仅受到种族主义警察的骚扰，还时常受到当地白人武装分子的骚扰，这些人抓住机会，在默许的情况下，扮演着末日之后劫掠割据的场景，有时甚至有警察为其提供便利。 + +#### 生存等待革命 + +对灾难性事件和灾难性条件的研究告诉我们，气候变化不仅仅是资本主义生产的意外后果，而是社会再生产的危机。社会再生产指的是能够在维持不平等的同时维持日常和代际生存的自我延续的社会结构。承认这一点不仅给我们一个看问题的新角度，而且也带来了希望。重要的是要记住，穷人、被剥夺者和被殖民者的生活并不仅仅是由灾难决定的。它们每一次都涉及到生存和延续，其形式往往是知识和技能代代相传。正如布塔沃托米族（Potawatomi）哲学家凯尔·波伊斯·怀特（Kyle Powys Whyte）所述的那样，土著人民对于数百年来殖民统治所造成的灾难非常熟悉，在这几百年的时间里，他们发展了在日子型灾难和特大灾难中进行抵抗并生存的技能。与此同时，马克思主义女权主义者西尔维娅·费德里基（Silvia Federerici）展示了资本主义是如何长期地试图，尽管失败，暴力根除一切形式的非资本主义生存模式。她在2001年的题为《妇女、全球化和国际妇女运动》的文章中指出，“如果摧毁我们的生存手段对于资本主义的存在是不可缺少的，那这便是我们要抗争的领地。” + +这样的斗争发生在1985年墨西哥城地震之后，当时的地主和房地产商看到了机会，抓住机会驱逐了他们早想要摆脱的人。他们试图拆毁提供低租金回报的住房，用昂贵的高层公寓取而代之，这是灾难资本主义起作用的一个明显例子。然而，工人阶级居民成功进行了反击。成千上万的房客在国家宫殿游行，要求政府从他们的房东那里征收损坏的房屋，以便最终出售给他们的房客。 + +作为回应，大约7000处房产被扣押。之后显而易见，特大灾难并不仅仅是为国家和资本创造巩固其权力的空间，它同样也为抵抗提供机会：用格雷厄姆·琼斯（Harry Cleaver）的话说，这是一种“左翼的休克主义”。资本主义的日子型灾难实际上可以被这些事件打断，这些事件对人的生活造成了可怖的影响，但也给资本主义带来了短暂的毁灭。在1988年的一篇题为《地震的用途》的文章中，哈利·克莱弗（Harry Cleaver）认为，这种情况特别可能发生在当行政能力和政府权力因特大灾害崩溃之后。在治理依赖于监控、智能数据和信息技术的地方，这种崩溃的可能性甚至更大。 + +> “对许多人来说，这是一个突如其来的打击，但对其他人来说，这是一个日常现实加剧的问题。” + +克莱弗还指出了在受地震影响的社区在灾前集体组织的经验的重要性。幸存者间有组织联系、互助文化和团结的期望。租户们知道，他们彼此支持因为他们在过往与彼此的关系。这一点对于我们理解灾时共同体至关重要，即不仅仅将其作为对特大灾难的自发反应，而是作为每天的生存斗争和地下互助实践的开始。组织抵抗资本主义日子型灾难的经验使居民有能力应对一场特大灾难。 + +事实上，灾前存在的支助关系在“玛丽亚”飓风之后有效地维系了社区。Apoyo Mutuo是一个由已建立的团体、运转的中心和现实的实践为基础的去中心化互助网络，负责分发食物、清理废墟和重建该岛的基础设施。它比国际援助和物流网络做得更快，更关注居民的需求。通过一种DIY拼装，互助中心证明，非专业人士可以迅速抄起家伙，并分享生存所需的工具和技能。在这样的行动中，他们还创造了超越灾后生存的新形式：团结和集体生活。 + +“这些风暴已经席卷而过，并且摧毁了许多东西，”总部设在美国的互助救灾网络（Mutual Aid Disaster Relief）成员Ricchi说。“他们破坏了能源网，切断了获得食物和水的途径，使博里肯岛（塔伊诺人称呼波多黎各岛）变得一片漆黑。但在那黑暗中，无数的波里卡人已经醒来，他们睡得很晚，又起得很早，做着让生活复苏的工作。” + +这种生活绝非平庸：团体组织聚会、舞蹈课程和集体烹饪课程，这样的共同视野超越了绝望。 + +在传统和狭隘的经济意义上，在这些情况是物资稀缺的，然而丰富的社会联系向物质的稀缺进行挑战。特大灾难促使我们认识到，稀缺不是简单的数学计量，它反应于社会关系：商品和资源的分配方式决定了谁能使用资源。在飓风桑迪之后，工具的“稀缺”被克服，不是通过生产或收购更多，而是更新组织形式。公共工具库的建立是为了替代主宰资本主义社会原子化、商品化的社会关系。这些例子向我们表明，我们不应过于草率地将气候变化与稀缺联系起来。 + +#### 流民 + +社区的定义往往是在一个特定的地理位置内，我们上面所援引的内容当然符合这项定义：灾民即居民在受灾地即所在地对特大灾难进行回应。然而，气候变化迫使人们从一个地方迁移到另一个地方，因此组织起来对抗其灾难性影响也需要更广泛的团结社区。根据联合国的数字，目前被列为“被迫流离失所者”的人数为6850万。流民的加速产生不可忽视。到2050年，预计将有2亿人成为“因环境而流离失所者，”他们因为全球变暖带来的日子灾难和特大灾难被迫流浪。说白了就是世界上50个人中就有1个要遭此磨难。 + +目前，许多人在国内流离失所，只有一小部分人前往欧洲、北美或澳大利亚。然而，随着气候的不稳定和条件的恶化，许多目前作为避难所的地方将变得不适合居住。因此，前往更高的纬度地区，跨越盘踞这些地区的更富裕国家的边界，对人们来说将变得越来越重要。生活在那里使人们不那么容易受到灾难性事件的影响，因为富裕的民族国家仍然至少在财政上有更好的准备缓解影响。全球向北移动的趋势可能会加强保护这些地区的努力：自诩为“军事-环境-工业的综合体”已经在策划新的暴力形式来管控边境。反击此类暴力的共同努力将成为应对气候灾害的一些最重要的斗争。 + +在我们写作此文时，美国各地的几个移民和海关执法（ICE）设施受到封锁，这是美国人民的行动，破坏他们的集结和驱逐行动。在英国，社运者成功地部分推后了政府将移民执法扩展到学校，将学校视作为其“敌对环境”的政策。上世纪90年代，在格拉斯哥，一个将新移民与当地人配对的伙伴计划非常成功，以至于工人阶级社区最终阻止了旨在驱逐他们的新朋友的黎明突袭行动。在我们看来，这些人也组织了灾时共同体，它们的重要性丝毫不亚于85地震后墨西哥城和卡特里娜飓风后的新奥尔良。 + +这些灾时是满怀希望地一瞥另一个世界的缩影。社会再生产不是通过有薪劳动、商品、私人财产及其所有相关暴力来协调的，而是通过关怀、团结和对自由的热情来协调的。人们坚信，平庸不是宿命。 + +#### 对抗炼狱 + +这种希望是至关重要的，但不要过度乐观。我们需要的不仅仅是微观世界，微观视角往往也对资本有价值。须知资本不是同质的：对某些资本家有利的是对另一些资本家不利的，短期内对个别资本家不利的东西可能对长期的资本有利。因此，虽然灾时共同体可能会给一些资本家和地区政府机关带来负面新闻影响，但其他人会期待着挖掘它们的价值。正如阿什利·道森（Ashley Dawson）提醒我们的那样，美国国土安全部在2012年飓风席卷纽约之后赞扬了受无政府主义影响的“占领桑迪”赈灾自组织。在国家和市场力量所不能做的事情上做得很好的情况下，“占领桑迪”让社会生活得以继续，大风大浪时掌舵，风平浪静后滚蛋。国家机关无直接损失。 + +当然，这种说法是片面的，并且忽略了灾时共同体的教育价值。它展示了一种价值观：对另一种生活表示欢迎，对资本的平庸灾难严词拒绝。社会再生产的方向改变了：一种另类的自我再生产的企图，抗拒昔日把身体与环境一同榨干的日常状态。 + +我们清楚地看到了这一点，在许多为应对边界问题而出现的灾时共同体中。正如哈莎·瓦利亚（Harsha Walia）在《消灭边境帝国主义》中如此精彩地展示的那样，这些社区不仅帮助人们减轻边境的暴力，而且抵制了边境这概念本身，这一理念成为了简单的诉求：无国界。事实上，正是这句话同时进行了我们坚持的肯定和否定：反对这个世界的一个方面，同时描述另一个世界的特征。这是一个在炼狱里反对炼狱的行动。 + +这种否定无疑需要超越与占主导地位的社区观念相关的舒适圈。当在卡特里娜飓风过后面对那些种族主义的警察和义务警员时，共同基地组织（CGC）在黑豹组织和其他激进组织的激励下进行武装自卫。冲突也不会仅仅存在于外部：CGC还必须和那些不热衷于参与纠集，相反却热衷于体验末世的票友（译者：齐泽克式的人物）打交道。灾难社区将无法摆脱构成日子型灾难的暴力混乱：厌女、白人至上、阶层歧视、残障歧视、种族主义和许多相互交织的压迫形式，可惜的是这类阶级社会存在的痼疾难免渗透到了他们的组织中。灾时共同体将不得不学习如何解决这些问题，运用社交工具进行动员和启动问责程序，许多活动家已经投入精力进行发展。 + +#### 跳出炼狱 + +资本主义对共同体很满意。通常情况下，“共同体”这个词被用来描述资本主义自身在日子的或特大灾难中生存所需要的弹性力量。用“共同体”命名集体剥夺了所有的变革力量。 + +我们不能完全放弃社区的概念：考虑到这一词儿的广泛使用，这样的建议是毫无益处的理想主义。但当给我们谈及“灾时共同体”时仅仅将其称之为“社区”，那无疑是否认了它们的潜能，将其束缚在一个永远可亲可爱的，但永远不具备变革力量的概念上。 + +#### 所以我们呼唤共产主义 + +共产主义往往以资本主义生产创造的物质丰富为前提，灾难共产主义的基础却是灾时共同体的集体富足。它是一种抓住社会再生产的手段。当然，我们不能指望每一个结果都会立即成为共产主义（例如，1985年墨西哥城的这些共同体没有废除私有财产）。我们对“共产主义”之一词的使用标志着一个超越具体表现和结果的社会运动的愿景和运作，如此的社会运动将跨越空间，超越重大灾难持续存在。一切都基于在灾时共同体中发现的社会再生产的极大丰富。因此它也完全贴合了马克思对于共产主义的基本定义：“共产主义对我们来说不是应当确立的状况，不是现实应当与之相适应的理想。我们所称为共产主义的是那种消灭现存状况的现实的运动。这个运动的条件是由现有的前提产生的。” + +因此，灾时共产主义的共产精神是一种突破规则的变革性大动员，没有它，逐渐显著的全球变暖灾难就不能也不会停止。同时，灾时共产也是对多种结构性不公正的毁灭，这些不公正使灾难得以延续，并从灾难中汲取力量，同时它也是在一个瞬息万变的星球上，人们集体能力的落实，以寻得持久和繁荣。它雄心勃勃，要求重新分配若干规模的资源；赔偿殖民主义和奴隶制；为土著人民没收财主地产；废除化石燃料，以及其他重要事宜。显然，我们尚未成功。但正如恩斯特·布洛赫（Ernst Bloch）所指出的，“尚未”存在于我们的当下。在对灾害的集体反应中，我们发现，建设这个新世界的许多工具已经存在。当索尼特谈到这种“比幸福更深刻”的情感时，她瞥见了一种可能性：“我们自己可能是谁，以及我们的社会还能变成什么样？”在废墟中，在可怕的停顿中，我们反对在停顿中竭力进行资本化收编（口罩自由市场、钉钉网络升旗仪式、复工）的社会环境，我们就快要完全变革，完成对知识的统合，一切人和一切物之关系的变革是可能的。换句话说，在对灾难的集体反应中，我们看到了一场现实的运动，这场运动将废除“当下状态”。 diff --git a/_collections/_heros/2022-06-02-GiorgioAgamben-a1_r-sul-diritto-di-resistenza.md b/_collections/_heros/2022-06-02-GiorgioAgamben-a1_r-sul-diritto-di-resistenza.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..83f0e3d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_heros/2022-06-02-GiorgioAgamben-a1_r-sul-diritto-di-resistenza.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "抵抗的权利" +author: "Giorgio Agamben" +date: 2022-06-02 12:00:00 +0800 +image: https://i.imgur.com/iefq1MN.jpg +image_caption: "利维坦，即是暴政挡箭牌。" +description: "" +position: right +--- + +我想和你们分享一些关于抵抗和内战的思考。我不需要提醒你们，抵抗的权利古已有之。古代就有赞美诛杀暴君的传统，在中世纪的时候，阿奎那也总结过经院哲学的一个原则性的立场：就以党利代公益而言，暴政不可能正义（iustum）。因此，抵抗暴政不构成煽动（sedition）。 + + + +那么，怎样确定一个既定政权是不是暴政呢？不必说，这个问题不可避免地会带来一定程度的含糊，巴尔托罗（Bartolo）的警告就是证据。他在《论归尔甫派与吉伯林派》（Trattato sui guelfi e i ghibellini）中区分了“擅权”（ex defectu tituli，凭不合法的主张而成为暴君）的暴君和“滥权”（ex parte exercitii，凭行动而成为暴君）的暴君，但他发现很难识别出一个抵抗的理由（iusta causa resistendi）。 + +在1947年关于把抵抗的权利写进意大利宪法的讨论中，这个含糊又出现了。如你们所知，多塞蒂（Dossetti）提议把这样一个条款写进文本：“对公权力侵犯本宪法保障的基本自由与权利的行为进行个人和集体的抵抗是公民的权利和义务”。对此阿尔多·莫罗（Aldo Moro）也表示支持，但它还是没有被写进宪法，梅乔·鲁尼（Meuccio Ruini）——当时他是幅责起草宪法的所谓的75委员会的主席，几年后，在担任参议院主席期间，他因为试图阻碍议会讨论所谓的欺诈法而备受瞩目——选择让议会来投票决定，他知道结果肯定是不通过。 + +不过，不可否认的是，包括康斯坦蒂诺·莫尔塔蒂（Costantino Mortati）在内的法学家们的迟疑和反对——他们指出，不能立法规定实证法与革命之间的关系——也不是没有道理的。这就是施米特所定义的，和在现代性中如此重要的“党人”（partigiano）形象相关的，“约束不可约束者”（regolamentazione dell’irregolare）的难题。法学家们谈论实证法与“革命”之间的关系是奇怪的：在我看来，他们更像是在说“内战”。的确，怎样区分抵抗的权利和内战？仔细想，内战不正是抵抗的权利的必然结果吗？ + +今天，我想对你们提出的假设是，这种理解抵抗问题的方式忽视了重点，它没有注意到一个关乎现代国家（也即后拿破仑时代的国家）性质的根本变化。在谈论抵抗的时候，我们必须首先思考这个转变。 + +欧洲公法本质上是战争法。人们不只普遍地通过对暴力的垄断，也更加具体地通过对战争法（jus belli）的垄断来定义现代国家。国家不可能放弃这个权利，哪怕它要为此而付出发明各种新形式的战争的代价，就像我们今天看到的那样。战争法不只关乎开战的权利，也关乎用法律约束战争行为的权利。它因此而区分了战争状态与和平状态，公敌与罪犯，平民与军队，士兵与党人。 + +现在我们知道，战争法的这些本质特征已经消失很久了，而我的假设是，这意味着，国家的性质也在根本上发生了变化。在二战期间，平民与军队的区分就已经逐渐消失了。一个迹象是，1949年的日内瓦公约承认不属于常规军的参战人员的法律地位，条件是“有一为其部下负责之人统率”；“公开携带武器”；并“备有可从远处识别之固定的特殊标志”。 + +再一次地，我对这些规定感兴趣，不是因为它们造成了承认抵抗的权利的结果，如你们所见，它们对此权利的承认非常有限：携带武器的党人不是党人，他是无意识的党人。我之所以对这些规定感兴趣是因为，它们含蓄地指出了这样一个转变，即国家本身变成了战争法的执掌者。正如我们已经看到并且还会继续看到的那样，从严格法学角度来看已经永久地进入例外状态的国家并没有废除战争法，相反，它事实上失去了区分常规战争与内战的能力。如今，我们在和这样的国家打交道，它在打一种全球性的内战，但它又绝不可能承认这点。 + +而抵抗和内战也因此而被打上了恐怖主义活动的标签，在这里，回忆这个事实是适当的：战后最早出现的恐怖主义，就是法国法国陆军将军拉乌尔·萨朗（Raoul Salan）的杰作——1961年，他创建了OAS，即“秘密军队组织（Organization armée secrète）”。想想“秘密军队”这个表达：常规军队变得不常规了，士兵也和恐怖分子混到了一起。 + +在我看来，这点是显而易见的：在这样的国家面前，我们没法谈论可被写入宪法或可从宪法那里获得的“抵抗的权利”。原因至少有二：首先，内战不可能被约束，因为国家自己就在试图通过一系列没完没了的法令来打内战，这就自上而下地改变了法律的稳定性原则。根源上，我们面对的是这样一个国家，它不停地打内战并试图把被伪装为某种形式的内战法典化。 + +其次是因为——这对我来说是一个无可辩驳的命题——在当前的条件下，抵抗不可能是一个单独的活动；它只可能是一种生命的形式。 + +只有在每个人都有能力从这个命题得出自己的结论的情况下，才会有真正的抵抗。 + +--- + +[Giorgio Agamben, “Sul diritto di resistenza”, Quodlibet, 2 June, 2022](https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-sul-diritto-di-resistenza) From 640a77840c864adfc93e4882fee4a6351f464512 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2022 04:13:25 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 03/12] 0x12 Init commit _columns posts --- .../2022-06-09-the-li-jiaqi-paradox.md | 74 +++++++++++++++++++ ...-of-6.16-glad-to-protest-along-with-you.md | 63 ++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 137 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-06-09-the-li-jiaqi-paradox.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-06-16-memorial-of-6.16-glad-to-protest-along-with-you.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-06-09-the-li-jiaqi-paradox.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-06-09-the-li-jiaqi-paradox.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ba9fe179 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-06-09-the-li-jiaqi-paradox.md @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "李佳琦悖论" +author: "昌西" +date : 2022-06-09 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/3HXYLDK.jpg +image_caption: "“如果不想触碰政治禁区，那么必须了解所有政治禁区。”" +description: "「当知道一件事比装作不知道一件事的难度更大时，犯错几乎就变得不可避免。」" +--- + +中国网络防火墙控制范围内，每年的6月4日可谓是网信、国安等维稳部门最为敏感的日子。围绕6月4日前后数日，防火墙内用户本已有限的权益被进一步压缩。 + + + +除去日常已有的针对发布内容的审查、对用户IP地址的披露等等限制性措施以外，在“六四敏感时期”期间，用户甚至不能够在部分主要社交媒体平台上更换自己的头像。通常，各家互联网平台以及政府部门还会在这一时段加紧线上与线下的审核，确保“万无一失”。 + +这一系列线上线下的举措，其本质目的是在中国政府能够控制的范围内消灭一切对“六四事件”的讨论与悼念。但即使是在这般严防死守的背景下，依然不时会出现有人有意或无意“冲塔”的情况。在6月3日晚间的购物直播当中，知名带货主播李佳琦的直播画面中，突然出现了坦克形状的冰淇淋蛋糕，其直播因此立刻中断。截至6月8日，李佳琦依然没能复播，在淘宝上他的名字仍处于搜索无结果的状态。 + +由于[“坦克人”影像画面](https://www.abc.net.au/chinese/2019-06-04/tiananmen-30th-anniversary-young-people-dont-know-tank-man/11178938)的存在，坦克一词同样成为了中国政府针对六四事件的“敏感词汇”。坦克蛋糕在这样的时段出现，无疑为负责审核李佳琦直播的平台带来了巨大负担。在微博上，李佳琦当晚对外宣称“内部设备故障无法继续直播”，并且之后再没有发任何一条新的微博。 + +![image1](https://i.imgur.com/XXahlb6.jpg) +▲ 1989年6月5日，王维林在北京长安街上阻挡中国人民解放军坦克车队前进。图：Bettmann/Getty Images + +#### 无知的代价 + +回顾过往李佳琦的做法，这次的直播行为显然不可能是有意为之。在他过往的社交媒体言论当中，并没有出现过反抗威权、崇尚公民自由等话语，更不用说会提到“六四”这类政治禁忌。相反，李佳琦过往在直播行业的成功，也使得自己或主动或被动与中国体制牢牢绑在了一起。 + +据央广网报导，担任上海市青联委员的李佳琦获得了上海市共青团颁发的2020年度青年五四奖章。在新华网转载《羊城晚报》的评论稿件中，提到李佳琦于2020年6月以特殊人才的身份落户上海，并将其树立成为上海包容性的典型。人民网转载上观新闻的评论稿件当中，也表达了类似的正面态度。对于落户上海一事，李佳琦表示：“很感激，希望能为上海直播事业做贡献。”2021年10月，李佳琦被共青团中央评为“向上向善好青年”。另根据凤凰网在2021年11月8日的报导，李佳琦成为上海浦东新区的人大代表候选人。 + +从政治层面来说，李佳琦不仅为“上海直播事业做贡献”，而且也通过直播事业为中国政府意图推进的政策与事件做贡献。据观察者网2021年11月7日引述《每日经济新闻》报导称，李佳琦与央视记者王冰冰一同在推销阿富汗松子，将12万罐松子销售一空。而这一行动的背景，是中国向夺取阿富汗政权的塔利班武装组织示好的一部分。 + +而在更早的2021年3月，李佳琦曾在微博中发表过“支持新疆棉花”的表态，并且参与了名为“新疆助农公益直播”的活动。而这一事件的背景，是在中国社交媒体上出现的，针对西方指控新疆棉花涉及强迫劳动予以回应的“我支持新疆棉花”微博话题。 + +不过，这位站在金字塔顶端的直播带货博主，目前却面临一键清零的窘境。从事件发生的前后细节来看，这更像是一次对于过往历史毫不知情而导致的职业生涯翻车事件。 + +事件发生后，人们或许会好奇李佳琦的未来将会如何，在行业人设方面，倒是可以参考曾经与李佳琦齐名的知名主播薇娅。在2021年12月因被指控逃税被重罚13.41亿元人民币的薇娅自2021年12月19日起就处于被封杀状态，至今没能复原。直到2022年5月，原薇娅的助播才将原本的资源重新整合，离开了淘宝直播，转入抖音重新直播，但自始至终，薇娅再无露面，其个人形象彻底从中国互联网上消失。 + +不过和李佳琦团队经历最像的，其实是当年在共享单车领域曾经与ofo、摩拜三足鼎立的小蓝单车（BlueGoGo）。在2017年6月3日到6月4日，小蓝单车与掌游天下联合推出名为“王牌大作战”的推广活动。该活动鼓励用户寻找带有坦克标示的单车骑行。而在小蓝单车的手机应用上，随即出现了在长安街上排列的“一排排坦克”。这一推广活动在上线数小时后便全面下架，根据中国科技媒体品玩的[存档报导](https://web.archive.org/web/20171116092303/http://www.pingwest.com/bluegogo-die/)称，6月事发之后确有警察进入小蓝单车内部调查，而小蓝单车自此进入静默反省期。更直接的结果是2017年11月，在缺乏后续融资的背景下，小蓝单车CEO跑路，公司也随后倒闭，交给滴滴托管收购，至此，距离坦克车推广事件爆发仅隔五个月。 + +![image2](https://i.imgur.com/Km4Bnts.jpg) +▲ 2018年1月3日，上海，美容博主李佳琦在淘宝上直播时涂口红。图：VCG via Getty Images + +#### 无孔不入的政治 + +在李佳琦直播事件发生后，《华尔街日报》提到中国审查部门的行为开始让李佳琦的粉丝[探究六四事件](https://cn.wsj.com/articles/李佳琦直播宣传冰淇淋产品时无意间引发粉丝探究六四事件-11654507510)，反而让一部分人了解了这段历史。而李佳琦的粉丝群体又颇具有代表性，他们代表著18-35岁年轻世代，具有一定的可支配财产与购买力，用网络流行语来说，他们是最有资格在当下的中国“岁月静好”的人群。 + +但即使对于这些“岁月静好”的人群来说，他们的认知范围内也在填充进越来越多的政治内容，这其中不仅仅有例如“支持香港警察”、“支持新疆棉”、“枪击美利坚”、“收留乌克兰美女”等等符合中国政府认定的利益相关话语，也有随著政治态势越来越极权的大背景下，被划出的更多的政治禁区。但这些禁忌范围并没有明确的规定，实则是通过经验、经历，以及对非公开历史的理解编辑汇总而成。 + +当然，令人最为诧异的，莫过于一个售卖消费品的网络主播，最终居然是因为涉及政治禁区而造成自身事业的中止。在事件发生后，有一部分人嘲讽李佳琦此前的“支持新疆棉”、“五四青年奖章”等等与公权力谄媚的行为遭遇“铁拳现世报”，但对于仍处于中国的普罗大众而言，李佳琦的案例代表了中国政府公权力的政治红线频繁化与随机化的趋势。 + +这些无孔不入的政治要求与禁区，实际上也分成了“明”与“暗”两层。以李佳琦所参与过的事件为例：在明面上，他需要支持新疆棉，需要配合中国政府的外交政策售卖阿富汗松子。由于他的影响力，其也成为了共青团中央、上海市政府等公权力机构拉拢争取树立正面典型的对象。这些在“明处”参与政治的行动，亦或是自身发展所需要的必要路径，亦或是在政府部门裹挟下无奈做出的维系生存的行为。 + +但在“明”处的贡献，并不能抵销其在面对“暗”政治时因为无知而触犯禁区的惩罚。至于个人如何去了解这些禁区，却又没有明确的官方答案。显然，“暗”历史在课本中、在防火墙内并不存在，而个人未经授权使用VPN翻墙，在今天的中国已经成为[违法行为](https://mil.sina.cn/2022-02-22/detail-imcwipih4789817.d.html)。 + +对于李佳琦和更多需要依靠中国客户群体的本土商人来说，他们与“明处”政治的交集可谓已经无法避免，同时，接触这些明面上的政治行动，其本质是为了规避陷入任何“禁区政治”可能带来的负面影响。但对于阴暗面的避而不谈，以及不知所谓，却在诸如现在的关键时刻害苦了自己。 + +![image3](https://i.imgur.com/kqtwVGS.jpg) +▲ 2021年1月5日，上海 ，人们走过直播主持人李佳琦的广告。摄：VCG via Getty Images + +#### 过于成功的审查 + +在李佳琦出事后，社交媒体上有人调侃了一条悖论：“如果一个人不想触碰政治禁区，那么他必须了解所有政治禁区。”而在这句话背后的事实则是，了解政治禁区的行为本身就是反体制的。 + +显然，李佳琦恰好卡在了这一悖论当中。他被封禁的个人命运，还得到了包括BBC、彭博社、CNN等世界知名媒体的关注。用疯狂捍卫中国现有政治制度和政府的话语体系来讲，即使是被封杀，李佳琦的所作所为也成为了为“境外势力递刀子”的行径。而从这件事情的影响力来看，这要比递刀子的危害大得多。 + +但真正造成李佳琦翻车事件的原因，却是过于成功的审查与宣传制度：由于对六四事件的线上线下的成功封锁，使得例如李佳琦这样的高中学历直播网红没有渠道了解这一政治禁区，更无从去规避自己并不知道的雷区。 + +在2019年6月4日，六四事件三十周年的契机，澳大利亚媒体ABC记者曾在街头[随机采访](https://www.abc.net.au/chinese/2019-06-04/tiananmen-30th-anniversary-young-people-dont-know-tank-man/11178938)中国当代青年人，询问他们是否知道六四事件或者是见过那张知名的坦克人图片。在镜头记录下，多数受访者避而不谈，快速逃开，亦有受访者表示不知道这起事件。在中国境内进行此类采访的做法引起了关于新闻伦理的争议，但这段影片却体现出了中国政府针对六四事件的压制、封锁，以及对民众的威慑十分成功。 + +从本质上讲，今天的中国政治出现了一层围绕著禁忌话题的悖论：政治红线禁止所有人讨论那些被认定为是禁忌的话题。但由于这些话题的禁忌性，大多数人又无从得知这些话题，更无从得知何谓禁忌。对于大部分未接触过这些知识的普通人来说，他们如同行走在一片没有任何标记的雷场，或许下一步就会踩到致命的地雷，遭到不可逆的打击。 + +在如此逼仄的政治环境下，想尽办法了解这些“阴暗知识”，同时又对公共事务沉默不言，或许成为了在无能力反抗威权体制下，大部分人无奈的最优解决方案。只是李佳琦的遭遇，象征著这种方案也变得越来越不可行，因为当知道一件事比装作不知道一件事的难度更大时，犯错几乎就变得不可避免，唯一的问题只剩下这个错误会不会轮到自己头上。 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-06-16-memorial-of-6.16-glad-to-protest-along-with-you.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-06-16-memorial-of-6.16-glad-to-protest-along-with-you.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..21e44435 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-06-16-memorial-of-6.16-glad-to-protest-along-with-you.md @@ -0,0 +1,63 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "「6.16」，和你抗爭我很愉快" +author: "書生" +date : 2022-06-16 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/June16protestTreefong17.jpg +image_caption: "Johnston Road demonstration view, 16 June, 2019." +description: "「譴責鎮壓，撤回惡法」大遊行，通稱「6.16大遊行」，由民間人權陣線（「民陣」）於2019年6月16日舉辦，是「6.9大遊行」後再一次同類遊行。本次遊行提出「五大訴求」，追究警察在6月12日街道佔領時濫權的呼聲令運動遲遲不能收場。——維基百科" +--- + +> 這時代一點都不愉快，但我們用溫柔守住彼此僅餘的快樂 + + + +每當我們提到反送中，彷彿只有痛苦、創傷、無力、悲傷的記憶與感受，因此我們即使不敢忘記，也難以啟齒，生怕回憶歷史會勾起彼此更大的傷痛。 + +「痛苦」彷彿成為香港人「共同體」的核心要素，正如梁繼平所言，「唯有當我們能夠將他人的痛苦，視之為自己的痛苦；將他人所作的犧牲，視之為是為自己而作的犧牲，並且將每一場抗爭都看作是對前人付出的肯定和追認，真正的共同體才能夠成立」。 + +但連結香港人真的只有「痛苦」嗎？這是書生最近不斷反思的問題，直至一次偶然機會，看到一名網友貼出曾廣為流傳的文宣圖「和你抗爭我很愉快」，並在帖中指這場運動其實不是只有創傷的回憶，還有很多開心、搞笑的片段，這些片段令我們更有投入感，更有歸屬感。 + +這不禁令我靈光一閃。的確，若果整場運動只有無盡的痛苦和創傷，為什麼香港仍然有那麼大動力，前仆後繼參與這場運動？這股集齊數百萬人計，維持至少兩年的力量，不可能只盛載著痛苦或內疚等負面情緒能量，否則它早已崩塌掉。一定，一定有某種正面能量，支持我們行動，正如「和你抗爭我很愉快」這個牆圖之所以特別具感染力，一定是它與我們產生某種相當重要的共鳴。 + +但這是一種怎樣的「愉快」？書生就著這個問題，問了身邊的手足與朋友，希望瞭解大家怎麼看。結果大多數人似乎都認為這種「愉快」不是虛假，就是刺耳。 + +「虛假」的位在，面對嚴峻暴力的鎮壓，很多人都承受著莫大的痛苦，即使有過所謂快樂的片段，也不過是瑣碎且無足輕重的瞬間感覺；「刺耳」的位在，運動應該是嚴肅認真、很多人犧牲了很多東西，甚至生命；因此，在這運動裡說自己「曾感到愉快」，不只對犧牲者和受難者的冒犯與不敬，也彷彿把運動變成一場遊戲，即所謂「嘉年華化」。 + +「但這種運動應該多多少少有些令我們會心微笑，甚至溫暖愉快的回憶？」，我說，例如8.6尖沙嘴雷射激光晚會，香港人曾經在當晚以歡笑聲援方仲賢，又譬如發夢時齊上齊落的teamwork，手足之間的開玩笑或自嘲，也曾令很多充滿危險與恐懼氣息的街頭，變得有著放鬆與齊笑的時候。當書生經過各區貼滿memo紙與文宣的連儂牆，總會會心微笑，這應該不只是連儂牆感予的審美快樂，還有某種we connect、共同赴湯蹈火的滿足感；難道這些快樂都是虛假？ + +人類的心理機制很有趣。如哲學家邊沁所言，人類的天性是避苦求樂，但我們同時又對「快樂」相當苛刻——快樂的感覺總是稍瞬即逝；可是，痛苦卻不同，人類的痛苦與大多數動物最大的分別是會隨著記憶而累積，記憶令痛苦變得更加巨大，但記憶通常不留快樂，於是我們常常忘記曾經擁有的快樂，而只讓痛苦折磨自己。這種苦樂的「不對稱性」，令我們很容易覺得痛苦和創傷才是「真實」，快樂卻只是「空中樓閣」。 + +的確，這場運動大多數時候我們都不愉快，這是無容置疑的。提出我們曾經也有過快樂的時光，意義是什麼？這是個很好也很難回答的問題。書生想弄清楚的是，假如快樂曾經佔據這場運動一定位置，那麼我們因為什麼而感到快樂或滿足，這些快樂與滿足又給予我們什麼意義。 + +有人可能說，抗爭是嚴肅的運動，我們走出來不是為了快樂，而是為了某種理想奮鬥血拼。因此，即使有過愉快時光，這些快樂也不過是一種偶然的副產品，既不是運動核心要素，也不為運動帶來什麼。 + +沒錯，沒有人是為了開心而走出來，但其實人類做很多事情都不是為了快樂；相反，假如以快樂作為目標而行動，通常最後反而會招致失落感，甚至不快樂，哲學家把這種矛盾稱為「享樂悖論」。因此，快樂本來就是行動的副產品，這一點也不足為奇，關鍵是我們為什麼而行動、假如行動產生某種滿足感與快樂時，這種滿足感與快樂是什麼。 + +「和你抗爭我很愉快」這八個字，似乎早已揭示了答案。我們在運動中最大的快樂，是因為「和你抗爭」、「我們一起抗爭」的強烈投入感、團結感與滿足感。金鐘雷射激光晚會之所以令香港人歡笑，不只是因為這種活動形式「好玩」，更因為它聚集了本來彼此陌生的大家，共同為手足聲援、嘲笑政權荒謬的檢控。這種感染力，甚至令沒有身赴現場的多數香港人，通過畫面也能夠感受到香港人如何同心同在。 + +不只是參與或見證這類大型活動、街頭小隊的共同行動，才能獲得這種滿足感。即使是最細微的對話與自嘲，也能產生一樣的效果。18區人鏈「和你拖」活動，不只為很多人帶來了難忘而無比的感動，其中一些看來「很鳩」、無聊瑣碎的小故事，例如物件由九龍西傳到九龍東、男女害羞不敢拖手，在網絡傳播後，都令很多人會心微笑。 + +的確，這些愉快稍瞬即逝，在運動中看起來無關痛癢，但書生相信這些一個個令人會心微笑的小事，是不知不覺地累積成我們感動、滿足與彼此理解的力量。 + +運動期間，書生朋友圈裡常笑說「要睇勇武一定要睇TVB」，這既是自嘲也是在嘲諷TVB，但它之所以令我和朋友感到好笑，是因為我們對TVB的報導手法相當理解，這種共同理解令我們一起嘲笑，同時在歡笑聲中又令我們再次確認彼此都有共同語言、記憶和想法。 + +就是這種「確認彼此」的共同感，令我們感到愉快。亞里士多德認為人本質上是政治動物，當人們參與公共活動時，共同體一起行動、互相回應會帶來難以言喻的幸福感。「和你抗爭我很愉快」牆圖特別有感染力的原因，不只在於這八個字，還包括右下角「metoo/thx手足」的回應，它象徵了這種愉快並非只是先寫者的個人偶發感受；相反，它是具有深刻的共鳴，它既回應了對方，也打動了所有具有相同共鳴的我們。 + +的確，這是個不快樂的時代，甚至是一個相當痛苦的時代，但「和你抗爭」令我們連結起來，令我們感受到僅餘得來不易的快樂。 + +香港詩人廖偉棠曾在〈黑色，我多麽愛你黑色〉一文中，將政權與抗爭的方式作過對比，他稱政權的打壓意謂著「殘酷、暴力、血腥」，而「快樂抗爭」本身就「昭示了我們的選擇、我們與恐怖權力是兩個世界的人。」 + +書生不確定是否真有所謂「快樂抗爭」。我會更傾向說抗爭者的「溫柔」與政權的「殘暴」形成了強烈的對比，正如日本作家川本三郎金在《我愛過的那個時代》，提到1968年日本學運的「時代一點都不溫柔」，但正因為時代一點都不溫柔，所以才反過來追求「溫柔」。 + +川本三郎說，追求「正義」的心，正是「對任何不義氣憤填膺」的「溫柔」。書生相信很多人都因為警暴而憤怒、因為對被捕者而內疚，而採取行動。這其實都是一種真切的「溫柔」，因為沒有同理與共情的溫柔，就不可能有相應的憤怒與內疚。 + +「和你抗爭我很愉快」這張牆圖，特別令人揪心的是，八字下方的笑笑emoji，眼裡流著血或淚。既笑又痛的神情，特別捕捉到我們在運動中複雜的情緒，正因為強烈的「正面能量」和「負面能量」互相碰撞，才能產生那麼巨大的政治能量和共同感。而右下角幾個字的簡單回應，則成了最溫柔的回應。 + +當然，抗爭手段中無疑包含了各種暴力手段，因此我們夾雜在溫柔和暴力的悖論之中，就像我們同時包含快樂與痛苦的回憶感受一樣。但「溫柔」在運動中遠比「暴力」具有本質上的優先地位，正如政權每每說我們是「暴徒」時，我們總能用「溫柔」作為反駁，暴徒會這樣幫助中催淚彈路人的嗎？暴徒會這麼善良，為了別人的苦難而哭泣的嗎？ + +溫柔令我們行動，令我們與殘暴的政權區別開來，它撫平了我們不少傷痛，守住我們最後的快樂與力量。 + +「手足，你需不需要水」，某個陌生人向另一個陌生人說。他微笑地回應：「不用了，手足，我有，你也小心點。」 + + \ No newline at end of file From 74b41711b2cb76789a3b5524b6c2f2ce80bbbf9e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2022 04:15:00 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 04/12] =?UTF-8?q?0x12=20VOL.18=20=C2=A9=20MMXXII?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- _config.yml | 2 +- _data/archives.yml | 3 +++ 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/_config.yml b/_config.yml index 0647b265..e4298bb5 100644 --- a/_config.yml +++ b/_config.yml @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ title: The Republic of Agora -description: UNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.17 © MMXXII +description: UNITE THE PUBLIC ♢ VOL.18 © MMXXII baseurl: "/pen0" # the subpath of your site, e.g. /blog url: "https://agorahub.github.io" # the hostname & protocol, e.g. http://example.com google_analytics: 'UA-166928354-2' # agorahub-pen0 diff --git a/_data/archives.yml b/_data/archives.yml index 346b5841..2d70e266 100644 --- a/_data/archives.yml +++ b/_data/archives.yml @@ -1,3 +1,6 @@ +- name: VOL.17 + repo: https://gitlab.com/agora0/pen/0x11 + site: https://agora0.gitlab.io/pen/0x11 - name: VOL.16 repo: https://gitlab.com/agora0/pen/0x10 site: https://agora0.gitlab.io/pen/0x10 From d853737ed55040bdefef7ee2a4a632412fa8c52c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2022 13:59:26 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 05/12] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x12 Jul.01 --- .../2022-06-17-the-collapse-of-one-china.md | 154 ++++++++++++++++++ ...022-06-22-china-russia-ties-will-deepen.md | 96 +++++++++++ 2 files changed, 250 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2022-06-17-the-collapse-of-one-china.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2022-06-22-china-russia-ties-will-deepen.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-17-the-collapse-of-one-china.md b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-17-the-collapse-of-one-china.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..fd7ae627 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-17-the-collapse-of-one-china.md @@ -0,0 +1,154 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : The Collapse of One China +author: Ivan Kanapathy +date : 2022-06-17 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/zQfseg1.jpg +#image_caption: +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_As the One China policy accommodation unravels and China’s military attains a credible capability to mount a cross-strait invasion, the United States and its allies should stop hedging and adopt enhanced measures to deter Beijing._ + + + +#### Introduction + +The web of polices and norms that has preserved peace in the Taiwan Strait for four decades is stretched to the breaking point. The Taiwanese people, despite living in a mature democracy, remain trapped in an international accommodation agreed on by the United States, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing, and Taiwan’s own previous authoritarian regime. Today, each successive generation in Taiwan finds the notion of political unification with the mainland less appealing. + +China’s leaders, however, are intent on preserving the dictatorship of the CCP, which entails asserting control over all of China’s claimed territories, including Taiwan. Meanwhile, the current U.S. administration has adopted a foreign policy doctrine of global democratic renewal amid strategic competition — with China named as “the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge.” The shrinking common ground among the three capitals’ respective One China policies will soon vanish, incentivizing CCP general secretary Xi Jinping to take action. + +In the past, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) did not possess the capabilities to annex Taiwan using military force. Today, Beijing’s more modern and capable military presents, or will soon present, such an option to Beijing. Testifying to Congress in May 2022, U.S. director of national intelligence Avril Haines agreed that the threat to Taiwan is “critical, or acute, between now and 2030.” + +> The shrinking common ground among the three capitals’ respective One China policies will soon vanish, incentivizing CCP general secretary Xi Jinping to take action. + +In deciding whether to exercise such an option, Xi will weigh the risk of failure and anticipated costs of action. To increase his risk perception, Taipei and Washington should urgently enhance military deterrence with sufficient cost-effective, resilient capabilities to deny, or at least delay, a Chinese invasion force. To raise Xi’s cost perception, Washington should abandon political hedging and enhance deterrence messages that credibly signal U.S. resolve across diplomatic, military, and economic spheres. + +In addition to deterring China, clearer signals of U.S. resolve over Taiwan would reassure allies and partners, some of whom would likely respond by enhancing their own deterrence contributions, creating a virtuous cycle. Some nascent steps are bearing fruit — but more can and should be done. First, Washington should consistently highlight Beijing’s failure to honor its promise to pursue a peaceful resolution. Second, the American Institute in Taiwan should publicize training and interactions between U.S. service members and their Taiwanese counterparts. Third, President Joe Biden should explicitly authorize the imposition of financial, trade, and immigration restrictions on China in the event of an attack on Taiwan. Finally, the executive branch should consult with Congress to ensure the former has the tools to compete effectively across the spectrum of conflict, including in a crisis. + +#### Taipei’s One China + +At the CCP’s quintennial Party Congress in late 2022, Xi will likely renew his tenure as general secretary of the party, promote many of his loyalists, and retire most of his detractors from within the party. Just as these promotions and retirements will dictate China’s future governance, Taiwan’s January 2024 presidential contest will have major cross-strait implications. Some predict that the election of Vice President Lai Ching-te to succeed President Tsai Ing-wen (both are from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP) will inflame cross-strait tensions and possibly precipitate a crisis. + +But Beijing already refuses to engage with the DPP, portraying Tsai as the leader of an illegitimate separatist faction controlled by the United States. Following her 2020 reelection, Tsai stated that even without a formal declaration, “we are an independent country already” and that younger Taiwanese are “pretty used to the idea that we have a separate identity, and we are a country of our own.” The Taiwanese people, practical and pluralistic, widely support preserving the status quo of neither unification nor formal independence. Lai, if elected, is unlikely to press the issue much further than Tsai. + +On the other hand, Taiwan’s unification-leaning opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party could further set back cross-strait relations. Driven off the Chinese mainland by the CCP in 1949, the KMT decamped to Taiwan as the Republic of China’s (ROC) government-in-exile and ruled the island under martial law for four decades. Taiwan transitioned to democracy in the 1990s, and the KMT conducted its first peaceful transfer of power to the DPP in 2000. The KMT returned to power in 2008 until Tsai’s 2016 election as president. To this day, Taiwan retains its ROC constitution and officially claims all of China’s territory as its own, even as each successive generation of Taiwanese people feels less connected to the mainland. + +Since the 2014 Sunflower Movement protesting the then-KMT government’s cross-strait economic engagement policies, the party has failed to address the waning popularity of its unification-leaning policy platform. While the KMT remains competitive in local elections, the party has not reckoned with its decisive losses in Taiwan’s 2016 and 2020 national elections. To appease its shrinking political base of waishengren (those who immigrated from the mainland to Taiwan around 1949) and its donor base of taishang (Taiwanese businesspeople whose fortunes are entwined with the mainland), the KMT continues to cling to the 1992 Consensus — an agreement whereby Beijing “respect[ed] and accept[ed]” (while disagreeing with) Taipei’s interpretation of One China as the Republic of China, headquartered in Taipei. + +Since 1992, the cross-strait balance of power (economic, military, and diplomatic) has swung ominously in China’s favor, and Beijing’s position on the 1992 Consensus has shifted with it. Beijing no longer acknowledges “respective formulations of One China.” Instead, its One China principle now seeks to delegitimize Taiwan’s elected government in all fora worldwide. + +True to the electorate, Tsai has not affirmed the 1992 Consensus — and Beijing has refused to engage Taipei in dialogue since 2016. As a result, the two sides of the strait have only grown further apart. Nonetheless, the KMT has persevered in maintaining the 1992 Consensus, arguing that it serves as a basis for cross-strait dialogue. + +In addition to this cross-strait policy conundrum, the KMT must also reckon with widespread Taiwanese loathing of Beijing’s governance record, especially in Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong’s 1997 return to China from British colonial rule, Beijing has governed Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region under its “One Country Two Systems” framework, originally proposed as a model for Taiwan. + +On January 2, 2019, Xi Jinping reiterated Beijing’s call for unification with Taiwan under this framework, based on its One China principle and the 1992 Consensus. But the Taiwanese people overwhelmingly reject the One Country Two Systems model and largely deny the 1992 Consensus, as reflected by the decisive 2020 DPP election victories. Hong Kong’s hastening loss of autonomy and civil liberties since then has only sharpened these sentiments in Taiwan. + +Thus, the KMT faces a dilemma. A significant and growing majority of Taiwanese people do not want political union with the mainland — certainly not if imposed on them. Following its 2020 electoral defeat, the KMT rejected the One Country Two Systems framework but continues to assert the 1992 Consensus. As 2024 approaches, growing repression in Hong Kong and shifting demographics in Taiwan may finally convince the KMT to modify or relinquish the last planks of its unification platform. If not, the party risks falling into irrelevancy and Taiwan’s democracy risks losing its loyal opposition. + +#### Beijing’s One China + +If the KMT chooses self-preservation and shifts its cross-strait policy platform to reflect Taiwan’s mainstream views, Xi Jinping will face his own dilemma. Beijing will find it difficult, if not impossible, to sustain its fictional narrative of a Taiwanese population yearning to rejoin the Chinese motherland. And if the KMT does not forsake the 1992 Consensus, its waning political relevance will similarly beset Beijing, albeit in chronic rather than acute fashion. A cross-strait policy formulation that can satisfy the needs of both the CCP and KMT may no longer exist. + +For autocratic leaders such as Xi, perception is key to legitimacy. Without a credible pro-unification touchstone on Taiwan, Xi will feel more aggrieved and may abandon Beijing’s stated policy of peaceful unification, especially as he has argued that the Taiwan “problem” should not be passed down to future generations. Xi knows he cannot ignore the trends in Taiwan indefinitely; top CCP officials have begun signaling a possible Taiwan policy shift at the 2022 Party Congress, though details remain unclear. + +The U.S. One China policy has long held that a final resolution must be peaceful and according to the wishes of the people. In China’s version, however, “promoting peaceful unification while not giving up the use of force are like two sides of the same coin.” In other words, Beijing intends to use its growing military power to coerce a result to its own liking. As much as Beijing would prefer to avoid open conflict, Taiwanese popular sentiment increasingly shows the limits and often counterproductivity of China’s nonviolent approach, increasing the incentive to resort to more heavy-handed means. + +Unlike with Hong Kong, Xi cannot effect control over Taiwan through quasi-legal maneuvers and co-option of law enforcement. However, Beijing could make its first move in an act of coercive lawfare by invoking its 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which states that when “possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Presumably, Xi would then accelerate and amplify his narrative case for the use of force, taking a page from Vladimir Putin’s playbook. But to succeed where Putin has failed, Xi needs a military that is up to the task. + +Following years of spending increases, technology assimilation, and organizational restructuring, the PLA is now expanding and refining its ability and capacity to project power through the increasing scale and sophistication of exercises on China’s periphery, including near Taiwan. PLA spokespersons and other CCP mouthpieces have likewise become more assertive in their diplomacy and rhetoric, often leveraging these offshore exercises for coercive signaling. + +Most U.S. experts agree that China’s investments in military modernization over the past three decades have been transformative and that the PLA is “quickly approaching an invasion capability,” if not already there. Having personally ordered and overseen the acceleration of military reforms over the past decade, Xi is likely also gaining confidence in his forces — lowering his perceived risk of failure if he chooses to invade. + +Beijing’s increasingly credible operational capability arguably represents the most fundamental change in the cross-strait dynamic in more than four decades. It imparts more leverage to Xi than his predecessors enjoyed — one of whom suffered the ignominy of failing to bend Taiwan to China’s political will during the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis. Beijing keenly understands that without a credible invasion threat, China cannot coerce Taiwan into submission. + +#### Washington’s One China + +Despite China’s military reforms and buildup across the strait, Taipei and Washington neglected to maintain a credible military deterrence posture. Taipei resisted the necessary force structure changes to effectively counter the evolving PLA threat. And for two decades following the 1996 crisis, guided by academic advisers and intelligence analysts, U.S. policy on China reflected the United States’ post–Cold War overconfidence even as the cross-strait military balance steadily shifted in Beijing’s favor. China’s 2001 World Trade Organization accession and the September 11 attacks played significant roles as well, as Washington attempted to cultivate Beijing as a partner in globalization and counterterror. To this day, U.S. officials make overtures to cooperation, often overlooking the long-standing pattern of China’s transactional approach to foreign relations. + +For years, Washington delayed and omitted hard security initiatives and other deterrence actions for Taiwan in pursuit of “constructive engagement” with Beijing. In hindsight, numerous U.S.-China dialogues led to Beijing’s deflections and underwhelming promises on human rights, intellectual property, industrial overcapacity, state subsidies, cyber theft, proliferation, counterterrorism, pollution, and militarization in the South China Sea. These agreements remain overwhelmingly unfulfilled or inconsequential to this day. U.S. engagement policies instead fueled rapid growth in China’s industrial and technology sectors, enabling PLA modernization. + +By favoring U.S.-China engagement over U.S.-Taiwan security cooperation for more than two decades, Washington mortgaged its own future security, falling ever deeper into a deterrence deficit. Perversely, “avoiding provocation” in past years has dramatically increased the likelihood and danger of major conflict today. + +Since 2019, Washington and Taipei have belatedly initiated measures that will help make up lost ground. The United States is assisting Taiwan in the acquisition and fielding of combat-credible capabilities to counter a PLA assault, including large numbers of road-mobile anti-ship and shoulder-fired anti-air and anti-tank missiles. To be successful, Taiwan’s military leadership needs to commit to a realistic defense plan with sufficient survivable capabilities focused on denying, or at least delaying, a PLA lodgment (i.e., control of an air- or seaport enabling follow-on troops to flow into Taiwan). + +> Perversely, “avoiding provocation” in past years has dramatically increased the likelihood and danger of major conflict today. + +In addition to rectifying operational deficiencies, Washington has openly crossed some of Beijing’s long-perceived security-related redlines — with no direct consequences — including the permanent deployment of U.S. Marine Security Guards in Taipei, the export of advanced fighter jets and offensive weapons, and the revelation of U.S. special operators training counterparts in Taiwan. During the Trump administration, the vice president and cabinet secretaries routinely and openly voiced support for Taiwan and condemned China’s aggression — a practice that the Biden administration has sustained. + +In 2020, U.S. national security advisor Robert O’Brien declassified and released President Reagan’s 1982 Six Assurances to Taipei, effectively invalidating President Clinton’s 1998 Three No’s statement in Shanghai, an unreciprocated concession of the U.S.-China constructive engagement period. (While Kissinger had discussed the Three No’s in his first private bilateral discussions with Beijing in 1971, Clinton went further by articulating them as U.S. policy.) Biden invited Taiwan’s ambassador-equivalent to attend his inauguration ceremony and has explicitly kept the Six Assurances as a pillar of his One China Policy. Despite a long-standing policy of ambiguity regarding U.S. intervention, Biden has indicated at least three times that the United States is committed to militarily defending Taiwan, revealing his own instincts as commander in chief. (In all cases, U.S. officials later clarified that these did not indicate a policy change.) + +Shortly after assuming office, Biden opined that Xi “doesn’t have a democratic . . . bone in his body” and predicted “extreme [U.S.-China] competition.” Describing a global struggle between democracy and autocracy, Biden believes that the world is “in the midst of an historic and fundamental debate about [its] future direction.” Freedom House ranks Taiwan as Asia’s second-freest country and the seventh-freest in the world. By inviting Taiwan to participate in his December 2021 inaugural Summit for Democracy, Biden sent a signal to China and the world: the Taiwanese people must be allowed to choose their own path. + +That same week, the top Indo-Pacific policy officials at the State and Defense Departments articulated the geostrategic case that Taiwan is “critical to the defense of vital U.S. interests” in recorded testimony to the U.S. Congress. Between the U.S. administration’s rhetoric and the CCP’s innate anxiety over “hostile Western forces,” Beijing views U.S. attempts to reassure as insincere. China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, expressed this plainly (while misstating the U.S. position and other historical facts) in a May 2022 editorial published the same day U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken asserted that Beijing’s “words and actions are deeply destabilizing” and “threaten the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.” + +The very next day, in his remarks commissioning new U.S. military officers, Biden relayed what Xi had said on a call: “Democracies cannot be sustained in the 21st century. Autocracies will run the world.” Biden told the U.S. officers flatly that Xi was wrong and they would be the “representatives and defenders of our democracy.” + +#### Comprehensive Deterrence + +In January 2022, Qin warned “if the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.” Two weeks later, in its updated Indo-Pacific Strategy, the White House responded by committing “to ensure an environment in which Taiwan’s future is determined peacefully in accordance with the wishes and best interests of Taiwan’s people.” + +Barring a major policy shift in one of the three capitals, their respective policies and politics are crowding out mutually acceptable alternatives or concessions — potentially leaving open only one path to resolution for Beijing: the use of force. Washington would be wise to accept that an autocratic China is firmly committed to annexing a democratic Taiwan. The United States and its allies should shift away from a hedging strategy, which often compromises deterrence to preserve political space for a quixotic negotiated resolution. + +Instead, the United States should lead allies in adopting a comprehensive deterrence strategy. In addition to urgently fielding relevant military capabilities to increase Beijing’s perceived risk, Washington and its allies should also take steps to raise Beijing’s perceived costs — expecting and accepting that such steps might engender diplomatic tantrums, saber rattling, and other forms of retaliation and brinksmanship from Beijing. + +In the wake of the recent U.S. overtures related to Taiwan’s security, the response among allies has been positive. In 2020, following approvals for $12 billion in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan by the Trump administration, a French firm signed a contract to upgrade Taiwan’s 30-year-old Lafayette frigates, despite a 1994 Sino-French agreement that had halted French security assistance to Taiwan. In 2021 and again in 2022, U.S. leader and minister level joint statements with Japan, Korea, and the G7 called for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait — occasioning rote complaints from Beijing. + +> Washington and its allies should also take steps to raise Beijing’s perceived costs — expecting and accepting that such steps might engender diplomatic tantrums, saber rattling, and other forms of retaliation and brinksmanship from Beijing. + +In July 2021, Japan’s deputy prime minister said the quiet part out loud: that Japan would join the United States in defending Taiwan in a contingency. And then in October, the UK defense minister warned China to cease its destabilizing and provocative military activities toward Taiwan. The following month, Australia’s defense minister indicated that Canberra would also join a U.S.-led coalition to defend Taiwan in a conflict. These allied expressions of solidarity elicited predictable rebukes from China’s messaging apparatus — precisely because they enhance cross-strait deterrence by forcing Beijing to consider greater risks and costs for its potential aggression. + +During her January 2022 confirmation hearing, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Celeste Wallander told Congress that the U.S. response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea “was too slow and too incremental. And it’s confirmed by the lessons that I learned, and that I believe others in the national security community learned.” The editorial board of the Washington Post put it more succinctly, saying “when past U.S. policy has failed in Ukraine, it was often because, fearing to provoke Mr. Putin, it did not do enough to deter him.” + +Stronger signals of U.S. and allied resolve earlier arguably could have prevented initiation of the security dilemma that culminated in open warfare in Ukraine. Having underestimated the West’s determination, Putin found himself having to choose between preserving either his own political legitimacy or Russia’s economic well-being — he predictably chose the former. Given the stakes of a Taiwan Strait scenario, the United States and its allies need to present unambiguous deterrence signals to Xi before he sets similar irreversible wheels into motion. + +#### Recommendations + +In addition to accelerating military capability enhancements in Taiwan and the region, the administration should take near-term steps to implement Biden’s foreign policy doctrine in regards to the Taiwan Strait. Washington needs to demonstrate that democracies can defend themselves against a rising tide of authoritarianism. Firm U.S. leadership will encourage allies to recognize the stakes and join in deterring or responding to cross-strait aggression. Below are four immediate opportunities to signal resolve to Beijing, Taipei, and key allies and partners. + +__1.__ + +_The U.S. State Department should amend its day-to-day policy articulation to match President Biden’s rhetoric and strategic guidance. During the U.S.-China engagement era, American diplomats and spokespersons were trained to defuse Beijing’s rhetorical challenges using staid non-answers (e.g., “we are committed to our One China Policy based on . . .”). In an era of competition, the United States need not appease and should not surrender the narrative._ + +_Washington should turn the tables and actively demand that Beijing return to its “fundamental policy to strive for a peaceful solution” as agreed in the final U.S.-China Joint Communique in 1982. Both privately and publicly, U.S. officials should press Beijing to demonstrate sincerity by abandoning its Anti-Secession Law and reorienting PLA missiles and other offensive forces away from Taiwan. When China fails to heed these calls, U.S. allies and partners would then absorb and possibly even amplify the message that Beijing created this powder keg, not Washington. This in turn would make it more difficult for Xi to justify Chinese aggression to the world._ + +_China repeats Russia’s narrative that the United States caused and perpetuates the war in Ukraine by expanding NATO and arming Nazis. Sowing seeds of justification for future aggression, Beijing explicitly connects NATO expansion to maturing U.S. partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. Xi parrots Putin’s zero-sum concept of “indivisible security” to preemptively shift the blame for Beijing’s own violent plans. Washington cannot afford to cede ground in the “discourse power” contest that will assign responsibility for conflict in the eyes of the world. Just as the United States concluded that it must “shape the strategic environment around Beijing,” rather than changing China through engagement, one of China’s principal goals in engaging the United States and others in high-level diplomacy is to bend regional and global narratives in its favor._ + +__2.__ + +_The U.S. military should normalize public messaging regarding U.S.-Taiwan defense cooperation, which takes place under the auspices of the nongovernmental American Institute in Taiwan. Between 2018 and 2019, the Taiwanese armed forces hosted more than 250 U.S. delegations involving thousands of personnel. Beijing, with its extensive intelligence networks, is well aware of these activities — but the broader public, inside and outside of China, remains largely in the dark. This is a missed opportunity._ + +_In addition to building partner capacity, U.S. military engagement aims to deter adversaries and reassure allies. The United States actively promotes island defense training engagements with Japan and the Philippines, two of Taiwan’s neighbors who have territorial disputes with China. The U.S. Defense Department publicizes its defensive cyber cooperation with partners such as Estonia and Lithuania, who, like Taiwan, face continuous state-sponsored cyberattacks from a threatening neighbor. In the case of Taiwan, however, the United States routinely bypasses such opportunities for messaging deterrence and reassurance._ + +_Pro-China media in Taiwan often accuse Washington of unloading second-rate weapons on Taiwan at inflated prices. As Beijing tells it, the United States is “stirring up trouble” to line its own pockets. Despite a U.S. legal obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide both equipment and training (“defense articles and services”) proportional to the threat, the Defense Department remains hesitant to promote or even acknowledge its numerous U.S.-funded military exchanges with Taiwan. Public reporting of these activities would blunt anti-U.S. narratives in the region and raise Taiwanese confidence and will to fight._ + +_Washington reportedly chastised Tsai for publicly confirming the presence of U.S. military trainers in Taiwan. But Tsai’s honest response to a direct question may have contributed favorably to the Australian defense minister remarking only two weeks later that “it would be inconceivable that we [Australia] wouldn’t support the U.S. in an action” to defend Taiwan. Washington’s instinct to obscure security cooperation with Taiwan is a relic of a lead-from-behind hedging strategy._ + +> Washington’s instinct to obscure security cooperation with Taiwan is a relic of a lead-from-behind hedging strategy. + +_Under a competitive strategy, the United States should prioritize collective deterrence messaging above sensitivity to Beijing’s narrative preferences. There should be neither shame nor fear in building Taiwan’s capacity to deter or deny an attack — a mission that serves U.S. and allied vital interests. As it does with other U.S. agencies’ activities, the American Institute in Taiwan should promote military-to-military interactions through statements, press conferences, websites, and social media. With more assertive U.S. leadership on security cooperation with Taiwan, close allies would also increase cooperation themselves, further weighing on Beijing’s calculus._ + +__3.__ + +_Biden should explicitly grant his top aides the authorities needed to sever or disrupt China’s technology and energy supplies. Just as the United States maintains a honed military force to promote peace and stability, it should also sharpen its economic tools of deterrence — before the advent of hot conflict, not after, as with Ukraine. In June 2021, Biden broadened the treasury secretary’s authority to restrict U.S. portfolio investment in China’s military-industrial complex to cover surveillance technology companies contributing to human rights violations. Given the potential threat to global stability and prosperity, Biden should preemptively expand these powers to levy full blocking sanctions against people and organizations that contribute to cross-strait aggression. He should also grant his State and Homeland Security Departments the authority to designate and block U.S. entry of such individuals and their family members._ + +_Leading by example, the administration should encourage allies to preemptively develop the legal authorities to impose similar sanctions in response to Chinese aggression. Taken together, these formalized policies would constitute appropriate and proportional responses to Beijing’s Anti-Secession Law and other forms of coercion._ + +__4.__ + +_Biden and Congress should ensure that appropriate authorities exist to counter China across the spectrum of conflict. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the president is obligated to consult with Congress on a response to “any threat to the security or the social or economic system” of Taiwan. One could argue that threshold has already been met. Regardless of whether the act is formally invoked, the executive branch should have mechanisms in place for immediate crisis response short of armed conflict, including options for covert and clandestine operations in the space, cyber, and undersea domains. No new actions need be taken unless and until Beijing chooses to act out. But explicitly articulating and delegating these authorities now would necessarily weigh on Xi’s cost-benefit analysis._ + +#### Conclusion + +When it was first articulated, the One China compromise allowed Washington and Beijing to shelve the question of Taiwan sovereignty and focus on the common threat emanating from Moscow. After 1991, this truce was extended as the United States and China found new common causes. More recently, divergent views on the benefits of globalization and goals of counterterrorism have emerged on either side of the Pacific, and global developments have exposed the impotence of U.S.-China engagement on issues from health security and non-proliferation to climate change and human rights. + +Having witnessed the enduring trends of a growing Taiwanese democratic self-identity, a rapidly improving PLA, and a hardening of China’s autocracy, Washington and the free world need to acknowledge that the status quo is unstable, if not unsustainable. Over more than 70 years, the regime in Beijing, abetted by U.S. and global passivity, has become more dogmatic about subjugating Taiwan — no amount of affirmative U.S. engagement has or will alter this catechism. As China attains the military capability to effect a forceful takeover of Taiwan, the United States should instead employ all measures to dissuade a cross-strait conflict. + +Arguably, U.S. hesitation to arm Ukraine and the lifting of sanctions on Nord Stream 2 sent the exact wrong signals to Putin, leading him to underestimate U.S. and allied resolve. A similar strategic miscue toward Xi could be catastrophic. In addition to mass casualties and displacements within Taiwan, a large-scale cross-strait conflict would induce a major global economic downturn and associated humanitarian crises. + +In the opening of his March 2022 State of Union address, President Biden reflected, “Throughout our history, we’ve learned this lesson: When dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos, they keep moving. And the costs, the threats to America and to the world keep rising. . . . American diplomacy matters. American resolve matters.” Speaking a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden was lamenting that the world had just relearned the lesson. Washington and its allies need to clearly demonstrate their resolve to avoid repeating the lesson yet again in the Taiwan Strait. In addition to urgently fielding effective military capabilities, the United States should strengthen and multilateralize credible strategic signals to comprehensively deter Beijing. + +--- + +__Ivan Kanapathy__ is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-22-china-russia-ties-will-deepen.md b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-22-china-russia-ties-will-deepen.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2ff47cc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-22-china-russia-ties-will-deepen.md @@ -0,0 +1,96 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : China-Russia Ties Will Deepen +author: Andrea Kendall-Taylor and David O. Shullman +date : 2022-06-22 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/6xHoNzo.jpg +#image_caption: +description: "Best and Bosom Friends: Why China-Russia Ties Will Deepen after Russia’s War on Ukraine" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_The partnership between China and Russia has become one of the most critical features of the contemporary strategic relationship. Russia’s war in Ukraine has created economic and diplomatic dilemmas for China, but it hasn’t altered the fundamental alignment of interests and autocratic values that drives that relationship._ _In this Marshall Paper, David Shullman and Andrea Kendall-Taylor explain why the Sino-Russian relationship will only get deeper as a result of the war — even as it reveals strains and divisions that the United States and its allies may, eventually, be able to exploit._ + +Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has put China in a difficult position. Putin launched his war of aggression just weeks after meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping and declaring jointly their “no limits” partnership. China’s tacit backing of Russia clashes with Beijing’s stated support for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity and jeopardizes Beijing’s relations with Europe. Putin’s war of choice is compounding China’s Covid-19-related economic challenges, causing energy and food prices to rise, and the remarkable resilience of Ukraine and strong allied response have likely prompted China to reexamine its calculus on Taiwan. + +Some analysts and policymakers have posited, therefore, that Russia’s war in Ukraine will arrest the trajectory of deepening Russia-China relations, weakening the countries’ partnership. Indeed, there are data points that support this hypothesis. Chinese companies and banks have pulled back from new and ongoing initiatives in the Russian market to avoid Western sanctions, and Chinese official media recently granted Ukraine uncensored space to criticize the Kremlin. + +To be sure, there will be limits to the “no limits” partnership. Beijing will undoubtedly seek to avoid provoking unnecessary blowback as a result of its support for its most important strategic partner. But make no mistake, China and Russia are fundamentally aligned — Moscow and Beijing share a view of the United States as their most important security challenge, and together they seek to erode U.S. power and influence. Unless Russia escalates its tactics in Ukraine, perhaps by using chemical or nuclear weapons, Russia-China relations will continue to deepen as a result of the conflict, regardless of its outcome. The countries’ growing coordination on security matters and efforts to shape a global order more favorable to their interests will increasingly complicate U.S. and allied strategic planning and efforts to push back against resurgent authoritarianism globally. + +> China and Russia are fundamentally aligned — Moscow and Beijing share a view of the United States as their most important security challenge, and together they seek to erode U.S. power and influence. + +#### Russian Aggression in Ukraine Already a Catalyst for Deepening Ties + +Previous Russian aggression in Ukraine has been a catalyst for deepening Russia-China relations. Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 significantly accelerated the slow warming of the relationship that started in the waning days of the Cold War. Convinced that it had no real economic opportunities in the West, the Kremlin turned to China for help in offsetting Western pressure. At that time, China’s initial support for Moscow was tepid. Beijing was vaguely critical of the West for supposedly causing the crisis, and it never verbally supported Russian annexation, abstained on key UN resolutions, and allowed Chinese firms to abide by U.S. and European sanctions. China also took advantage of Russia’s increased economic dependence to drive a hard bargain on key energy deals. + +Yet Beijing eventually leaned into its partnership with Russia. While Moscow’s need to diversify away from the West energized relations, Beijing also came around to recognize the utility in building a stronger relationship with the Kremlin. In particular, the China-Russia partnership crystallized around a fundamentally similar view of the United States as a primary strategic threat. Both Xi and Putin view U.S. support for democracies in their regions — and for those fighting repression and authoritarianism inside China and Russia — as an effort to extend influence and ultimately overthrow their regimes. The leaders also view the U.S. alliance network — including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Quad grouping in the Indo-Pacific — as a direct challenge to their security and to their regimes. + +In the wake of 2014, these views hardened, especially as both countries’ relations with the United States grew more adversarial. Moreover, Xi and Putin have noted the increasing challenges facing Western democracies and have grown more confident that the United States and the West are in decline. They therefore view the time as ripe to challenge the U.S.-dominated global order and alliance network and hasten Washington’s retrenchment from their respective peripheries. Both also expect the United States to do everything in its power to hold onto its superpower status, particularly in the face of China’s rise, including coercing its allies to take actions against their own interests. + +Russia and China’s deepening alignment since 2014, along with the complementarity of their needs and capabilities, has fueled growing ties across all dimensions of their partnership. In the economic sphere, for example, China’s share of Russia’s external trade doubled from 10 to 20 percent between 2013 and 2021. Their partnership deepened most notably in the defense domain and in their common crusade against democracy and the universality of human rights. Arms sales and technical cooperation have grown, as have the frequency, scope, and complexity of their joint military exercises. In the democracy domain, Moscow and Beijing together are popularizing authoritarian governance, exporting their best practices, watering down human rights norms, backing each other up in multilateral forums, creating norms around cyber and internet sovereignty, and bolstering illiberal leaders. + +Despite these developments since 2014, China is once again treading carefully in the aftermath of Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine. China has abstained from voting on key UN resolutions, and Chinese firms are tentative about maintaining operations with Russia, given their desire to avoid secondary sanctions. The key difference, reflecting the much deeper starting point of their relationship going into this crisis, has been China’s far stronger rhetorical support for Russia. Senior Chinese officials not only indicated support for the Kremlin’s “reasonable security concerns” about potential NATO expansion as a justification for its initial actions but have since doubled down on pledges to deepen ties with Russia, parroting Russian talking points about its actions in Ukraine and the culpability of the United States and NATO for the conflict’s endurance. To signal their enduring close partnership, Russia and China flew joint patrols near Japanese and South Korean air defense zones in May 2022 during President Joe Biden’s trip to Asia designed to rally America’s U.S. Indo-Pacific allies. + +> If past precedent repeats, China’s initially cautious support for Russia’s invasion will yield to bolder backing for Moscow and efforts to deepen the partnership once the international spotlight moves away from events in Ukraine. + +#### Personalized Politics Shaping Xi’s Calculus on Russia + +Just as in 2014, Russia will be the more eager partner. This time around, however, Russia is even more ostracized from Europe and the United States than it was in 2014, and its future economic prospects in the West are even more dire given the far more robust Western response to Russian actions in Ukraine. In other words, Russia now has no options other than China, and so it will be all in and willing to accept whatever support it can get from Beijing. Moreover, Moscow’s focus on the perceived threat from the West and its substantial domestic challenges will overshadow concerns in the Kremlin about the risks of its increasingly junior partner status with China. For these reasons, Moscow will be even more invested in and eager to pursue deeper relations with China than it was after 2014. + +If past precedent repeats, China’s initially cautious support for Russia’s invasion will yield to bolder backing for Moscow and efforts to deepen the partnership once the international spotlight moves away from events in Ukraine. + +That puts China squarely in the driver’s seat in determining the future trajectory of the relationship. The key question then becomes: how is Xi likely to respond to Moscow and the political dynamics that Putin’s invasion has unleashed? + +This brief posits that along with the underlying drivers of Russia-China relations discussed above, the increasing personalization of China’s political system will be an ever more important dynamic shaping Xi’s decisionmaking, including on Russia. Because Putin is further along in his personalization of the Russian system, lessons can be drawn from Putin’s behaviors that are instructive and that offer insight into how Xi — whose dominance increasingly rivals that of Mao himself — is likely to approach his relationship with Russia. Of course, there are differences between Russia’s and China’s political systems. China’s Leninist system is undergirded by the pervasive and mounting reach of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) across state and society and its monopoly on political organization that precludes the possibility of organized opposition. Putin’s Russia, in contrast, is far more brittle, and the weakness of United Russia, the party of power that supports Putin despite him not being a member of the party, means that personalism in Russia is more pronounced. Nonetheless, there are lessons to be gleaned from the behavior of Putin’s personalist regime that provide insights into how Xi is likely to approach his closest partner. + +__Upholding a strongman image defined in relation to the United States.__ Putin has long sought to portray himself as a strongman whose power and influence are on par with that of the president of the United States. For Putin, part of his image as a strong leader has stemmed from his portrayal of the United States in particular as an external enemy. Indeed, the creation of threats and enemies is a tried-and-true tactic for many personalist authoritarian leaders, who use such threats to portray themselves as uniquely positioned to counter those threats, as well as to deflect blame for domestic troubles and justify their repressive measures. Putin’s political reliance on sustaining confrontation with the United States and fear of looking weak or backing down in the face of Western pressure has been a consistent factor limiting what is possible in U.S.-Russia relations. + +Xi is also increasingly driven by the need to maintain his strongman image, which will limit any inclination to back away from his investment in his partnership with Putin. The CCP has long painted the United States and other “foreign forces” as enemies to bolster popular legitimacy with domestic audiences. Xi’s dominance within China’s political system has become uniquely associated with China’s drive for “rejuvenation” as a great power second to none, especially in Washington. Xi, like Putin, will therefore be unwilling to be seen as backing down to U.S. pressure, including regarding China’s support for Moscow. Because the two leaders have personalized their relationship — indeed their personal rapport has been a key driver of the deepening partnership — backing away from Putin may also be seen as an admission of a faulty strategy. Xi’s need to avoid the perception of either having made significant errors or acquiescing to Washington is especially acute this year, with challenges around his zero-Covid policy and a flagging economy already complicating his drive to further establish his supremacy at the 20th Party Congress this fall. Xi’s amplification of the United States as an enemy and his personal investment in his relationship with Putin suggest that Xi will sustain his partnership with Moscow. + +__Backing fellow autocrats.__ Since 2012, when Xi assumed leadership and Putin returned to the presidency, both leaders have prioritized efforts to push back against what they view as U.S. efforts to topple unfriendly regimes. For both, countering so-called “color revolutions” has been critical not just for pushing back against what they see as unacceptable U.S. unilateralism but also for protecting against what they assume is the ultimate goal: regime change in Moscow and Beijing. + +Putin has gone to great lengths to shore up embattled dictators — including Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Kazakhstan’s Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and Venezuela’s Nicholas Maduro — to prevent these leaders from being toppled at the hands of foreign pressure. Putin has also viewed the backing of like-minded autocrats as critical to building his image with onlooking leaders as a reliable partner willing and able to compete with Washington as a security provider. + +Xi has similarly backed illiberal regimes in his periphery, including in Myanmar and Cambodia, and has complemented Russian efforts to shore up embattled leaders such as Maduro and Tokayev. The CCP — and Xi personally — have leaned into propaganda about the superiority of China’s authoritarian system and the relative weakness of democracies during the pandemic. Like Putin, Xi is driven not only by the need to defend against Western efforts to use color revolutions to weaken regime control but also the need to prevent authoritarian failures that might tarnish views of his increasingly strongman rule at home. + +Xi is therefore likely to seek to prevent Putin, his closest friend and partner, from falling. Indeed, Xi would view the prospect of a collapse of Putin’s regime as a direct threat to his rule in the wake of his personal and public endorsements of the Russian leader. China’s population must not witness the popular overthrow of Putin, China’s partner in promoting an alternative vision for effective authoritarian governance and standing up to interference from the lecturing West. Furthermore, Xi does not want to set a precedent where a U.S.-led sanctions and pressure campaign among allied democracies is permitted to successfully unseat unfriendly leaders. + +__Pursuing increasingly assertive foreign policies and surprises.__ A robust body of political science research shows that personalist dictatorships tend to produce the most risky and aggressive foreign policies. In Russia, Putin’s personalization of the political system and dismantling of the constraints on his decisionmaking undoubtedly led to increasingly risky behavior in pursuit of his foreign policy objectives. His tight control over the media ensures that the public receives only the official narrative of foreign events, limiting his accountability to the public and providing him with the latitude for risk-taking. His elimination of competing voices within his regime not only further ensures that he faces minimal accountability for his foreign policy actions but also creates an echo chamber in which debate is curtailed and he receives only the information that supports his preferred policies and approaches. + +> Xi would view the prospect of a collapse of Putin’s regime as a direct threat to his rule in the wake of his personal and public endorsements of the Russian leader. + +In addition to his increasing propensity for risk, Putin’s personalization has made it more difficult to gauge his foreign policy calculus, as decisions are made increasingly by the whims of one man relying on often incomplete and faulty information. This creates challenges for U.S. national security analysts who often rule out certain scenarios because the costs appear to outweigh the benefits for a leader. When leaders make choices with incomplete or inaccurate information, it becomes increasingly difficult to gauge their calculus. Partially for that reason, many analysts failed to predict Putin’s decision to illegally annex Crimea in 2014 and insert forces into Syria in 2015 and predicted that Putin would not reinvade Ukraine in 2022. The growing personalization of Putin’s regime means that analysts have been regularly surprised by Putin’s actions. + +In China, constraints on Xi’s decisionmaking have similarly withered, and his opinion is increasingly the only one that matters on key foreign policy issues, raising the prospect that Xi could also surprise with his actions. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s foreign policymaking system recycled messaging in line with standing guidance while waiting for indications of any change in policy from Xi himself. Propaganda within China increasingly portrays Xi as the great defender of the Chinese nation, who will right the wrongs of the “century of humiliation” and restore respect for China on the world stage. This narrative potentially ties Xi’s hands in managing a flexible foreign policy and almost compels him to take a more aggressive and recalcitrant position in international affairs.1 Much of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy in recent years is aimed at bolstering nationalist support for Xi’s regime, even as it sours Beijing’s relations abroad. Actors in the system are increasingly unwilling to share information or critical opinions that might taint them as insufficiently supportive of Xi’s directives, creating an echo chamber that confirms the wisdom of greater risk-taking. + +The Chinese public has ingested a steady stream of propaganda excusing Russia’s actions in — not invasion of — Ukraine and blaming the United States and NATO for fanning the flames of war. This messaging is complemented by swift censorship of calls for China to reconsider siding with Russia against the West, where its most critical economic relationships exist. Citizens are primed to support Xi’s unwavering support for Putin, shielded from the perspectives of others and readily mobilized by one-sided nationalistic arguments. Xi is thus able to undertake risky actions designed primarily to defend a fellow authoritarian regime rather than advance China’s national interests, confident in the knowledge that the public will only receive information that confirms the wisdom of backing Russia and censors that which would highlight the cost, for example, of alienating Europe. + +As Xi faces mounting economic and other challenges at home and looks to prevent the emergence of elite pushback against his policies — including the wisdom of so publicly aligning with Russia just ahead of its invasion — he may increasingly double down on aggressive policies that burnish his nationalist credentials and discredit detractors as insufficiently tough. If trends continue, he will do so without complete or accurate information regarding the costs of his actions. Therefore, it should not be surprising if Xi backs Putin in ways that do not accord with assessments of what is in China’s national interests. + +#### All Paths Lead to Partnership + +It is plausible that the trajectory of the war in Ukraine will determine the course of the Russia-China relationship. Some analysts have argued, for example, that if Putin faces a clear defeat, Xi will look to distance himself from a weakened and discredited partner. This brief posits, however, that all roads lead to partnership. Except in the still unlikely case in which Russia uses chemical or nuclear weapons, China and Russia will deepen their ties irrespective of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, leaving the two more clearly aligned in an anti-Western partnership. + +Regardless of how the war in Ukraine ends, Russia will indeed emerge as a weakened and more isolated country. This result will not, however, weaken its bonds with China. Russia’s new reality will make Moscow more dependent on China, and previous concerns about the growing asymmetry between the two countries — long touted as a constraint on future Russia-China relations — will be overshadowed by the Kremlin’s sense of threat from the West and internal challenges. For China and Xi, meanwhile, a weakened Russia would create some urgency for China to mitigate pressure imposed on Putin that could destabilize him internally. Chinese leaders judge that if Putin falls, the United States would be free to focus all its attention on countering China’s rise and undermining the CCP’s grip on power. Greater Western pressure could be even more difficult to manage if it occurs in tandem with the imperative to navigate relations with a post-Putin Russia that could adopt a less friendly approach to China and prompt newfound concerns about security along their shared 2,600-mile border. Moreover, Russia’s diminished strength could be useful in that it makes Moscow even more dependent on China and, therefore, a more loyal partner in Beijing’s fight against the United States. + +> Regardless of how the war in Ukraine ends, Russia will indeed emerge as a weakened and more isolated country. This result will not, however, weaken its bonds with China. + +Critically, it remains unclear just how weakened Russia will be. Yes, Putin made a mistake in Ukraine, but it is not a fatal one. Moscow will be economically weaker and increasingly isolated, but Russia will retain sufficient capacity and resolve to threaten U.S. and European interests. To illustrate, many of the military capabilities that the United States worries about most — Russia’s submarines, strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal, and cyber and electronic warfare capabilities — are untouched by the war in Ukraine. Moreover, Russia will retain the intent to challenge the West. If anything, the more devastating the defeat in Ukraine, the more dangerous Putin’s Russia may become. The Kremlin has unleashed a torrent of nationalist rhetoric inside Russia. Putin will have to find opportunities to satiate those sentiments and demonstrate that Russia is a power that should still be feared. For Xi, in other words, Russia, even in a weakened and isolated state after the war, will remain a nuclear superpower that distracts the United States from the Indo-Pacific. + +Similarly, for both Xi and Putin, the value of the relationship deepens whether the U.S.-led allied response continues to prove effective or ultimately appears to break down. If the allies’ unity breaks down in the face of Russia’s continued aggression — a seemingly unlikely prospect at this point — or even if Europe ultimately gives China a pass on its support for Russia, with key players such as Germany reducing critical rhetoric over time and resuming the deepening of economic ties with Beijing, it shows clearly the utility of partnership in fending off future U.S.-led pressure campaigns, support for color revolutions in their periphery, and perceived efforts to undermine regime control. China will learn that it has a free hand to deepen ties with Russia, including helping it distract and counter the United States, without suffering damage to valuable ties with Europe. Putin will learn both that he can withstand NATO and U.S. pressure with Xi by his side because Europe will not take China on and that China’s support mitigates Russia’s isolation on the global stage, diluting Western pressure and allowing onlooking countries to hedge their bets rather than pick a side. + +On the other hand, a continued strong and united U.S. and European front demonstrating to China real costs for complicity in Russia’s actions would also draw the countries closer together. Rather than forcing Xi to rethink the wisdom of aligning with Russia against the West, Beijing’s surprise at Washington’s ability to rally European allies that China has been trying to pull away will only harden Beijing’s view of the difficult struggle ahead against the United States. Xi will perceive the need to prevent Putin’s failure and ensure his partnership in dealing with an emboldened United States that has demonstrated the democratic world is capable of taking strong actions. In particular, Chinese leaders will view Russia as a partner in reducing China’s reliance on the U.S.-centric global financial system in the wake of the strong financial measures undertaken against Moscow. And Putin obviously has learned how much he needs Xi to survive against a surprisingly strong democratic world that wants to weaken Russia. + +#### Conclusion + +A long-term alignment between Russia and China is not inevitable. If anything, Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine underscores that there are fissures in their relationship. For one, Russia is clearly more risk-tolerant than Beijing. The Kremlin’s comfort with instability stands in stark contrast to the CCP’s strong preference for the stability that is required to protect and facilitate its economic equities and cultivate a reputation based on prudence. Yet, despite the natural fissures in their partnership, the United States has so far had little leverage to exacerbate the tensions between them. This does not mean that Washington should not try. Moving forward, U.S. policymakers should be mindful of these divisions and look for ways to pull at the seams of their relationship with the goal of limiting what each country is willing to do with or for the other. + +One looming juncture in the Russia-China partnership where the United States and the West have an opportunity to shape the trajectory will be President Putin’s departure from power. Although Putin is likely to be able to weather backlash from the war in Ukraine, his hold on power is undoubtedly weaker now than it was before his invasion, meaning his departure could come sooner than would have been expected prior to the war. Leadership change in Russia provides an opportunity for the United States and Europe to take steps to limit the depth of the Russia-China partnership. Although it is likely that any future Russian leader will seek to maintain a close and stable relationship with Beijing, a future Russian leader could choose to pursue a more balanced approach to Russian foreign policy. Beijing, having grown accustomed to Russia’s increasingly junior status in their relationship and reliant on its ability to divide Washington’s attention, may balk at a new leader’s efforts to rebalance ties. U.S. and European efforts to engage a post-Putin Russia, therefore, have the potential to mitigate the urgency with which Russia depends on China. But how should the United States and Europe approach a post-Putin Russia? What, if anything, will be on offer from the West? The answers to these questions are still unknown, but Washington and its allies should consider, among other factors, the risks stemming from sustained and deepening Russia-China relations when calibrating a transatlantic approach to a post-Putin Russia. + +Finally, the historical track record of personalist regimes such as those in Russia and increasingly China shows that they are the most prone of any regime type to make mistakes. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a devastating example of the blunders that personalist leaders can make. Although such mistakes are unlikely to disrupt the foundations of the Russia-China relationship, their missteps provide opportunities for the West to exploit. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Xi’s adherence to draconian Covid-19 policies have weakened the allure of their authoritarian models. Such mistakes are likely to be few and far between, and so the United States and its allies should be prepared to use their mistakes to grow the headwinds that Russia and China face in their efforts to undermine the United States and rewrite the global rules in ways more consistent with their authoritarian norms. It will be difficult in the foreseeable future to drive Russia and China apart. But by finding opportunities to limit the depth of their partnership and increase the headwinds they face, navigating the challenges posed by Russia-China relations becomes an infinitely more manageable proposition. + +--- + +__David O. Shullman__ is senior director of the Global China Hub at the Atlantic Council. + +__Andrea Kendall-Taylor__ is a senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at Center for New American Security. From 94d3b881294c1d3a5986bd946f5428b7894f5192 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2022 03:50:04 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 06/12] 0x12 Add _columns posts, Jul.04 --- ...regarding-human-rights-but-pro-feminism.md | 51 +++++++++++++++ ...2-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-june-2022.md | 64 +++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 115 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-06-17-disregarding-human-rights-but-pro-feminism.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-07-02-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-june-2022.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-06-17-disregarding-human-rights-but-pro-feminism.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-06-17-disregarding-human-rights-but-pro-feminism.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6a700c65 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-06-17-disregarding-human-rights-but-pro-feminism.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "漠视人权却支持女权？" +author: "鹿馬" +date : 2022-06-17 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/wkMlxkE.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "一直以来，我不是很喜欢在墙内的语境下讨论女权这个话题，很重要的一个原因是女权这个词在中国已经严重污名化，而且内涵越来越不清晰。" +--- + +如果你问我女权是什么，我无法用一个清晰的定义去形容，不懂也不敢多说。但这次唐山殴打女性事件所掀起的讨论中的一些现象，却让我想斗胆多说两句。 + + + +#### 先亮明立场 + +为了避免误解，这很重要。 + +第一，我坚决反对打人的男子和给他们洗地的人。 + +第二，我非常认同这件事属于性别议题范畴。 + +第三，我反对无视女性处于弱势的现实情况，却搞各打五十大板的“平等”。 + +第四，我不认为只需要实现人权就好，却不需要主张女权。 + +立场说清楚了，进入正题。 + +#### 女权是中国女性最大公约数？ + +在这波讨论中，有一个很吊诡的现象：平常爱国爱党，支持政府新疆政策，反对香港抗议运动，对国内疫情中侵犯人权的行为也视而不见的人也跳出来争取女权了。他们对人权非常漠视，甚至嗤之以鼻，这次为什么会站出来力挺女权呢？当然，他们中有很大部分是女性，作为性别上的共同体为自己发声也不是不可以理解。但是我并不认为他们在争取真正的女权，他们注定和真正的女权主义者有本质的不同。 + +我认为这些人对女权的理解重点放在“女”而不是“权”。他们简单地认为，只要女性的境遇相对于男性得到了改善，相对于男性看上去更“平等”了，甚至在婚恋市场上更有筹码了，就是实现了女权。然而，境遇的改善并不等于有了权利——境遇的改善或恶化并不是由你说了算的，而是完全依赖于一个掌控一切的政府，你没有半点还手，甚至还口的机会。伟大领袖说女性能顶半边天，女性就要争当劳模变成建设社会主义的劳动力；说要少生孩子多种树就可以强制流产绝育，不知道之后会不会还要出台政策变相强制生育或收税？ + +如果女性境遇的改善建立在一个没有争取权利的权利的环境下，那这种境遇的改善便不会定形为制度性的权利，就算表面上看起来很平等，最后也只能变成“平等的奴役”。当然，那只是极端的情况，而实际上，平等是不可能平等的，党国的逻辑是把人当作手段而不是目的，只要是手段，就有优劣，优劣标准在于它的需要，而且这个标准在同一时间是唯一的，被垄断的。这要如何实现平等呢？ + +我认为对女性的压迫大体上可以分为两个方面，一是来自社会观念的压迫，二是制度性的压迫。我曾经也误以为中国经过彻底的革命以及共产党对“旧社会”的改造之后，女性权利要远比日本和韩国这些女权后进国家好。然而后来我才意识到，日韩两国女性受到的只是社会性的压迫，而中国女性受到的是来自社会和制度的双重压迫，事实上中国女性的权利并没有比较高。至少，韩国的女性可以走上街头抗议不公而不用担心被“寻衅滋事”，可以公开讨论女权而不用担心被“颠覆国家政权”——至少，她们有表达的权利，有争取权利的权利。 + +反观中国呢？如果在连基本人权都无法保障的环境里，要如何持续发起成规模的社会运动？没有持续的社会运动，如何改变根深蒂固的社会观念呢？依靠政府主导吗？别逗了，连子宫都要管起来的家伙们，会在乎你的感受吗？这不是与虎谋皮吗？女权不是跪出来的。 + +有的人可能会认为，不管这些人对中国政府的态度如何，只要他们站在女性一方就好了，只要能够增大舆论声量就好，对他们进行区分实在是没有必要。对于这样的观点，我认为有一定道理，毕竟这就是斗争，斗争就要讲求策略，团结大多数可以团结的人是很必要的。但我还是要说，必须要清楚地认识到这些没有人权观念的“女权主义者”（虽然我不喜欢这样称呼他们），之所以这次能够站在支持女权主义者的一边，不仅仅是因为自身女性的身份，更多的因为他们清楚这是一个安全的话题——谁对谁错一目了然，没有争议又不直接涉及公权力。当然，在公权力无处不在的中国，公权力最终还是脱不了干系的，当有人开始追究公权力的责任的时候，开始指出制度性问题的时候，这些人就不一定会跟着“起哄”了，只要他们不会被打，只要他们满足了表达欲，一切又可以恢复平静了。 + +#### 全民关注背后是公共讨论极度匮乏 + +实际上，中国人并不是不关心公共议题，关注公共事件的潜在需求其实是很旺盛的，但是由于供讨论的公共事件极为有限，特别是近几年对言论的钳制越来越严，导致可供讨论的话题越来越少——供给侧极度萎缩。于是，无论是平台引流还是大众，都会将注意力集中在可以讨论的领域，一旦可供讨论的公共事件成为热门话题，而且官方没有进行“及时”删帖限流，就会在官方划定的红线里出现内卷式的讨论。 + +虽然八卦新闻作为公共讨论的替代品充斥舆论市场，然而事实证明，人们对公共事件表达看法的需求并不能够完全被娱乐八卦这类劣质替代品所取代。一旦出现了优于劣质替代品的安全话题，舆论会一窝蜂集中起来——从《四月之声》的疯转，到“唐山打人事件”的挤兑式关注，或许就是这种机制下的产物。 + +只是不知道今后的公共讨论的尺度会被限缩到什么地步，我们的”合法公共讨论“又会卷到什么地步。到最后我们发现，不是社会意见越来越一致了，而是可以讨论的话题越来越接近人伦底线了。 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-07-02-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-june-2022.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-02-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-june-2022.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9c578c73 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-02-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-june-2022.md @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "俄乌战争・六月战局" +author: "当代张敬轩" +date : 2022-07-02 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/36ItXQS.jpg +image_caption: "（2022年6月1日—30日）" +description: "俄罗斯对乌克兰的侵略战争，目的是把作为德、法等帝国主义国家附属国的乌克兰的全部或局部重新纳入俄罗斯帝国主义的控制下，乃至于进一步变成殖民地。" +--- + +六月俄乌战局，陷入更沉闷状态。前20天，俄军因兵力、后勤不济，被迫重新部署，导致战事陷入停滞。后10天，俄军进一步集中兵力，对佐洛特突出部发动攻击，迫使乌军放弃北顿涅茨克，之后双方围绕利西昌斯克展开争夺战。 + + + +### 一、本月战局进展 + +#### 1、北顿涅茨克方向 + +上个月（2022年5月）月底时，北顿涅茨克本已岌岌可危，看起来在几天内就要弃守。驻守当地的领土防卫军部队在遭到三面合围后已无死战之心，纷纷要求弃城；而乌军总司令扎卢日内上将也倾向于放弃北顿涅茨克。然而，乌军最高统帅泽连斯基基于政治上的考虑，直接干涉了前线指挥，通过“人民公仆党”党务系统协调了外国志愿军在6月3日发动了一次大规模渡（北顿涅茨）河反攻。俄军没有预料到这次反攻，一时后退。而后，俄军因兵力和补给不足转入休整和重新部署的阶段，双方在这条战线上僵持了半个月以上。在此期间，俄军意识到，随着乌军本身战斗意志的衰退，外国志愿军已成为乌军中战斗力和战斗意志均比较旺盛的部队，所以开始有针对性地对外国志愿军展开宣传战，包括利用顿涅茨克傀儡政权对外国志愿军俘虏展开司法战、“宣判死刑”等等，试图以此起到瓦解和离间的效果。 + +在北顿涅茨克方向的所有主要地段都转入休整的同时，俄军并未完全停止作战，而是积极调整部署，为下一轮攻势作准备。俄军此时已经完全放弃了从伊久姆突出部向南突击巴尔文科沃、斯拉维扬斯克，从而彻底包围歼灭乌克兰顿巴斯战役军团的计划，转而从伊久姆以南撤出兵力、拉平战线，转用于北顿涅茨克和利西昌斯克附近。乌军遂尾随欢送俄军，在伊久姆以南推进10—15公里，“收复失地”。同时，俄军以少部分机动兵力继续扫荡5月底就被乌军基本上放弃的北顿涅茨河北岸。6月7日，俄军占领早已被乌军基本上放弃的斯维亚托戈尔斯克镇。当时，网络上仍有许多人在为俄军策划跨越北顿涅茨克突击斯拉维扬斯克的强大攻势，然而实际上俄军在这一线上直到今天也再没有任何明显的进展，基本上是同乌军隔河对峙。实际上，双方这些军事行动造成的损失都不大。就整个战线来说，依然是信息化炮战为主。 + +6月20日，休整超过20天后的俄军主力部队开始展开新一轮的作战。如今，他们完全放弃了任何大纵深进攻战役的企图，转而试图“零敲牛皮糖”，在局部地段集中5倍以上优势的兵力兵器实现突破，而后尝试合围乌克兰旅级兵团，进而动摇整个战线。俄军首先选择的目标是佐洛特突出部，因为乌军在这一地区处于孤立态势。6月20日，俄军攻入此前进攻了一个多月没能拿下的托什基夫卡镇（在利西昌斯克东南，北顿涅茨河南岸），乌军增援、反击失败。6月21日，俄军完全占领了托申基夫卡镇，并投入第二梯队向纵深突破成功。6月22日，俄军向西迂回占领米尔纳多利纳镇、皮迪斯涅村，威胁佐洛特前线的乌军一个旅（可能是坦克第17旅）侧后方；向北则逼近了利西昌斯克。6月23日，俄军继续向西占领罗斯库季夫卡村等地，切断了波斯帕纳—利西昌斯克铁路；佐洛特西侧的俄军也向东北方打过来会合，已接近于合围佐洛特前线乌军。同时，佐洛特正面俄军也大举进攻，攻入佐洛特镇内。不过，俄军虽然宣称合围住1500—2000名乌军，但事后来看此股乌军吸取2015年杰巴利采沃的教训，在6月22日就已经撤离，空留100余人的小部队殿后被俘罢了。 + +尽管战果不多，但拔除佐洛特突出部后，俄军得以快速向利西昌斯克市西南侧后方迂回，甚至于6月28日在韦尔赫诺卡缅卡村附近切断了T-13-02公路。乌军则手忙脚乱，调动预备队去这个方向围堵突破的俄军，无法再应付同时在北顿涅茨克正面重新发动进攻的俄军。6月24日，乌军决定放弃北顿涅茨克市区向北顿涅茨河南岸撤退。然而由于乌克兰内部的政治分歧，撤退命令被提前公布，导致乌军在撤退中受到较大损失。尽管如此，俄军因兵力不足也未能围歼这一股乌军。只不过，从北顿涅茨克和佐洛特撤回利西昌斯克的乌军，士气和组织上都受到沉重打击，已不堪使用，不得不调回后方建立第二道防线去了。俄军则趁胜推进，在利西昌斯克西北方渡过北顿涅茨河，试图合围利西昌斯克。目前，围绕利西昌斯克的交战还在继续。乌军方似倾向于放弃利西昌斯克，在塞维尔斯克和阿尔焦姆斯克（巴赫穆特）之间建立第二道防线，以拉平战线，但是乌最高统帅泽连斯基则出于政治考虑（利西昌斯克是卢甘斯克州最后的城市）不愿这样做。 + +#### 2、哈尔科夫方向 + +俄军调动兵力强化此战线的防御后，乌军即无力继续进攻。俄军甚至还发动一些战术反击，与乌军争夺捷尔诺瓦等村庄，然因兵力不足也不能取得明显战绩。总体来说，双方无甚可叙。 + +#### 3、赫尔松方向 + +赫尔松方向，乌军分兵多路继续向赫尔松、新卡霍夫卡反击。然而，在俄军依托有坚固工事的约15个加强营防御之下，乌军进展缓慢。虽然一度推进到距离赫尔松10—15公里的郊区，却再也无法继续前进。 + +正面进攻赫尔松不成，乌当局遂开始效法当年的重庆军统，派遣乌克兰国家安全局（SBU）麾下的暗杀小组先后暗杀了赫尔松傀儡政权（军民公署）的家庭、青年、运动厅厅长萨夫卢琴科等亲俄政客。乌当局试图用这些暗杀手法破坏俄军在当地的宣抚工作，阻止当地傀儡政权举办“入俄公投”，然而收效甚微。 + +不过，鱼叉反舰导弹到位后，乌军开始重新强化了对俄军海上目标的打击，先后打击了黑海舰队拖船、海上石油工业平台、驻蛇岛俄军等目标，均取得一定战果。俄军不堪其扰，于6月30日撤离蛇岛。至此，俄军对敖德萨港的封锁大为削弱。 + +俄方则在占领区强化宣抚作战，采取废除债务、换给俄罗斯护照等方式收买人心，并吸引亲俄势力冒头，为举办脱乌入俄公投作准备。 + + +### 二、战争现状 + +俄方在前线消耗越来越大，也越来越意识到自己无力执行大纵深进攻战役，目标一再缩小。目前，俄军已经把单个战役目标定为【集中20个以上加强营兵力在战区内最有利地段实现突破进而合围乌军旅级战术兵团】，也即，战争已经完全进入了阵地战为主、运动战为辅的阶段。表面看来，俄军这样做可以发挥国力优势，然而问题在于乌当局现阶段仍得到西方的大力援助，而俄军的战略空袭却并不能摧毁西方援乌通道，甚至于不能摧毁乌克兰的军事工业。这样，就不能说俄军能在短期内通过消耗战取得胜利。 + +乌克兰当局方面的困难，并不比俄方要小。乌最高统帅泽连斯基与军部、特务机关、地方政权之间均出现了摩擦，原因是乌最高统帅部主要是从外交需要来指导战争的。乌军的野战能力进步不大，仍然难以遂行大规模进攻战役。在马里乌波尔和北顿涅茨克相继失守后，乌军领土防卫军部队的士气进一步下降，整个乌克兰的民心士气也有衰减的迹象。以泽连斯基总统为首的乌当局对于这些问题，办法不多，仍是一味寄希望于西方。 + +双方目前都宣称要把战争进行到底，俄方甚至宣称要乌军“放下武器”。显然，战争还会继续下去。 + +西方各帝国主义国家方面，则基本上渡过了前期各自为政的混乱，有效协调了立场。6月22日，德国一改过往的立场，终于开始向乌克兰直接提供武器，即PzH-2000自行榴弹炮。6月23日，欧盟接纳乌克兰和摩尔多瓦为其候选国。6月28日，在北约协调下，土耳其与瑞典、芬兰签署协定，后两者以出卖库尔德民族解放运动为代价扫清了加入北约的障碍，随后北约向瑞、芬正式发出了入约邀请。北约在不到一个半月内完成这一协调，彰显了其仍具有强大的约束力。6月29日，北约峰会决定了北约的战略政策，宣布俄帝是这个帝国主义集团“最大和最直接的威胁”，而另一帝国主义仅为“系统性挑战”。按照这一战略，西方各帝国主义开始推行对委内瑞拉、伊朗等国的妥协政策，以便解除能源等方面的后顾之忧。同时，西方开始了对俄的直接封锁：6月18日，立陶宛开始封锁加里宁格勒以“执行欧盟制裁”。6月29日，挪威对斯瓦尔巴群岛上巴伦支堡的俄国人也开始执行封锁。与之相反的是，除叙利亚复兴党政权投来“宝贵支持”外，俄帝在国际上始终未能得到有力的支持，连欧亚联盟的成员哈萨克斯坦都与之拉开了距离。 + + +### 三、战争趋势 + +目前，双方都难以打破战略僵持的局面，只是俄军在战役上仍拥有一定的主动权。显然俄军的计划是通过逐次以杰巴利采沃为范本的小规模进攻战役，逐步摧毁乌克兰军队的防御，从而全据顿巴斯，并迫使乌克兰当局回到谈判桌上来签署割地赔款的条约。 + +乌克兰当局，则依然推行片面抗战和期待国际援助的战略，以外交需要来指导战争。目前，乌军仍未能拥有执行大规模进攻战役的能力，同时在阵地战中也不能完全抵抗住俄军。因此，俄军仍拥有战役主动权。此外，俄军还有重新开辟第二条战线的可能性。 + +在战略消耗中，北约的筹码多于俄罗斯，俄罗斯又多于乌克兰。因此，战局的走向，仍然取决于双方谁的短板更短一筹。 + +[![image1](https://i.imgur.com/KXfORFH.png)](https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/536579201) +▲ 原载《知乎》链接。 + + \ No newline at end of file From 0adf0ca11c82b4f656e9fd5f9a1bf7037ae9e351 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2022 13:12:13 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 07/12] 0x12 Add _columns posts, Jul.06 --- ...-01-decolonization-a-mission-impossible.md | 187 ++++++++++++++++++ ...2-07-01-role-playing-game-of-covid-zero.md | 130 ++++++++++++ ...-gone-in-the-past-25-years-in-hong-kong.md | 116 +++++++++++ 3 files changed, 433 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-07-01-decolonization-a-mission-impossible.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-07-01-role-playing-game-of-covid-zero.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-07-01-those-gone-in-the-past-25-years-in-hong-kong.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-decolonization-a-mission-impossible.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-decolonization-a-mission-impossible.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..edae9214 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-decolonization-a-mission-impossible.md @@ -0,0 +1,187 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "此地无银“去殖化”" +author: "荒原狼" +date : 2022-07-01 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/oVTOTW0.jpg +image_caption: "只有把殖民问题回归到所在地政治（politics of location），才能面对真正的政治问题。" +description: "殖民主义并不满足于把它的法律强加于被殖民国家的现在和将来。殖民主义并不满足于把人民锁在铁网里，不满足于只是清除被殖民者脑袋里的一切形式和内容。殖民主义透过一种逻辑上的变态，指向被压迫人民的过去，将之扭曲、毁容、消灭。——法农《大地上的受苦者》" +--- + +谁都没有想到，九七前香港是否是殖民地，居然在2022年重新成为民间讨论的要点。 + + + +先是《明报》在6月中一篇报道中，发现香港中学新课程公民与社会发展科（公民科）的几本送审教科书中，全部删去“香港作为英国殖民地”的讲法。接著发现翻新后的香港历史博物馆，当中的香港史常设展也隐去殖民地一词，看来港府正跟随中国政府的官方进路，否认香港曾被殖民的历史。几天后，范徐丽泰接受《环球时报》专访，更是直接支持香港从不是殖民地的讲法，更指控媒体点出教科书不提香港是殖民地一事是种炒作，是推动自决独立和埋下动荡种子云云。网媒《同文》便即时以事实查核（fact check）和学者访问回应，印证英国和联合国一直视九七前的香港为殖民地，且此前香港官方也从未否认这一说法。 + +关于主权与殖民的讨论，无疑对香港的政治文化史观有著极重要的关系。但如果只著眼于殖民地的正名，则恐怕是浪费一次重启解殖思考的机遇。毕竟殖民与否，绝不止于一纸历史文件之用词，更是用词背后错综复杂的权力体系——殖民结构如何深深地嵌入不同文化社经的肌理之中，如何改造最幽暗隐微的意识身份之中，确实是个大哉问。只有把殖民问题回归到所在地政治（politics of location），才能面对真正的政治问题。 + +#### 九七前，国际法下的殖民地认可 + +如今全球许多获国际社会认受的主权国家，都是二战后经联合国民族自主原则，如1960年通过的1514决议《给予殖民地国家和人民独立宣言》，以殖民地身份自主决定地方人民命运。只是，要循著这途径成为独立民族国家，必须是获联合国承认的战前殖民地，经过“非殖民化特别委员会”（special committee on decolonization）审查管理其非自治领土名单，再向联合国大会提出让某非自治领土自决的建议。 + +1514决议在标题中使用“殖民地国家与人民”（colonial countries and peoples）一词，但同时在决议内文中，殖民地又会统称为“非自治领土”（non-self-governing territories），一如上述的非殖民化特别委员会所强调的解殖任务，非自治人民通过国际社会认可的公投决定社群的政治去向。似乎可以理解为，在联合国的国际公法秩序下，殖民地的意思等同于非自治领土，即使后者是描述实然地区政治经济秩序的分类，该地宗主国并非必然以殖民之名行使殖民之实。再细看1961年的1654决议《准许殖民地国家及民族决议独立宣言之实际情况》的内容，同样提到凡是非自治领土的民族无法享有完全之独立和自由，甚或遭受武装攻击和镇压未独立民族，则可视作殖民主义，理应由联合国辖下的非殖民化委员会跟进和解放。 + +香港原本列名于联合国的非自治领土的名单之中，却在中共取代中华民国成为联合国成员后，被要求褫夺香港的非自治领土的身份，令香港人无法按联合国的民族自决原则，决定自身的命运。当然，不在非自治领土的名单不代表该地变成自治，香港始终没有得到自治自主的机会（下文会再详述）。那么在九七前的香港，在法理上属于殖民地／非自治领土吗？ + +![image1](https://i.imgur.com/hDcqF9Z.jpg) +▲ 1997年6月30日，香港回归前夕，港英旗在维港上飘扬。 + +一如前述，《同文》的文章访问香港考试及评核局历史科前评核发展部经理、曾任教于香港中学及大学的杨颖宇博士，点出1843年《英皇制诰》（Letters Patent）文本中，清楚订明香港岛作为一个香港殖民地（the Colony of Hong Kong）的名称和法理地位。这份《英皇制诰》自然是来源自鸦片战争后签订《南京条约》（1842）的立法结果。条约中文版本订明： + +_“今大皇帝准将香港一岛给予大英君主暨嗣后世袭主位者常远㨿守主掌，任便立法治理。”_ + +英文版本则是： + +_“His Majesty the Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., the Island of Hong-Kong, to be possessed in perpetuity by Her Britannic Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors, and to be governed by such Laws and Regulations as Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., shall see fit to direct.”_ + +其中的用词“常远”和perpetuity都应理解为永久割让。 + +往后在《北京条约》（1860）和《展拓香港界址专条》（1898），大清进一步和大英帝国订约割让九龙半岛和租借新界九十九年。前者条文中，大清版本是： + +_“将粤东九龙司地方一品，交与大英驻扎粤省暂充英法总局正使功赐三等宝星巴夏礼代国立批永租在案，兹大清大皇帝定即将该地界付与大英大君主并历后嗣，并归英属香港界内，以期该港埠面管辖所及庶保无事。”_ + +把九龙半岛归于英属香港国界内，让英皇世代管治，英文版本第六条表达更清楚： + +_“portion of the township of Cowloon, in the province of Kwang-Tung, of which a lease was granted in perpetuity to Harry Smith Parkes, Esquire, Companion of the Bath, a Member of the Allied Commission at Canton, on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government.”_ + +当中再次使用perpetuity一词，也便是同样永久割让的意思。 + +在1917年《英皇制诰》中，列明维多利亚女王在英殖香港（the Colony of Hongkong and its Dependencies）建立总督和最高指挥的官位，因此等于再次重申香港作为皇家殖民地（crown colony）的地位，总督由英皇直接任命。直至七十年代改称英国属地（dependent territory），原辅政司（colonial secretary）也改名布政司（chief secretary），但港币直到1985年仍然印有殖民地字样。（`John M. Carroll，《香港简史》，香港：蜂鸟出版，2021，p.205`） + +八十年代初中英谈判，令香港主权问题重新浮现。《中英联合声明》第一条列明： + +_“中华人民共和国政府声明：收回香港地区（包括香港岛、九龙和“新界”，以下称香港）是全中国人民的共同愿望，中华人民共和国政府决定于一九九七年七月一日对香港恢复行使主权。”_ + +这声明全文至今还可以在香港政制及内地事务局网站全文检阅，其中值得留意的字眼，自然是“恢复行使主权”。 + +“恢复行使”意味著曾经失去（当然比起“主权移交”，“恢复行使”至少等于承认中国承继了大清的主权，但若果要连有否失去香港主权都要争辩，那便是另一回事了。毕竟“恢复行使”依然有重获失去的意思，如唐元结的《大唐中兴颂》曾有“其年复两京”，复字即带有收复失去领地的讲法），因此由大清至中华人民共和国的一百五十多年，都失去香港统治的主权。这点上也呼应了翌年由英国政府发表的《1985年香港法令》（Hong Kong Act 1985）： + +_“An Act to make provision for and in connection with the ending of British sovereignty and jurisdiction over Hong Kong.”_ + +因此，一边恢复行使主权，另一边宣布移交香港主权，这主权交还的叙事便完整了。 + +#### 主权的多义 + +然而，《香港01》文章引用1997年《人民日报》的“香港基本法问答”专栏有关《为什么说香港不是殖民地》，提到因为“通常意义上的殖民地……主要是指因外国统治、管辖而丧失了主权的国家……香港是中国领土的一部分，所以，殖民地概念不适用于香港”。文章也引用1972年中国常驻联合国代表黄华当年致函联合国非殖民化特别委员会主席萨利姆（Salim Ahmed Salim）： + +_“香港、澳门属于历史遗留下来的帝国主义强加于中国的一系列不平等条约的结果，香港和澳门是被英国和葡萄牙当局占领的中国领土的一部分，解决香港、澳门问题完全是属于中国主权范围问题，根本不属于通常的所谓“殖民地”范畴。”_ + +这些讲辞其实都十分奇怪，例如依照《人民日报》该篇文章的讲法，殖民地必先要是主权国家（除非文中所谈的“国家”有其他诠释或意思），再被外国殖民才能成为殖民地，那么到底甚么地方才有资格当殖民地呢？假定我们不走进政治思想史的复杂讨论，简单将联合国成员国定义为主权国家（当然印度和菲律宾作为联合国创立国，当时仍未完全独立），那么在1945年联合国成立时，当时有51个成员国，今天有193个。其中增加的大部份主权国，大部份都是经民族自决的独立原则独立成国，例如阿富汗、亚美尼亚、波黑、刚果、爱沙尼亚、几内亚、巴基斯坦之类，这些政治体在解殖独立前，没有哪个是国际社会认可的平等主权国家，大多都是帝国管治下的部份，可能是由相对同质族群居住的地方（如前南斯拉夫独立出来的国家）或者帝国所划分的殖民地地域或托管地区（如非洲或中东一带的国家），后来经国际主权体系的程序独立成国。 + +因此从解殖史中我们倒可以看到一个相反的现象，便是原先世界各地分散多元的政治体，因为帝国的殖民而走向政体现代化和同质化，再通过国际法进程获取主权，承认其民族国家的平等地位与权益。当然主权史发展也有无数殖民地抗争，还有殖民地反向影响宗主国理解自身主权的现象，在此不再赘述。（`Jordan Branch, The Cartographic State: Maps, Territory, and the Origins of Sovereignty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2020`） + +至于解决香港、澳门问题属于中国主权范围，更是极为耐人寻味。这儿谈的主权到底是甚么意思呢？借用国际关系学者Stephen Krasner的主权四分来讨论，香港是一直在大清及其后继朝代的内政主权（domestic sovereignty）范围吗？（`Stephen Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999`） + +但一如Dieter Grimm所言，外在主权与内在主权其实互为表里，外在主权被削弱必然会影响内在主权。（`Dieter Grimm, Sovereignty: The Origin and Future of a Political Concept, New York: Columbia University Press, 2015, p.92-6`） + +港澳在二战后仍归属英葡管治，从政治体制上，总督直属宗主国君主控制；到法律体制上，移植部份英式普通法法院体制和法律惯例（英殖往往不完全空降整套外来秩序，而是会跟当地习俗作一定调和，如清律的婚姻习俗便保留到七十年代），作为实然管治的法律基础。（`Shaunnagh Dorsett, Ian Hunter (eds.), Law and Politics in British Colonial Thought: Transpositions of Empire, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010`） + +中港之间在殖民史中逐渐设有边境、护照制度，货币和货物与人口流动也受制于两地关口的监管，加上两地合法的执法和武装单位驻守，这些制度措施充份显示香港的司法管辖主权（international legal sovereignty）一直都在英国手上。若把1899年后的香港说成是中国的内政主权范围，未免太荒唐了。 + +那么，如果是把香港问题看作为外在主权中的威斯特伐利亚主权（Westphalian sovereignty）争夺，即有关主权国领土和权力范围的国际认可，那可能是最合理的诠释。但是，威斯特伐利亚主权不同于前述的内政主权，在于前者更强调国际社会或者相关国际法程序对此的认可，不能单方面自把自为。这就等同于国家独立跟联合国承认为主权国之间，是有著相应的差异，这直接影响了该政治体的国际法地位和相应权益。而从七十年代中国政府邀请和接见香港港督，八十年代谈判后共同发布《中英联合声明》。这些举动也是实然地承认了英属香港的外交地位，香港问题也不属中国内政，因此需要寻求中英之间，以至国际社会的外交协议规范和认可。 + +![image2](https://i.imgur.com/tDNbxQi.jpg) +▲ 2020年10月15日，香港历史博物馆的“香港故事”展馆暂停开放前，大量市民入内参观。 + +同样地，九七前英属香港在不同国际协议和组织中都有著独立的成员位置，而在九七后，这些协约成员的身份都保留下来。例如香港早于1995年有份创立世界贸易组织（WTO），而中国则是迟至2001年才加入世贸。九七后香港的成员身份也保留下来，跟中国属于两个不同世贸成员的单位，可以独立在其他国家设立经贸办，跟其他世贸代表谈判和处理贸易纠纷。这些一国两制安排固然可称之为因事制宜的便利（`饶戈平，《与时偕行—一国两制与基本法在香港的实践》，香港城市大学出版社，2019，p.228`），但在国际法框架下也可理解为香港拥有一定的外在主权位份（或称相互性主权，interdependence sovereignty）和权利（但如今在后国安法年代的香港，应否继续享有独立世贸成员身份和待遇也开始受到质疑）。把跨国殖民与解殖问题称作内部主权问题，无视主权的国际认可机制，无疑是自欺欺人的说法。 + +#### 殖民与帝国 + +> 虽然公法一书，久共遵守，乃仍有不可尽守者。盖国之强弱相等，则藉公法相维持；若太强太弱，公法未必能行也。——郑观应《盛世危言正续编》 + +从法律事实而言，香港在九七前作为英国殖民地确实没有甚么争辩的余地。但同一时间，我们也不用走上另一种极端，基于香港曾经的殖民地历史，把帝国殖民主通过入侵战争和不平等条约掠夺的法定殖民地视为“无贬义”的命名，或者单纯法律状况的陈述。 + +殖民地跟奴隶制一样，都是传统帝国以赤裸裸的武力和压迫，占领和剥削异族地方的人的身体和地方，借以满足自身的利益和权力。甚至，殖民地也有利用所谓白手套或者买办式的地方精英，通过勾结共谋的方式维持和加强殖民者在殖民地的管治秩序（`罗永生，《勾结共谋的殖民权力》，香港：牛津，2015`）。因此，权力关系不纯然存在于白人的殖民者与华人的被殖民者的二分结构之中，而是更微观亦更流动地存在于不同层次和群体之间。因此往后两节，笔者会改从国际法的帝国性和社经的殖民性出发，重新思考殖民与解殖的政治问题。 + +殖民地一方面是两国签订国际协议而产生的政治后果，但同一时间十九世纪的大清根本不获所谓国际社会（西欧强权）接纳为平等的主权国家，因此条约当然是不对等的。放回宏观一点看，整个国际法体系的发展，从十六世纪以来，基本上都是服膺于帝国管治下的法律产物，用作协助欧洲殖民主对应异地文明而发展出来的新游戏规则。而在十九世纪实证国际法盛行的年代，国际法更是用作筑构国际文明阶级，借以合理化宰制弱国异族的最佳工具。（`Charles Alexandrowicz, Introduction to the History of the Law of Nations in the East Indies, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. 李宇森，《主权神话论》，台北：秀威，2022`） + +例如美国法学家惠顿（Henry Wheaton）在1836年所著、影响十九世纪国际关系极为深远的国际法著作《万国公法》（`Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law, London: Wildy and Sons, 1964`，丁韪良译）中，作为讨论主权国家权益的国际法第一卷第一章十一节，就先要讨论到底有没有一套普世适用的公法体系。惠顿的讲法很清楚，那是没有的： + +_“Is there a uniform law of nations? There certainly is not the same one for all the nations and states of the world. The public law, with slight exceptions, has always been, and still is, limited to the civilized and Christian people of Europe or to those of European origin.”_ + +因此，平等的公法主权和国家权益，只适用于文明与耶教化的国家，任何远离这两个条件的政治体和人民，基本上都不会被承认作为平等国际社会的一员。 + +但“文明国家”是甚么意思？难道是指古代四大文明（中国、印度、埃及、巴比伦）吗？当然不是了。这正是吊诡的地方，文明的标准来自于文明国家的认受，因此这个文明国家俱乐部之中，谁获认可成为文明国家，便能够挤进主权国家的行列，得享国际法对其自主和权益的保障。通过这种方式，西欧强国得以借国际法之名，粗暴地瓜分和支配边陲国家的领土和秩序。以中国为例，当年大清禁烟时，林则徐甚至参考了《万国公法》的篇章，致函要求英女皇尊重大清政府行使本国内部主权的自主性，不应干预另一国家的内政。但最终战争爆发，大清兵败，签订《南京条约》。 + +法律史家Antony Anghie提醒我们，此条约被称作不平等条约，不仅是因为强权压下不得不为的丛林法则，更是因为这条约为的是强化英国的贸易特权，如逼使大清放开港口，容许英国商品进口的关税限额有特别宽待之类，这些条件完全脱离了国际法下的精神，纯然满足于帝国利益下的产物。（`Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, p.72-3`） + +![image3](https://i.imgur.com/V2s4Iub.jpg) +▲ 2020年10月15日，香港历史博物馆“香港故事”展馆暂停开放前，大量市民入内参观，其中展出有关鸦片战争及割让香港。 + +同时期出现的还有治外法权（legal extraterritoriality），领事裁决权（consular jurisdiction）的定立，剥夺了殖民国家相当的司法自主权利。这自然也是建基在对象国家不是文明国家的行列，因此其司法主权不获尊重的前提下，治外法权成了不平等条约的条件之一。值得注意的是，日本在十九世纪，曾经跟大清一样有过治外法权的待遇。然而，经过1905年的日俄战争，日本明治维新后的强大军力打败欧洲强国，使其迅即进入主权国家俱乐部的行列，不单国内的治外法权全面消失，甚至可以在中国境内设置多达三十多个领事法庭（比起英法还要多），在外国境内行使司法管辖权。而不顾中华民国多次抗议，欧洲殖民主一直坚持要中国先完整地方的财产和商业法，保障了当地侨民的财产安全，让跨国企业能安全进入中国市场谋利，治外法权才可以取消。（`Kayaoglu Turan, Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p.151`） + +治外法权原本就是对主权的否定，这国家权益的剥夺为的正是确保西方财团和统治阶级，能稳稳妥妥地支配宰制东亚的边陲地区，一如殖民地的设置。国际关系学者Kayaoglu Turan称之为法律帝国主义（legal imperialism）。 + +因此，帝国支配显然是不公义的，完全忽视地方人民的自治和权益，通过建立跨国法律政治阶级来合理化其抢掠暴力，即使按著所谓国际法惯例都是不义的，不应接受的。甚至即使联合国成立后，英法等传统殖民大国依然不愿放弃殖民地（不妨参考邱吉尔对殖民地的蔑视态度），有别于美国的非形式帝国主义对解殖独立的包容和支持。而上述六十年代奠定的1514民族自决原则和程序，其实是无数全球南方和第三世界的国家人民，抗争多年的丰硕成果，使得八十个前殖民地的人民得以通过这种方式寻求主权独立，至少获得政治上自治机会。而香港被中国在非自治地方名单上除名，正正反映了国际组织、国际法和帝国主义之间有著千丝万缕的关系，政治抗争仍是现在进行式。（`Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2020`） + +#### 殖民的多重歧义 + +上述所谈仍主要围绕著政治法律框架下所理解的殖民与主权的关系，那么二十世纪极为丰富的解殖文献则告诉我们，殖民与解殖从来不是止于国旗与最高长官之所属，而是深植到整个经济社会的体制之中，宰制著体制内的每个个体，使其无法摆脱殖民所带来的阶级压迫与不平等，即使那些政策早已不再以殖民之名而为。 + +因此，跟政权针砭香港是否存在过殖民地（colony）的名字，其实是弄错焦点（当然史实的真伪争论仍是需要的）。但这次争议或许能作为一次契机，让我们再度回到殖民性（coloniality）的思考之中，看看殖民如何通过不同形式和暴力关系，建立与维持一套跨国的支配体系。 + +或如阿根廷解殖思想家Walter Mignolo所言，殖民性跟现代性都是一体两面的部份。现代性代表著文明与进步，理性和科学，这现代性即是当前的自由主义国家跟资本主义结合的市场／社会庞大体系，代表正常与理想的世界。而现代性的边境以外便是尚未纳入资本主义秩序的非市场领域，那便只能任由殖民性征服和改造，借此把那些人和事纳入现代性的原则之中。（`Walter D. Mignolo, “Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of De-Coloniality”, Cultural Studies, 2007, Vol.21 (2-3), p.449-514`） + +这征服和改造既可通过鸦片战争式的隆隆大炮，也可以倚仗经济剥削、文化入侵、以至国际法的分等序列，产生各种权力关系，藉著压迫全世界受苦的人来再生产当前的帝国秩序。殖民性喂养著现代性，现代性则反过来支持殖民，最终指向著一个中心—边陲的国际阶梯，殖民性为了让边陲地带能够模仿与接近欧美的文明圈子，冀求得到后者的认受，其价值和意义亦是由后者所定义。 + +若果抽象的概念语言，普遍性的指涉性质，依旧带有强烈的现代性色彩，那么揭示殖民性的异质和非整体性把握，便是回到一个个具体的脉络之中，审视其在某个场域展现的权力关系，使得某些人得益，使得知识或者城市空间以某种方式呈现，通过一张权力利益关系网为现代性服务。 + +#### 香港在地政治的殖民性 + +为了简化讨论，下文将挂一漏万地枚举三个近廿年来香港民间早已反复讨论的课题，指出包括大学的语言政策、农业和城市规划，从教育自主、食物自主到土地规划自主的面向上，如何带有明显的殖民性，即使在主权移交超过廿年，殖民性仍没有减退半分，解殖至今仍是遥遥无期。 + +所以谈殖民性时试著不要问有没有用上殖民一字，改问在这个议题或者处境中，得益的是谁？维持了什么样的政经秩序？谁又在这权力关系中被支配？这权力关系如何被证成？ + +- 教育自主 + +过去香港作为英殖的地方，教育语言自然是十分重要的政治议题，母语教学其实反复提过差不多近百年，但自主教育的道路仍然漫长。虽然香港整体人口绝大多数都是以粤语作为母语，而英殖政府一直有容许在中小学使用中文教育，但是从官方政策到家长老师，都强烈地重英轻中。 + +![image4](https://i.imgur.com/DEH9vBA.jpg) +▲ 2021年7月1日，北角培侨中学有庆祝建党100周年活动，其中出席的不少学生都每人手持一支小国旗。 + +根据许宝强引述谢锡金的研究数字，从1958年到1988年，英文中学从74间大幅升至343间，学生人数由25000人升至365000；但同时中文中学的数字却不升反跌，由89间跌至57间，学生人数由22000微升至32000多。九七回归后曾因为推行中文教育，令英文中学从九成学校比例锐减至三成，剩下114间，结果“英（文）中（学）”成了名校的别名，每年中（文）中学生流失率都远高于英中学校。直至2000年，曾荫权在教改后推出“微调”政策，容许学校自行调整授课语言的班别和科目，令开办英文授课班别成了每年招生的噱头。母语教学在所谓国际化或者容易找工作的价值视野下，沦为殖民的鸡肋。 + +2008年普教中推行后，直至2021年已有七成小学和三成半中学实行普通话教授中文，甚至有学校订明在校内禁止说粤语。虽然教育局承认没有证据证明普教中比母语更有效提升中文水平，但教育局还是会坚持实行下去，当中原因自然不难猜想。 + +大学方面，由于学校主要作为殖民地政府培养行政官员和专业人士的学府，因此除了中文大学部份学系外，基本上课程绝大多数以英语授课。然而，在回归后的香港，连中文大学也不能幸免英语化的潮流。在经济学家刘遵义当上中大校长后，旋即以“国际化”之名，要求所有学系的必修科都要以英语授课，确保一定比例的英文课程，以便令学生带有“国际视野”云云。结果当时牵连大波，引来多番的讨论，叶荫聪便曾称这种心态为“殖民情结”（colonial complex）。这还未算上当前大学如何新自由主义化——将教学外判，重研轻教；国际化被等同于英语化，只有以英语授课、或者研究成果必须在欧美认可的学术期刊投稿才可被大学体系认同，因为获得西方世界的认受，能令学系／大学在西方大学中心的大学排名中获取更高的位置。 + +问题在于，当自身的价值只能通过其他地区的知识圈与权力机制认受，当本地的学生或者研究因为这种倾斜而受害时，这种教育的跨国性中央—边陲关系便可算上是殖民性的体现。同时，这些都不是偶然发展出来的现象，从校监的任命，大学教育资助委员会（UGC）的拨款机制，大学高层向权势献媚等，都使得教育体制长期生产著语言阶级，及其背后的权势不均的秩序。粤语作为知识生产的语言长期被体制和相应文化意识所敌视和排拒，借以不断再生产建基语言之上的支配关系。此即为教育上的殖民性面向，至今仍久久不衰。 + +- 食物自主 + +近几十年来，香港农业的地位低下，以第三产业淘空第一产业的经济结构，早已不是新闻。跟教育不同的是，殖民政府其实很早就开始重视粮食自给对于地方安全的重要，因此本地的食物统营早在二战后已经由政府主导下开始。一种经典叙事是，过往曾是渔米之乡的新界，如今赶著都市化城镇化的发展路向，农业的比例急速减少。当八十年代中国政府取消了供港蔬果的配额限制后，大量内地平价食物进口也大大打击了本地农业的发展生计。不过，这种叙事也在近年受到挑战，如周思中的研究便突显了当中历史的复杂性：本地菜农也不纯然作为殖民地下的受害者，农夫也曾积极在中国大陆开设菜场，成为早期民间中港融合的尝试。 + +但不论如何，香港农业的大幅萎缩是无可置疑的，过往香港农业最高峰时，农地使用面积达到一万三千公顷，粮食自给率差不多50巴仙（%）。如今根据渔农处的资料，从1997年到2021年，农地使用面积从六千公顷减至七百五十公顷，粮食自给率也从14巴仙跌至不足2巴仙，而进口食物占了香港食物供应90多巴仙。 + +![image5](https://i.imgur.com/AKXGtKr.jpg) +▲ 2021年3月21日，上水的一位香港农夫在耕作。 + +固然可讨论的是，农业曾经兴盛是否意味著只能发展农业，但城市化和金融化推动的经济发展，又是否代表著看起来“落后的”、劳动力主导的农业应该退场呢？视城市发展和金融经济作为先进的象征，对应著工农业的落后，本就是现代性的表现，因为通过控制资本密集的生产消费链上流，借助全球化的运输和分工，能够更有效地剥削劳动力集中的生产地区，使得利润能够最大化。只是能够分享庞大利润的，往往是少数跨国公司的中高层，例如华润五丰有限公司（前称五丰行）便是主要代理香港入口中国大陆肉类的机构，业务遍及全球，营业额上百亿元，如此影响全港市民肉类供应的价格，香港政府却无权干预其价格厘定。 + +而当农地被空置，又会产生土地利益勾结的共谋，一众地产商囤积土地，适时改变土地用途建私人住宅，赚取庞大的利益。除此之外，粮食自给率极低意味著食物安全无法受到保障，毕竟因为生产地远离了香港，因此监控食物生产的安全，例如有否使用农药甚至禁药，只能倚靠当地的执法单位和检测机制。而长途运送食物带来的巨量二氧化碳排放和能量消耗，直接造成全球暖化和气候变化，也是当前生态政治所批判的对象。 + +若要再细数维持农业的优势，则又可提到本地农业能够帮助推动生态永续，如城市绿化、减排回收、减少污染，同时农地也能带来一定程度的生态复原力，让物种多样性不会持续受城市化威胁。这些都是食物自主与环境保育所关注的面向，多年来与金融经济发展叙事相抗衡。只是，这一逻辑往往跟现代性的经济发展逻辑互相冲突，进而使得地方的自主被跨国跨地的经济殖民所支配。 + +- 规划自主 + +食物自主跟规划自主有著错综复杂的关系，香港土地农业的凋零，跟政府的城市规划偏好房屋地产发展有著重大的联系。过去在殖民地时代，城市规划自然带有强烈的帝国支配色彩，最著名的例子莫过于《山顶居住条例》，禁止华人在半山地区置业和居住，借以区分开统治阶级的白人社群与被殖民的华人聚居地。而当中环商用地段日渐饱和时，英殖政府也毫不犹豫地迁拆重建附近的华人居所，用作商业发展的用途。（`何佩然，《地换山移：香港海港及土地发展一百六十年》，香港：商务印书馆，2004`） + +公共房屋或者社区设施的兴起，当然不是因为殖民者的慈悲，一如Adam Smith的比喻，肉贩不是喜欢你才卖猪肉给你。这些房屋措施一方面是要解决客观现实的管治问题（`何佩然，《城传立新：香港城市规划发展史（1841-2015）》，香港：中华书局，2016，p.139`），如战后大批难民涌入香港，居住环境恶劣，石硖尾大火导致数万人无家可归（`明爱青少年及社区服务，《西环：风雨不动安如山》，香港：三联，2021，p.12-3`）。同时，七十年代的大型建设公屋计划，也是带有殖民管治的卫生和秩序的想像，公共卫生是殖民地以其医学和城市管理的标准来看待华人聚居地区和白人聚居地区的差异，借此来加以整顿前者，使前者能服膺在殖民政治的权力控制范围之中。 + +所以如叶荫聪曾在论文中提到，当初英殖政府批评华人居所的卫生问题之一，便是欠缺阳光和通风导致病菌滋生。但同时在英殖政府主理的徙置大楼，却为了节省成本和空间而采用背靠背的设计，结果同样是欠缺阳光和通风，十足十英国十九世纪穷人的恶劣蜗居。（`叶荫聪，〈一个卫生城市的诞生：香港早期公共房屋的殖民建构〉，《城市与设计学报》，no.13/14，03/2003，p.360-1`） + +![image6](https://i.imgur.com/IiTxPVD.jpg) +▲ 2022年5月19日，九龙的住宅区。 + +但回归后的香港，城市规划便得到自主了吗？在殖民地留下来的不民主议会，委任式行政会议的行政主导下，香港多项大型（大白象）工程，不论是高铁香港段、港珠澳大桥还是机场的第三跑道，都是背向强大反对的民意、一意孤行的推行，不单费用极为浩大（不论是金钱上、生态上还是发展所牺牲的社区），且在工程上得益的也不是广大的市民，而是大财团、顾问公司，以至整个跨国的利益网络。同时，市区重建却处处见到幽灵般的殖民心态，依旧在管治思维中久久不灭。原先富有香港历史和特色的湾仔利东街（喜帖街），经过重建改造后变成了仿欧洲的购物大街“囍欢里”。类似的重建发展还有尖沙咀的旧水警总区总部，现在成了“1881”美轮美奂的十里洋场。 + +这种所谓的活化，一方面清拆本地的历史建筑和地区，另一方面却重建成假的西化景观，以此打造成作为吸引游客的旅游景点。更别说那些玉石花园、上海街或者波鞋街，重建后保育设施成了市建局一贯的荒腔走板。本土研究社已经著墨甚多，拙文不再累赘。《环球时报》以前三不五日便鞭挞香港的“恋殖心理”，但观乎近廿年的城市规划和市区重建，我们不禁要问，到底谁才是真的恋殖呢？当我们再谈殖民性的时候，我们是在谈甚么呢？ + +#### 主权移交25年的此地无银 + +以上三个议题，在过去香港民间早已有相当丰富的讨论，也不需笔者再置喙甚么。但是当中国政府跟香港官僚努力洗脱香港过去的殖民史，生产出诸多“去殖”的论述时，反倒此地无银地显现了殖民性如何根深柢固地深植在香港。即使政体或者殖民状况有所不同，但殖民的体制和权力关系在回归后被承继过来，成就了新的精英管治阶层。当香港每三年被论述边缘化一次，永远需要中港融合来“打救”，需要融入北大人的发展大计中，结果令城市规划和社经政策继续被宰制，同时当中的压迫剥削并没有根本性的改变，殖民性仍然深深印烙在香港社经秩序之中，自治与自由仍是遥遥无期。 + +所以如果今天再谈殖民，真的不应分神去关注殖民地是否负面这些历史沙石问题，毕竟殖民体制不需要正名才能实行，权力关系也是通过各种知识生产和机制系统，施展到不同群体之上。回到殖民性的反思，才是真正踏上解殖之路的重要一步。 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-role-playing-game-of-covid-zero.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-role-playing-game-of-covid-zero.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e12a34e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-role-playing-game-of-covid-zero.md @@ -0,0 +1,130 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "《清零》：当疫情再次战胜我们" +author: "池骋" +date : 2022-07-01 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/y3XhKv0.png +image_caption: "……最后变成了一群人对另一群人的猎巫游戏。" +description: "" +--- + +我是吹哨人。 + +吹哨人（whistleblower），指的是揭露一个组织内部非法、不诚实或不正当行为的人。在中国大陆政治语境下，这是个水土不服的名词。 + + + +2020年新冠疫情爆发初期，武汉市中心医院眼科医生李文亮注意到新型病毒的出现，向同行和身边人发起警示，随后遭到当地警方训诫。很快，事实证明病毒的确存在。作为率先向外界披露疫情的医疗人员，李文亮的事迹在网上广为流传。他被人们称为“吹哨人”。李文亮因新冠离开了这个世界，但“吹哨人”留下了，成为勇于揭露体制弊病的代名词。 + +我当然不是李文亮那样高尚的人。只是这次被朋友邀请，参加一场以新冠疫情为背景的桌游《清零》，我抽中了这个角色。看着屏幕上亮起“吹哨人”三个字，我顿时感到肩上有了重量。 + +![image1](https://i.imgur.com/15NeNJH.jpg) +▲ 《清零》为上海疫情期间，部分上海市民通过微信、腾讯会议等网络通讯平台苦中作乐的狼人杀类游戏。图为疫情期间，用作游戏说明书的线上共享文档。游戏截图 + +《清零》的故事发生在一个最普通不过的上海居民小区。小区里住着各种各样的人，一些是居民经常打交道的人，比如小区保安、超市老板娘和外卖小哥。另一些人也和你一样都是普通居民，只是在疫情期间有了新的身份，比如负责协助防疫工作的小区志愿者，还有小区内部的秩序组织者——团长。你的生活离不开他们，你们都希望疫情能够早日结束。但有消息说，人群之中混杂着一些危险份子，比如零号病人，还有谣言散布者和恶意传播者，这些人的存在将会让普通人不断受害。我们好人阵营的目标就是将这些坏蛋揪出来，撕下伪装，送往方舱医院…… + +这样，至少在这儿，在这个小区，我们将会战胜疫情。 + +#### 宏大叙事下，普通的居民小区 + +一定程度上，《清零》的故事背景反映了部分人的现实生活。2022年3月，上海进入了一段长达数月的社会管控时期，直到今天也没有完全结束。在不能外出的日子里，一些生活在上海的人组建了一个微信群，相约在线上玩起这款桌游。他们可能是为了表达些什么，抒发些什么，借着桌游讨论些难以言喻的感受，也有可能只是打发时间。 + +这款桌游的设计灵感来自《血染钟楼》，一款最近非常流行的社交类桌游。《血染钟楼》的基础逻辑类似狼人杀，但玩法更丰富，角色更多元。基于《血染钟楼》的架构，人们创作出不同的故事版本，《清零》就是其中一套以新冠疫情为背景的原创剧本。用桌游设计者的话说，《清零》是“用于纪念我们曾经经历过的、体验过的特殊时期”。 + +![image2](https://i.imgur.com/Lp04EO0.jpg) +▲ 上海解封后，游戏推出卡牌实体版。游戏截图 + +这确实是特殊时期。由于一系列严格的封控政策，人们的日常生活发生许多变化，产生了新的职位、新的职业、新的名词，甚至新的价值判断标准，过去的一些身份也被赋予新的意义。 + +比方说，为了控制人员流动造成疫情传播，“健康码”在生活中广泛使用，码的颜色决定一个人能去哪儿，有多少自由；比方说，为了调配资源和搬运物资，小区普遍都有负责采购的团长和负责分发的志愿者；比方说，过去没有什么存在感的居委会主任突然成为了小区里不可或缺的重要角色——想开各种证明文件，想获得通行证，甚至只是想出小区大门，都得跟居委会联系，因为很大程度上这些事情由居委会说了算。 + +《清零》在设计上相当写实地还原了“特殊时期下的中国特色”。它的背景、角色、设定乃至于游戏目标，都与新冠疫情期间中国内地的种种情形相互映照，模拟过去两三年在新冠疫情主导下，内地所形成的基层治理“新常态”。 + +根据游戏规则中，玩家被分成两个敌对阵营。一个是绿码阵营（好人阵营），另一个是红码阵营（坏人阵营）。在绿码阵营中，每个角色都有技能，这些技能跟这些角色在现实中的功能有一定关联，比如居委会主任能在第一个晚上知道两位居民中其中一位的身份，而团长如果被公投到方舱医院，可以选择带走场上任何一个人，还有小区志愿者可以在白天检查居民的健康码。 + +绿码阵营中还存在一个特殊群体，外来者。他们的立场是好人，但他们的存在不一定会为好人阵营带来好处：熊孩子会让自己左右两边的角色技能失效；快递员的健康码可能是红码；如果不幸像我一样拿到精神病身份的话，你以为自己还正常，你以为自己有用，但事实上你已经疯了。 + +红码阵营中最关键的人物是零号病人——小区内第一个发病的病人。零号病人从第二夜开始每晚都可以感染一名玩家，而被感染的玩家将会立刻被送往方舱医院。和零号病人站在一起的还有些危险分子，比如能够装成绿码但具有感染能力的无症状感染者；让绿码居民技能失效的谣言散布者；甚至还有同时感染至多3名居民的超级传染者等等。这个阵营的目标是让疫情持续蔓延下去，他们要确保零号病人不被送往方舱（否则游戏立即结束），尽可能传染更多的人。 + +游戏的设计者借游戏提出的问题是：当疫情来临之时，我们都能做些什么？这同样也是我想知道的。但我更好奇的问题是，当宏大的抗疫叙事浓缩在一个小区，浓缩在几个普通人身上，人与人之间的关系会变成什么样？ + +![image3](https://i.imgur.com/Pn2qItx.jpg) +▲ 2022年5月5日，上海，2019冠状病毒病流行期间，一个住宅区的入口被封锁。摄：Aly Song + +#### 混乱 + +我是吹哨人，一度以为自己是全场最重要的角色。这出于我对李文亮的敬意，另一方面出于我的角色技能：“在游戏开始的第一个夜晚，你会得知本局内所有感染者的具体身份。”我以为马上就能找出谁是零号病人，之后只要让大家相信我就可以了。 + +但没过多久，我意识到自己只是再普通不过的人。和狼人杀不同，场上没有任何人能够左右局势——所谓“预言家”技能被拆给多个不同的角色，导致每个角色都知道一点儿信息，但都不是决定性的。第一个夜晚，我只得知场上除了零号病人外，另一个红码阵营的人是谣言散布者，但我甚至不知道是谁，而我的技能也就到此为止了。 + +一些人比我看起来更加有用，比如居委会主任，他在抗疫方面颇有经验，每次发言都有理有据，令人信服，并且他还验出药剂师。那位药剂师也比我有用，她在第一轮就指出了另外一个假药剂师的伪装。“场上不可能有两个药剂师！”她振振有词，号召所有人一起投票，把假药剂师扭送方舱，并且在当晚英勇就义——药剂师类似狼人杀中的守卫，可以保护一名自己以外的玩家不受感染，所以当她的角色暴露时，就理所当然成为零号病人的第一个目标。 + +再一次天亮以后，我们被主持人告知一个巨大的乌龙：由于场上出现技术问题，之前和真药剂师对跳的玩家搞错了身份，他是失眠者——不但是个绿码好人，还拥有半个预言家的技能。也就是说，目前不但一个红码阵营的人都没有排除，还阴差阳错地搭上了两个身怀技能的绿码人士。 + +这一轮发言中，每位玩家都被要求说出自己的具体身份，我们发现场上似乎有不止一位外来者——一位玩家说自己是熊孩子，另一位说是快递员。这有些不对吧？游戏一开始，我们被主持人告知，因为人数有限，我们这一场没有外来者。 + +这时，居委会主任发话了：“一种可能是，外来者们都在骗人，但这种可能性很小。另一种可能是——各位看一下恶意传播者的角色卡，如果一开始就有恶意传播者的话，场上会增加2名外来者，但是这跟刚才吹哨人所说的场上有谣言散布者相悖，也就是说吹哨人得到了错误的信息。” + +“所以说，吹哨人啊。你可能是个精神病。” + +我如遭雷击，拼死抵赖，不愿意承认这个可能性。另一方面，我的内心世界已经崩塌了：他说的很有可能是对的。否则这一切的混乱该怎么解释呢？我知道的信息是那么少，不但没有派上用场，而且这个信息从头到尾就是错误的。场上的人们纷纷附和居委会主任。原来我是个精神病，关于“吹哨人”的一切只是我的幻觉。 + +我能接受自己是个精神病，但如果我都不是我，那么场上谁是谁呢？谁又能清楚知道自己的身份和技能？谁又能真正做到什么？这会不会是一个彻头彻尾的骗局？ + +![image4](https://i.imgur.com/0vn1I1h.jpg) +▲ 2020年3月26日，一位匿名的中国艺术家在捷克布拉格展示纪念李文亮医生的作品。摄：Libor Sojka + +#### 徒劳 + +这种荒诞和混乱贯穿全程。在某种意义上，这种感受可算是游戏设计上一种微妙的成功：游戏不但用玩法模拟疫情期间人与人之间剑拔弩张的关系，而且恰如其分地引起了一些不愉快的情绪——虽然我不知道这是不是游戏设计师有意为之。 + +在现实中，荒诞和混乱的事儿还少吗？吹哨人被当作精神病，类似的事情并不是没有发生过。在巨大的压力和恐慌下，我们在生活中的表现就像这场茫然的桌游一样晕头转向，不知所措。疫情最严重的时期，我们生活在一种惶惶不可终日的情绪中，不知道什么时候会因为什么样的理由被带走，甚至连理由都不需要有。我们看到太多令人无力的新闻——其实也算不上新闻，一条条和防疫人员对峙的视频或者录音，当事人绝望地要求对方出示确诊证据，而对方只是不停地重复着要将他们带去方舱的要求。 + +从这个角度来说，《清零》所构造的虚拟世界甚至比现实稍稍文明一些。有证据，有推理，有自由讨论，有提名程序，甚至还有民主投票，但这并不代表我们做出了什么智慧的决策。事实上好人阵营玩得很糟。在将两位真假药剂师错误地送去方舱以后，又接连错误地送走了两个无辜的人——在事后覆盘中，我怎么也想不明白为什么会怀疑这两个人。我当时正处在被所有人认定为精神病的眩晕中，只觉得所有人都在与我为敌…… + +我后来才意识到，在这场游戏中，很多事情从一开始就是毫无意义的。正如场上各位的推论，我的确是个精神病人，而不是吹哨人。我以为自己至关重要，其实只得到信息一条；我以为信息无比正确，其实从一开始便都是错的。比如说，虽然居委会主任得到正确信息，也判断出真正的药剂师，但药剂师旁边的位子坐着熊孩子——熊孩子的技能是让他左右两边的角色技能失效。也就是说，无论药剂师有没有自曝身份都不重要，她从一开始就谁也救不了。更令人无言以对的是，真正的药剂师在场上只做了一件事，就是指出假药剂师的身份，就将他送去方舱。但事实上假药剂师并非有意造假，只是在混乱中弄错身份，闹了大乌龙。 + +从某个时刻开始，这就成为了一个谁也救不了谁、谁也帮不了谁的局面。看起来零号病人只有一个，恶意传播者已没有别的技能，只要找到零号病人就能获得胜利，但为了做到这件事，我们不停地讨论、询问、怀疑，号召别人把怀疑对象赶到方舱。但事实证明，我们这么多人从头到尾就没有做出过一个正确的决定，而这些决定的代价是什么？在桌游中就只是输掉罢了。在现实生活中，我们得到的信息更少，能做的事情更少，但可能为此付出了难以承受的代价。 + +![image5](https://i.imgur.com/B4Hnkv8.jpg) +▲ 2022年5月24日，上海，疫情期间，一名妇女在封城期间的一条主要街道上骑自行车。摄：Aly Song + +#### 过于苦涩的共鸣 + +当游戏结束时，我不知该如何评价《清零》。它是个好玩的游戏，在经典架构上设计出一套叙事体系，并结合现实生活设计相应的技能，这让它具有相当好的可玩性，对于有过类似生活经验的人来说更容易产生共鸣。同时，它也试图讲述一个比游戏更大的故事，并在游戏里探讨社会议题，但这样的目标实在太过复杂沉重，难以处理——往往在产生共鸣的同时，也让人觉得苦涩万分。 + +最根本的问题可能来自游戏所设计的两个阵营。两个阵营本身没有问题——小区里的居民都是好人，那些感染者和传播者自然就是坏人，我并非不能理解这种设计，只是这些坏人曾经不也是小区里的人吗？在成为零号病人或是无症状感染者之前，他们可能就是小区里的普通居民，可能是保安或者志愿者，甚至是在工作中才染上新冠也说不定——他们也是受害者。但在游戏中，他们被设定为是故意要害人的。这些害人精仿佛生来携带病毒，就是为了破坏防疫大局而存在的，所以理应从这个小区消失。 + +从另一个角度来说，这种敌对阵营的设计正巧反映了一些比游戏更加残忍的现实：在很多时候，敌对的双方并不是人类和病毒，而是健康人类和另外一些不幸中招的患者。新冠对任何人而言都是一场无妄之灾，没有人愿意染上病毒，更没有人愿意成为病毒的传播者。然而，在高度紧绷的清零政策下，一个倒霉蛋一旦得了新冠，几乎意味着立刻失去对生活的掌控能力。一个确诊病例有可能累及整栋住宅楼、小区甚至全市。而一旦连累到别人，当事人的姓名、公司、家庭住址和行程轨迹很快就会被曝光，招来潮水般的舆论暴力。 + +这种针对受害者的暴力显然来自不够科学的政策和不够人性化的执行。但人们不能也不敢向政策制定者和执行者表达不满，将怒火全部转移到“不听话”的感染者身上，哪怕这些感染者完全符合各项防疫规定，只是不知道为何染上了病毒，人们也要用放大镜鉴定他们生活中的每一个细节，指出其中的一些行为是“非必要”的，另一些行为则是“不负责任”的，好像只要能够完全避免这些行为，病毒就不会再产生，不会再传播。 + +当人们在网络上讨论疫情时，我经常看到诸如“一颗老鼠屎坏了一锅粥”的说法——人们确信是确诊病例而非对待病例的政策毁掉了他们本来正常的生活。对阳性感染者的污名化在今年上海封控期间达到了高潮，人们为感染者和一些针对感染者的行为创造了具有侮辱性的简称。比如说，阳性感染者一开始被称作“小阳人”，后来又简化为“羊”和“🐑”，且每个环节都有对应的新话：排查小区里的感染者叫“捉羊”，感染者被转运方舱叫“牵羊”，新检测出来的感染者叫“新羊”，以性别和年龄来区分，这些“羊”又可以分为“公羊”“母羊”“老羊”“小羊”……多么荒诞又多么正常，一场防治病毒的运动，最后变成了一群人对另一群人的猎巫。 + +![image6](https://i.imgur.com/szh1uc0.jpg) +▲ 2022年3月27日，上海疫情期间，人们在医院外的核酸检测站附近排队等待检测。摄：Aly Song + +我记得，在疫情刚刚开始全球流行的时候，《瘟疫公司》因为和现实形成强烈映射，一跃成为非常受欢迎的游戏。这款十年前问世的作品突然登上了全球各大游戏排行榜的首位。当时有位朋友跟我说，《瘟疫公司》无论输赢都让人感到乐观，因为它的本质是“人类VS病毒”，所以无论如何都能获得一些乐趣——“赢了，说明玩家水平高，顺便感慨一番生命的脆弱和短暂；输了，说明人类已经有了一套成熟的疾病应对体系，即使面对真正的瘟疫也有获救的信心。” + +从《瘟疫公司》玩家的角度来说，新冠病毒或许是一个不那么聪明的病毒。一开始它造成了相当惨烈的死亡，但随着疫情进入第三个年头，原始毒株几经变化，变成了传染性较强但危害性大大减弱的奥密克戎，它似乎已经在这场战争中输给了人类。但在世界上的一些地方，人类却迟迟没有宣布胜利，甚至在某种程度上将它变成了另外一场战争。 + +真正的敌人到底是谁？真正的敌人还是病毒吗？为我们带来漫长痛苦的，难道是那些为生计出门工作、不小心被传染到的患者？难道是不够认真防范，竟然还想着跟朋友们一起在餐厅吃顿饭的我们？不是，分明不是这样。但我们无力为他人和自己证明。所有问题归结于一个令人担忧的问题：这场疫情真的会过去吗，还是会化作另一种习以为常的制度暴力长久地存在下去？ + +如今，对于生活在这片土地上的许多人来说，最应当恐惧的不再是阳性感染者的存在，而是这个社会对待阳性感染者的方式，早晚有一天会拿来对待我们，哪怕我们没有做错什么事，哪怕我们也是受害者。最应当恐惧的不再是病毒会给我们带来什么危害，而是清零的政策将会为我们社会留下怎样的政治遗产，而这份遗产将会对舆论环境和人性关系产生怎样的影响。 + +《清零》确实用自己的方式为我们留下了一个“特殊时期”的缩影。出于种种非常现实的理由，我并不要求它来承担太过分的表达责任。能做到这样就已经非常不错了。在一个充满了正能量教育的社会，我感谢这款游戏为我们留下了不那么和谐的噪音——用一种轻巧的、游戏的、不那么严肃的方式。 + +![image7](https://i.imgur.com/dI5uH6Y.jpg) +▲ 2022年3月31日，上海进行第二阶段封锁，一名饿了么快递员将一个袋子递给封锁区屏障后的居民。摄：Aly Song + +如果有朝一日我们建造一座疫情博物馆，那么这套桌游就可以被摆放出来，作为一份游戏化的忠实记录，是无数抗疫叙事中较为真诚的一种。我清楚地知道，我从中感受到的苦涩并非来自它本身，而是它所指涉的那个巨大的幽灵——有朝一日，我们可能会战胜疫情，但我们什么时候才能战胜这个社会的真正瘟疫？ + +哦对，我是不是还没有说到结局？在我们那场游戏中，零号病人最后大获全胜，她装成快递员混在我们当中。她隐藏得实在太好，甚至全程几乎没有人怀疑过她…… + +“疫情再一次战胜了我们。” + +游戏结束时，一位玩家唏嘘，大家都笑了起来。 + +这一句总结，终究轻于这片土地上的一切哭声，一切啼笑。 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-those-gone-in-the-past-25-years-in-hong-kong.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-those-gone-in-the-past-25-years-in-hong-kong.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0fe4b4e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-01-those-gone-in-the-past-25-years-in-hong-kong.md @@ -0,0 +1,116 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "25年后，香港所失去的" +author: "林振东" +date : 2022-07-01 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/63iinTZ.jpg +image_caption: "2022年6月25日，香港坪石邨金石楼悬挂大量国旗及区旗" +description: "「这城变得太快，今天忘记了昨天。在一片旗海和花簇中，香港到底失去了什么？」" +--- + +以往七一，香港传统是百花齐放：一边是升旗酒会庆回归，另一边是市民上街表诉求，各自表态，互不耽误。 + +过往两年，这个香港已经消失。港区《国安法》一声落地，“爱国治港者”归位，异议之声不再被容下。 + +今年七一，香港不少地标布满红色旗海，往年七一大游行出发点维园今年布置了巨型国旗和区旗装饰。 + + + +时隔五年，国家主席习近平再次访港，保安极为严密，香港迎来史上最强封路：6月30日下午，港岛中至西、九龙西以致新界东交通均受影响，不时封路和改道，路人和车辆无所适从。港铁会展站全日封闭。 + +今天，一国两制转眼开始第26年。这城变得太快，今天忘记了昨天，明日也将冲刷今日。在一片旗海和花簇中，香港到底失去了什么？ + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/jIo4VdB.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月30日，国家主席习近平乘高铁抵港，凖备出席新一届港府就职宣誓仪式及视察香港，大围一家酒楼电视播放有关新闻片段。 + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/A6kT2lg.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月22日，香港金紫荆广场前有年轻人在拍短片。 + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/pgYDMJK.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月29日，湾仔一条围封铁丝网的天桥，网外有巨型庆回归灯饰。 + +![image04](https://i.imgur.com/AZXbN8w.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月26日，尖东一间酒楼晚宴，窗外有一幅国旗在风中飘扬。 + +![image05](https://i.imgur.com/CxjiLUT.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月14日，有逾70年历史的珍宝海鲜舫，由多艘护航船拖走离开香港仔。 + +![image06](https://i.imgur.com/8SIM8UQ.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月22日，九龙一个建筑工地，旁边桥墩有九龙皇帝的笔迹。 + +![image07](https://i.imgur.com/nSWgFhO.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月28日，黄大仙广场有庆回归装饰，也悬挂国旗及区旗，有市民在场内练习升旗仪式。 + +![image08](https://i.imgur.com/6JImA8e.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月21日，元朗竖立巨型花牌庆回归。 + +![image09](https://i.imgur.com/3M0h9mw.jpg) +▲ 2022年4月20日，尖沙咀一间按摩中心，消毒人员为疫后开店准备。 + +![image10](https://i.imgur.com/jYyouS1.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月15日，中环皇后像广场昃臣爵士铜像，背后则是香港终审法院。 + +![image11](https://i.imgur.com/PJX0CR7.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月23日，深水埗一间棺材房住户正在查看连花清瘟胶囊。 + +![image12](https://i.imgur.com/4fLngqy.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月24日，“鉴往知来─庆祝香港回归25周年大型主题展”在香港会展中心开幕。 + +![image13](https://i.imgur.com/8yJIaVS.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月19日，上水的东江水管。 + +![image14](https://i.imgur.com/f0NcwbK.jpg) +▲ 2022年3月30日，香港国际机场的出境大堂。 + +![image15](https://i.imgur.com/zbJY0Zx.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月19日，候任特首李家超公布新一届特区政府主要官员名单，并全体会见传媒。 + +![image16](https://i.imgur.com/TxbJ0nM.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月28日，荃湾有大量国旗及区旗悬挂庆回归。 + +![image17](https://i.imgur.com/fMAaIrp.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月18日，香港街头的一幅墙上，涂鸦了《苹果日报》标志。 + +![image18](https://i.imgur.com/Sksv6II.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月22日，尖沙咀展出12米长的机动君王暴龙 。 + +![image19](https://i.imgur.com/pPSTU69.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月28日，香港维多利亚公园有巨型国旗与特区区旗的装饰。 + +![image20](https://i.imgur.com/QRuBFJc.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月28日，深水埗一间专售卖皇家香港警察纪念品的店，店前有市民遛狗横过马路。 + +![image21](https://i.imgur.com/MIkRGWM.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月3日晚上，大批身穿防刺背心及护颈的警员在维园足球场，以橙带及铁马围封。 + +![image22](https://i.imgur.com/ehCD3dK.jpg) +▲ 2021年12月14日，罗湖监狱外有骑马人士经过。 + +![image23](https://i.imgur.com/wQW2nSX.jpg) +▲ 2022年5月19日，香港天际100观景台上，游客正俯瞰维港夜景。 + +![image24](https://i.imgur.com/yfdKORu.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月28日，荃湾市民在打篮球。 + +![image25](https://i.imgur.com/Z4rjjCF.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月29日，金钟添马公园有市民举行快闪活动，庆祝回归25周年。 + +![image26](https://i.imgur.com/fxHH86Z.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月29日，湾仔会展一带采取严格的保安措施，不少地方围上了水马。 + +![image27](https://i.imgur.com/fNOR0Ma.jpg) +▲ 2022年7月1日，市民于IFC苹果店透过玻璃窗观看国家主席习近平的车队。 + +![image28](https://i.imgur.com/6aq8MJo.jpg) +▲ 2022年7月1日，香港维多利亚公园庆回归活动于三号风球下暂停。 + +![image29](https://i.imgur.com/6DIdPPe.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月29日，北角皇都戏院正进行复修保育，市民经过其中的建筑围板。 + +![image30](https://i.imgur.com/newygLZ.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月21日，一双情侣在落马州边境遥看深圳。 + +![image31](https://i.imgur.com/EELzvSz.jpg) +▲ 2022年6月29日，金钟添马公园有市民举行快闪唱国歌行动，期间展示巨幅国旗及特区区旗。 + + \ No newline at end of file From 209809fc0e8ebfbc62a176917ec5613f71a65293 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2022 02:08:02 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 08/12] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x12 Jul.08 --- .../2022-06-27-framework-nations-concept.md | 198 ++++++++++++++++++ ...2022-07-06-chicago-rules-to-beat-russia.md | 52 +++++ 2 files changed, 250 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2022-06-27-framework-nations-concept.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2022-07-06-chicago-rules-to-beat-russia.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-27-framework-nations-concept.md b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-27-framework-nations-concept.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e806e3de --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-27-framework-nations-concept.md @@ -0,0 +1,198 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Framework Nations Concept +author: Sean Monaghan and Ed Arnold +date : 2022-06-27 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/1GTpiFI.jpg +#image_caption: +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_In 2014, NATO launched its Framework Nations Concept at the Wales summit to enhance collective defense through multinational cooperation. The idea is built on the basic principles established in NATO’s first strategic concept in 1949._ _There are three ways to develop the Framework Nations Concept:_ + +1. ___Develop the existing frameworks led by the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy.__ Each provides opportunities for the enhanced regional focus and leadership NATO needs. In doing so, several insights from the development of the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force may be useful._ + +2. ___Develop new regional frameworks.__ Initial groups that could be examined include the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Western Balkans, and Central Europe._ + +3. ___Develop new thematic frameworks.__ Initial groups that could be examined include those based on existing Centers of Excellence, cyber, special operations forces, and air and missile defense._ + +_It has been said that “framework nation arrangements were an indispensable component of NATO’s cohesion and successful record of deterrence during the Cold War.” If NATO can improve its existing frameworks and develop new ones — both regional and thematic — while managing the challenges and risks, the framework nations idea may become indispensable once again in NATO’s new era of defense and deterrence._ + +#### Introduction + +The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) leaders gather in Madrid this month to unveil the eighth strategic concept the alliance has adopted since the Washington Treaty was signed in 1949. The Madrid summit comes at a crucial moment in NATO’s history. In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and stated intent to overturn the existing security order in Europe, the alliance has committed to “resetting” its long-term approach. In preparing to endorse their latest vision, its leaders may wish to return to the alliance’s first concept for inspiration. That document set out a series of “defense principles” that endure to this day. One, in particular, stands out: + +> A basic principle of North Atlantic Treaty planning should be that each nation should undertake the task, or tasks, for which it is best suited. Certain nations, because of the geographic location or because of their capabilities, will appropriate specific missions. + +This principle can be seen today throughout NATO’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has deployed elements of the NATO Response Force (NRF), bolstered existing Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) missions, and added four new multinational battlegroups, transforming its presence across Eastern Europe. The nations that host and contribute to these missions do so “because of the geographic location or because of their capabilities” — whether British armor in Estonia, U.S. missile defense in Poland, or French air defense and armored vehicles in Romania. + +![image1](https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/220627_Monaghan%20_Figure1.jpg) +_▲ Figure 1: NATO’s Eastern Flank. Source: [“NATO’s Eastern Flank: Stronger Defense and Deterrence,” NATO HQ, March 21, 2022](https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2022/3/pdf/2203-map-det-def-east.pdf)._ + +Specialization that has bolstered NATO’s reassurance and deterrence efforts in the wake of Russia’s invasion is the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). The JEF is a group of 10 nations including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden and led by the United Kingdom. Due to their common geographical identity, the JEF is focused on security and defense in Northern Europe. In the wake of Russia’s invasion, the JEF has coordinated military activity, held a leaders summit in London attended virtually by President Volodymyr Zelensky, and deployed forces and a military headquarters to the Baltic region for the first time. The JEF is an example of NATO’s Framework Nations Concept (FNC), established at the Wales Summit in 2014 to encourage multinational groups within the alliance to develop deployable capabilities, led by a “framework nation.” + +![image2](https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/220627_Monaghan%20_Figure2.jpg) +_▲ Figure 2: Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). Source: CSIS._ + +Whether through the NRF, EFP, multinational battlegroups, or FNCs such as the JEF, NATO’s response to the new European security environment shows the benefits of pursuing a model where nations undertake the tasks to which they are “best suited.” This paper explores whether NATO should do more beyond Madrid to harness the benefits of one of its founding principles through improving the FNC. It does so in three parts. First, it recaps the genesis of FNCs and their basis in NATO’s history. Second, it analyses the UK-led JEF model in more detail to draw out lessons and insights for developing the FNC. Finally, it looks beyond the JEF to consider the development of other FNCs — both existing and new (regional and thematic). + +#### NATO’s FNC: Back to Basics + +At the Wales summit in 2014, NATO’s leaders endorsed the FNC, which encouraged groups of nations within NATO to come together to “work multinationally for the joint development of forces and capabilities required by the Alliance, facilitated by a framework nation.” Three framework nation groups were established, led by the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy. + +The aim of “framework nations” was to address persistent political and military shortfalls among NATO’s European members. Some of these had been revealed when they struggled to conduct air operations without significant assistance from the United States over Libya in 2011 under Operation Unified Protector. It was also designed to capitalize on the hard-fought experience allies gained operating together under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force framework in Afghanistan. At the time, Anders Fogh-Rasmussen, then NATO secretary general, argued for European NATO nations to increase their “deployable and sustainable capabilities, as well as mustering the political resolve to use them.” + +> #### Regional Specialization + +The thinking behind framework nations harked back to the basic defense principle of regional specialization outlined in NATO’s first strategic concept. When the first strategic concept was endorsed in 1949, this principle was immediately put into action. NATO’s military authorities stood up five Regional Planning Groups (RPGs) to produce local contingency plans for defense against Soviet aggression. + +The five original RPGs were: Western Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Ocean, and Canada-United States. The European RPGs were phased out from 1951, when NATO introduced a new integrated command structure and stood up Allied Command Europe. The Canada-U.S. RPG remained, while the North Atlantic RPG became Allied Command Atlantic. The importance of the regionalized approach was made clear in a 1951 planning memorandum that phased out the RPGs: “The Northern Region has been specifically asked to make plans for operations in the Baltic . . . an essential factor of the sea/land complex of Northern Europe.” These plans would be delegated to the commander-in-chief of Allied Forces Northern Europe, who would take over regional planning. The origins of the FNC can therefore be traced back to NATO’s original RPGs, with the JEF being rooted in the Northern Europe RPG. + +> #### Mutual Coordination + +NATO’s first strategic concept also set out another basic principle of defense planning that the framework nations concept seeks to exploit: + +> The armed forces of those nations so located as to permit mutual support in the event of aggression should be developed on a coordinated basis in order that they can operate most economically and efficiently in accordance with a common strategic plan. + +The purpose of mutual coordination was to achieve “maximum efficiency of their armed forces, with the minimum necessary expenditures.” At the time of NATO’s founding, this was a major concern for the allies for two reasons: economic recovery from the war and the strength of Soviet forces. These two concerns dominated again prior to NATO’s Wales summit in 2014, when the FNC was conceived and endorsed due to ongoing policies of austerity among allies and Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory by force. + +The measures taken in Wales were designed to respond “to the challenges posed by Russia and their strategic implications” by exploiting the efficiencies of mutual coordination. While the 2012 “Smart Defense” was designed to encourage efficiency through joint equipment procurement and capability development, the FNC took this idea further. It adopted a wider view that nations with “regional ties” and long-established traditions of working together could coordinate their training, exercising, interoperability, doctrine, and operational formations. + +Mutual coordination through regional ties enables nations that prefer to work together to formalize and develop those relations under NATO’s umbrella. For example, the idea of the JEF allies being “like-minded” was central to its appeal, with the JEF even described by one defense minister as a “Force of Friends.” + +Framework nations also recognized that not all nations were equal: not every ally was able and willing to take leadership roles. Larger nations capable of doing so could gain practical and reputational benefits by leading coalitions, while smaller nations could benefit from being part of regional formations. As one analyst suggests, FNC “represents probably the most evolved form to date of matching the capabilities and contributions of larger and smaller European Allies.” This did not mean smaller allies contributed less; instead, they did so proportionately to their means, in the spirit of NATO’s basic principles. + +It is true that “applications of framework nation arrangements among the Allies are almost as old as NATO itself.” The development of the JEF and its utility, particularly in recent months, shows the benefits of this approach in practice in NATO’s contemporary environment. + +#### JEF: Putting the FNC into Practice + +The JEF is perhaps the leading example of the FNC in practice. The war in Ukraine has seen the JEF evolve beyond the aims set by NATO leaders in Wales to become a political-military entity in its own right. The JEF’s development since 2014 may therefore provide inspiration for the future of framework nations in NATO beyond Madrid and the next strategic concept. + +The United Kingdom’s intent to form the JEF was originally declared in a 2012 speech by then chief of the defense staff, General Sir David Richards: “The JEF will be of variable size; a framework into which others fit.” It was conceived and “designed to meet our NATO obligations,” based on the experience of Libya, where “Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were able to play a vital role by bringing their regional expertise into the command structure of a NATO operation.” + +The JEF established its own political momentum through a letter of intent signed on the same day as the Wales summit by the original seven members, followed by a formal memorandum of understanding (MOU) in 2015. Leadership of the JEF was cemented as a UK priority in its 2015 defense review as part of the United Kingdom’s policy of becoming “international by design.” + +The first dedicated JEF exercise was held in 2016 and involved 1,600 troops and all seven partner nations. During the sequel, in 2017, Sweden and Finland joined the JEF, increasing the group to nine nations and adding another dimension by bringing non-NATO members into the framework. On June 28, 2018, a new MOU formally declared the JEF able to “deploy over 10,000 personnel from across the nine nations.” Iceland joined in 2021, after which the 10 JEF nations issued a new policy directive “designed to provide the overarching policy framework within which the JEF can evolve as a concept and operate as a force, across a broad spectrum of operational activity.” + +Since becoming operational in 2018, the JEF has conducted a variety of exercises and deployments. In 2019, a JEF maritime task group led by HMS Albion conducted Exercise Baltic Protector in the Baltic Sea, alongside “covert amphibious raids, urban ambushes and counter-mine training” with partner JEF nations. In 2021, the JEF conducted its first operational deployment in the Baltic Sea to reassure allies in the region, with Royal Navy frigates leading vessels from all three Baltic states. JEF nations also took part that year in Exercise Joint Protector in Sweden to exercise and develop their responses to hybrid threats. + +Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the JEF has come to the fore of Europe’s response to Russia in a wider role. The JEF has proven itself as a useful political-military format for its members. In February, JEF leaders met in Sweden (military chiefs) and Belvoir Castle in England (defense ministers), and leaders convened a virtual summit the day after the invasion. On March 15, 18 days into the war, President Zelensky joined another JEF leaders meeting. JEF leaders declared their support for “significant economic and humanitarian support in response to the deteriorating situation in Ukraine and the region,” measures that have been taken “directly, and through multilateral organisations.” + +JEF militaries have also been working together to deliver “a series of integrated military activities across our part of northern Europe — at sea, on land and in the air.” These have included joint maritime patrols between British, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, and Danish ships; exercises with Swedish and Danish fighter aircraft; resupply of the NATO battlegroup in Estonia and freedom of navigation patrols; the Baltic Protector JEF maritime task group led by the HMS Defender; Exercise Hedgehog and combat air patrols in Estonia; arctic operations in Norway; Exercise Mjolner in the Baltic Sea; and tank warfare training on Exercise Arrow in Finland. Most recently, the JEF deployed its standing military headquarters for the first time to Lithuania and Latvia, a deployment that includes “over 220 personnel, from the UK and other JEF nations, including specialists in cyber, space and information operations.” + +> #### What Lessons NATO Can Learn from the JEF + +According to British prime minister Boris Johnson, the JEF has proven itself to be “a very, very useful, dynamic format.” But what lessons can NATO take from the JEF’s development and employment since 2014 to develop the FNC beyond Madrid? The survey above suggests several features that have helped develop the JEF that could be applied by NATO to other FNCs: + +- __Set a clear vision.__ The Wales summit vision for the JEF was clear: “a rapidly deployable force capable of conducting the full spectrum of operations.” This simple vision has guided the development and activities of the JEF through training, exercising, deployment, and policy development. In comparison, the original aims set in Wales for the German-led FNC (to create “a number of multinational projects to address Alliance priority areas across a broad spectrum of capabilities”) and the Italian-led FNC (to “focus on improving a number of Alliance capability areas”) are less focused. + +- __Maintain a regional focus.__ The JEF’s vision and role has also focused on the Northern European area of the High North, North Atlantic, and Baltic Sea region. While the JEF retains the ambition to act further afield if its members so wish, this focus on meeting, first and foremost, the security challenges of Northern Europe provides a natural incentive for its members to cooperate and pursue a cohesive approach and common identity. + +- __Build on existing foundations.__ The JEF also exploits the common political and military-strategic foundations of its members, which are founded on shared operational experience and common values. The political cohesion of JEF nations is a function of the “like-mindedness” of JEF allies, bolstered by common political entities such as the Northern Group and NORDEFCO. The military-strategic lineage of the JEF in NATO’s original Northern European Regional Planning Group — and its successors post-1951 within NATO’s integrated command structure — also contributes to its identity. Another example of the contemporary relevance of these constructs is the recent formation of NATO’s Atlantic Command (located in Norfolk, Virginia), the lineage of which can be traced to the original North Atlantic Ocean RPG, via SACLANT (formed in 1952). In this regard, the three other original RPGs — focused on Western Europe, Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, and the Canada-U.S. region — may provide natural foundations for NATO to develop further FNCs. + +- __Develop a political identity and brand.__ The clear vision, regional focus, and common foundations of the JEF have enabled the formation of a political identity. Although the foundations were already in place, the JEF nations have sought to develop and display their political cohesion through consistent high-level meetings, public statements, letters of intent, MOUs, political directives, and strategic communication campaigns to reinforce the JEF brand (see Figure 3 below). This serves to reinforce the group’s political identify and can have powerful effects. For example, one analyst suggests that the provision of security assurances by the United Kingdom to Finland and Sweden prior to their official announcements to seek NATO membership “could happen quickly, mainly because Helsinki and Stockholm have built trust with London working together in the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force.” + +![image3](https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/220627_Monaghan%20_Figure3.jpg) +_▲ Figure 3: Brand-Building Strategic Communications for JEF. Source: [UK’s Standing Joint Force HQ, Twitter post, May 20, 2022](https://twitter.com/SJFHQ_UK/status/1527577368294051842), and [UK’s Standing Joint Force HQ, Twitter post, May 19, 2022](https://twitter.com/SJFHQ_UK/status/1527319419373776898)._ + +- __Refine the membership.__ The JEF has grown since 2014 from the original 7 members to 10, adding Finland and Sweden in 2017 and Iceland in 2021. New members add strength and capacity in both political and military-strategic terms. The addition of Finland and Sweden also demonstrated in practice how “the JEF is designed with flexibility at its heart” by including non-NATO partners in a NATO-born initiative. However, a balance is required: too many members risks diluting purpose and regional focus and undermining agility and flexibility. + +- __Maintain a constant drumbeat of activity.__ The JEF has delivered a regular program of activity since its inception, ranging from large scale dedicated exercises such as the annual Baltic Protector series to smaller presence and logistics operations conducted under a JEF banner. The main benefit of doing this is to develop the interoperability and readiness of JEF forces to work together in a crisis. Another benefit is to drive development through a continuous cycle of exercising, development, and political direction (JEF national policy directors and ministers also meet regularly). This constant drumbeat of activity, which is called for by the JEF policy direction, is set to continue with new operations and exercises scheduled this year and next. + +- __Set out clear policy direction.__ The JEF published its policy direction in 2021, accompanied by a classified “military JEF Directive that includes clear Military Strategic Objectives.” This follows NATO’s model of publishing its strategic concepts (since 1991) while developing classified detailed military-strategic guidance. The benefit of this model is to raise public awareness of the JEF’s purpose and remit. It also signals to allies and adversaries the commitment and solidarity of the partner nations to an agreed set of principles for the JEF’s development and employment. + +- __Emphasize framework nation leadership.__ For the FNC to work, the framework nation must lead. This responsibility is political as well as operational. The United Kingdom has invested significant political capital and military resources in the JEF since its inception. For example, it hosts the JEF’s deployable headquarters, and the lead force elements on JEF operations and training are usually British. Doing this serves a purpose for the United Kingdom by enhancing its reputation and contributing to the government’s flagship “Global Britain” agenda. But the JEF partner nations also benefit from UK leadership through being part of a viable regional security framework. + +- __Be flexible and relevant.__ As well as flexibility in membership across institutional boundaries, the JEF is also designed to be operationally flexible across “the full spectrum of operations, including high intensity operations.” The plethora of JEF operations conducted in the Baltic region in recent weeks to reassure allies and deter aggression demonstrates relevance. So does the use of the JEF as a political-military forum to coordinate regional responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and support for President Zelensky. The JEF’s ability to evolve with the security environment is even enshrined with its policy direction: “As the security challenges we face evolve, so must we, as JEF Participants, continue to evolve our own capabilities and how we employ them.” One example of this is the JEF’s new focus on “sub-threshold” competition and hybrid threats through adapting its policy, doctrine, and exercising. + +These lessons are used in Figure 4 to assess the progress made by the German and Italian-led FNCs established in 2014. + +![image4](https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/220627_Monaghan%20_Figure4_0.jpg) +_▲ Figure 4: Best Practices for Implementing the FNCs._ + +#### What Next for NATO’s FNC Is + +In response to Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine and renewed threat to NATO and European security, NATO is resetting its defense and deterrence posture. This should include developing the alliance’s FNC beyond the Madrid summit. As two German analysts put it, “the FNC can become the key instrument to shape Europe’s defense structure.” Doing so will require two tasks: making the most of existing FNC initiatives and developing new ones. + +> #### Making the Most of Existing FNCs + +__Germany__ + +The war on Ukraine has already transformed Germany’s defense and security policy. On February 27, German chancellor Olaf Scholz made his now infamous zeitenwende (“turning point”) speech that overturned decades of Germany policy. Its two principal commitments were to establish a €100 billion ($104 billion) special defense fund for immediate investments in military capabilities and to invest more than 2 percent of GDP on defense (from fiscal year 2022–2023). If followed through, these commitments will soon make Germany the largest defense spender in Europe. As German defense and security ambitions increase, so should the ambition and scope of the FNC it leads. + +However, the zeitenwende is not just about spending more on defense. It also requires a cultural shift within the government and the military to successfully transform German defense policy. Indeed, the German government has already found the implementation of the zeitenwende far more difficult than the political decision and statement. Therefore, investing in and developing this FNC can help Germany itself develop as a European security actor alongside allies and partners. As the Bundeswehr’s own white paper stated in 2016: “Germany is willing to assume responsibility and leadership as a framework nation in alliances and partnerships.” + +Germany’s FNC could also be a useful vehicle for addressing some of its allies’ concerns about Germany’s past reluctance to commit forces to multinational operations. Furthermore, it may repair some of the reputational damage for the country’s perceived lack of support for Ukraine and past foreign policy toward Russia. + +Germany’s FNC has a dual focus: (1) to form capability development clusters with a broad remit, including logistics support; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear protection; and deployable headquarters, and (2) to build larger multilateral military formations. The second task that is now the most valuable for the defense of Europe, which is why Germany expanded the FNC in 2015 to include the generation of follow-on forces to bolster NATO’s Readiness Action Plan. Germany also already acts as a framework nation in several European force constructs, including the 1st German-Netherlands Corps, the 11-nation Eurocorps, and NATO’s Multinational Corps North East. + +In terms of the lessons identified from the JEF’s development, Germany’s FNC is doing well in some areas (see Figure 4 below). The membership has grown from 10 to 20, bolstered by the urgency of the task combined with Germany’s leadership role across other multinational constructs. The expansion of the FNC to provide NRF follow-on forces has demonstrated flexibility and relevance. The FNC’s membership and regional focus builds on NATO’s original Western Europe RPG and other regional political groups such as the Central European Defence Cooperation framework. That said, Germany’s FNC seems to lack a clear vision, a political identity and brand, a constant drumbeat of activity, and transparent political direction. Its dual purpose and large membership also threaten to dilute the purpose and identity of the FNC. + +The promise of Germany’s FNC, combined with changes in its defense policy and leadership role, gives it substantial development potential. If its purpose can be streamlined and a clear identity established, the Madrid summit presents an excellent political opportunity for Germany to use its FNC to help fulfil its leadership potential at the heart of NATO and European defense and security writ large. + +__Italy__ + +According to one analysis, the Italian-led FNC “is considerably less ambitious and tangible than that of the other two FNC groups.” Its six members originally focused on stabilization, reconstruction, provision of enablers, and rapidly deployable command structures. In 2018, the group remodeled itself with a new goal to enhance cooperation, interoperability, operational output, collaborative capability development, and the establishment of multinational formations. + +The Italian FNC seems to be less advanced in terms of the JEF lessons (see Figure 4 for more detail). It lacks a clear vision, identity and brand, transparent political direction, and leadership initiatives from Rome. As such, its activity appears sporadic. Unlike the JEF and the German group, this group is yet to increase its membership. That said, the group was “completely renovated through a brand-new overall approach” in 2018. This was “part of a wider process to strengthen the ITA-FNC initiative aimed at consolidating further cohesion.” This renovation should help the Italian FNC build on its regional focus and its common foundations — through NATO’s original Southern Europe and Mediterranean RPG and political groups such as the Defence Cooperation Initiative. + +On the relevance of the Italian FNC, one of its original focus areas — stabilization operations — remains critical to the alliance for three reasons. First, the immediate NATO lessons-learned process for Afghanistan concluded that crisis management should remain a core task. Second, this lessons-learned process was conducted too quickly to gain a full understanding of 20 years of stabilization and reconstruction missions in Afghanistan. Therefore, there remains a rich source of data to fully analyze to develop these lessons, in conjunction with NATO’s Security Force Assistance Centre of Excellence and Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence, and formalize this into standardized NATO doctrine for future operational use. Third, Russian destabilizing activities in Africa, through Wagner Group mercenaries, has fragmented and disrupted European operations within the Sahel. This activity will likely have consequences for the security of Europe, meaning a potentially larger role for NATO. + +#### Establishing New Regional FNCs + +In response to the war in Ukraine, NATO has already doubled its multinational battlegroups from four to eight. These deployments are managed on a framework nation basis. Yet in addition to the defense of Europe and deterrence of Russian aggression, NATO should also address regional security issues to provide “360-degree security.” The Madrid summit is an opportune moment to begin feasibility studies to further develop regional FNCs. + +> #### Black Sea + +The priority for an additional FNC is in the Black Sea region, where Russian domination leads to insecurity. Moreover, the Black Sea has increased in prominence due to its critical role for the Ukrainian economy and global food supply, in addition to upholding the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. With NATO’s Tailored Forward Presence in Bulgaria and Romania already reinforced, there is a gap for a NATO maritime presence in the Black Sea. However, selecting the lead nation for the group may be challenging. + +The United Kingdom has significant interest in the Black Sea and has sent nine Royal Navy missions there since 2017 under Operation Orbital to assist Ukraine. In 2021, HMS Defender was aggressively shadowed by Russian ships while conducting freedom of navigation operations off the coast of Crimea. The United Kingdom has also created Littoral Response Group North to operate across the Euro-Atlantic region. However, considering its JEF leadership role and specialist capabilities that are best suited to Northern Europe, leading an FNC in the Black Sea might overstretch UK capabilities. + +Both France and Turkey would naturally be best placed to lead, if political tensions between the two can be managed following the formation of a bilateral Franco-Greek defense pact in 2021. France, now leading the NATO multinational battlegroup in Romania, could extend its security provision to the Black Sea and leverage its significant naval capabilities. Turkey should be involved due to its geostrategic importance through control of access to the Black Sea. Other contributing nations could be drawn from regular participants in NATOs annual Black Sea Exercise BREEZE. + +> #### Mediterranean + +The Mediterranean Sea, as Europe’s southern flank and linked to the Black Sea, would be the next priority for a regional FNC. France and Italy, who regularly conduct large exercises with the U.S. Navy, including France deploying its Charles de Gaulle carrier task force, would be the most suitable lead nations. Moreover, both have experience operating in the Mediterranean as part of NATO’s Operation Unified Protector against Libya in 2011. Alongside Spain and Greece, both nations have significant security concerns emanating from the south, such as terrorism, organized crime, and illegal migration. Alternatively, NATO could build an enhanced FNC around its extant Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, which also operates within the Black Sea. Security challenges from the south are also shared with the European Union, and the flexibility of FNCs should allow greater interoperability with external structures and capabilities, such as the EU border and coast guard agency FRONTEX. + +> #### Western Balkans + +The Western Balkans continue to be a potential flashpoint for conflict that is vulnerable to Russian influence. The importance of the Balkans remaining stable is underlined by three continuing European missions: NATO’s KFOR in Kosovo since 1999, EUFOR ALTHEA in Bosnia Herzegovina since 2004, and EULEX Kosovo since 2008. Regional, political, and historical sensitivities mean that NATO member states of Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia should have a leading role for any FNC, supported by other European nations with a deep interest in stability in the Balkans, such as the United Kingdom. A Western Balkans FNC could also support accession of countries wishing to join NATO or the European Union, developing interoperability and standardization. + +> #### Central Europe + +The war in Ukraine, especially the European response, has shifted Europe’s center of gravity east toward Europe’s Central and Eastern European (CEE) states, who, alongside the Baltic countries, have provided significant military, diplomatic, and humanitarian support to Ukraine. While the region already hosts political and defense cooperation, such as the Visegrad 4 and Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC), this newfound confidence and influence could be harnessed and developed through an additional FNC. This FNC could be focused on long-term support for, and response to, the Ukraine war and more effectively burden sharing related tasks, such as coordinating humanitarian assistance, training Ukrainian forces on Western-supplied weapon systems, and refugee support. + +#### Establishing New Thematic FNCs + +Closely linked to the idea of regional FNCs is the development of frameworks with thematic specializations. Specialization is not a new concept within NATO or European security but has proved challenging given the tendency of states to avoid relying on others for wholesale capabilities or giving up elements of their own force. FNCs can offer a more flexible approach to specialization that can potentially alleviate political sensitivities. + +> #### Centers of Excellence + +This form of FNC could build on activity already established by NATO-accredited Centers of Excellence (COEs), as well as European centers such as the Hybrid Threats Centre of Excellence Helsinki, which focus on conceptual development, developing best practice, and knowledge sharing and transfer. These FNCs would provide an additional operational and deployable capability to complement COE activity and would be able to enhance initiatives already underway. Moreover, thematic FNCs, overlayed with regional requirements, could unlock new opportunities for collaboration. Specialization and regional requirements can merge. For example, operating in the Arctic requires specialist capabilities and troops who are trained and conditioned to live and fight in extreme environments. For this purpose, it has been argued that NATO might benefit from establishing a dedicated Arctic Command. Here, framework nations could act as a precursor to developing more formalized and institutionalized structures within NATO. + +> #### Cyber + +Cyber is a growth area for the alliance. The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence COE is a hub for cyber to support expertise and cooperation. While all nations will need cyber capabilities, the quality and reach of each nation varies considerably. For example, not all nations have offensive cyber capabilities, especially capabilities that can be effective against state-based threats, or the legal freedoms to use them. Therefore, an FNC formed around the provision of high-end capabilities, which could be led by the United States and United Kingdom given their advanced capabilities in this area, would significantly enhance offensive cyber and collective cyber defense for the alliance. The enhanced capabilities of leading allies could also be used to boost cyber resilience — supporting individual member states who are more at risk of cyberattack, surging specialist capabilities when required, or better managing the response to a significant cyberattack. + +> #### Special Operations Forces + +Special operations forces (SOF) are an area that NATO has heavily invested in during its time commanding the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, where SOF played an important role. NATO Special Operations Headquarters (NSHQ) Special Operations Component Command was declared fully operational at the 2014 Wales summit. Indeed, NSHQ is a pillar of the Connected Forces Initiative, which aims to ensure that allies and partners retain interoperability and collaboration levels from missions in Afghanistan, Libya, and the Balkans. Therefore, NSHQ ensures the benchmarking of SOF across the alliance. The role of framework nations in this area would be to further develop interoperability and integration across the whole range of SOF tasks, especially with conventional multinational formations. This activity is already underway through the Composite Special Operations Component Command between Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands and the Regional Special Operations Component Command between Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Austria. These initiatives could be consolidated and developed into another FNC. + +> #### Air and Missile Defense + +Finally, NATO’s air and missile defense capabilities are critical for the defense and deterrence of Europe but are at risk of capability and capacity shortfalls to meet the threat from Russia. To address these challenges, a framework nation could be established to coordinate air and missile defense efforts to ensure the coherence of ongoing initiatives. Moreover, this FNC could focus on the integration, coverage, and layering of current air and missile defense capabilities to ensure they make the best use of current resources to support each NATO multinational battlegroup. In addition, this framework nation would naturally be best placed to develop future air and missile defense requirements for the alliance to inform the NATO Defense Planning Process. + +Finally, in developing existing and new FNCs, NATO should also manage the risks. While FNCs could be the answer to NATO’s prayers for a more efficient and effective collective defense and deterrence, if they result in “multispeed cooperation” or “coalitions of the willing” inside NATO then FNCs may undermine unity and cohesion at the level of 30 allies. In particular, the FNC led by Germany has grown in scope and membership to the extent it risks becoming a slightly smaller version of NATO-led capability development initiatives and formations, with concurrent risks of double-tapping or duplicating forces and projects. Ultimately, these issues are for the nations to solve through the mechanisms NATO provides, including its defense planning process. As one study puts it: “It is on the member states and allied institutions in Brussels to prevent or at least to moderate such developments.” + +#### Framework Nations: Still Indispensable + +NATO’s FNC is the latest of many alliance initiatives since 1949 to attempt to enhance collective defense through multinational cooperation. It reflects some of the basic principles set out in NATO’s first strategic concept, such as national specialization, mutual coordination, and regional planning. NATO has long navigated the creative tension between top-down orchestration and bottom-up specialization. This trend has continued since the last strategic concept in 2010 through Smart Defense and the FNC. Both initiatives have played their part in improving cooperation and coordination between allies in an era when European defense budgets have both fallen and risen in response to external shocks. + +Defense spending in Europe is now rising rapidly in response to Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine. This does not mean that allies can relax their efforts to cooperate and coordinate their efforts. The scale and seriousness of Russia’s renewed threat to Europe, combined with the precarious global economic situation amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the fallout from Russia’s war of aggression, demands the same emphasis on economic efficiency and credible deterrence that faced NATO’s leaders and military planners in 1949. As today’s officials look beyond NATO’s Madrid summit to implement their new strategic concept, the FNC offers them an indispensable tool to achieve their goals. + +--- + +__Sean Monaghan__ is a visiting fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. + +__Ed Arnold__ is a research fellow for European Security within the International Security Studies department at the Royal United Services Institute. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-06-chicago-rules-to-beat-russia.md b/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-06-chicago-rules-to-beat-russia.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..056b17b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-06-chicago-rules-to-beat-russia.md @@ -0,0 +1,52 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Chicago Rules To Beat Russia +author: Eliot A. Cohen +date : 2022-07-06 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/G5iM3w0.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Why the U.S. adversary is a lot like Al Capone" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Carl von Clausewitz observed in his classic On War that “the maximum use of force is by no means incompatible with the simultaneous use of the intellect.”_ _That means, in part, acting thoughtfully but with the utmost effort, understanding that war is more bar fight than chess game. Or, to put it in the simpler words of Jim Malone, Eliot Ness’s counselor in The Untouchables, “You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! And that’s how you get Capone.”_ + +_Al Capone is an apt analogy for what the West confronts in Russia: a particularly noxious mix of Mafia mentality, hypernationalist ideology, and totalitarian technique. Elegance is not the Russian way, and it cannot be our way. This is the light in which one should measure the accomplishments of NATO’s recent gathering in Madrid._ + +The tangible efforts that Western leaders announced were impressive in many respects, particularly the commitments to provide Ukraine with nearly 500 artillery systems, 600 tanks, hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, and more. The question, as always, is whether these will be delivered as swiftly as they can be absorbed, and whether the United States and its allies are “leading the target” by putting in place now the infrastructure to prepare Ukraine for the weapons it will require and hopefully receive one, two, or six months from now, and for training the large forces it must mobilize. + +> [___Read: More than 100 days of war in Ukraine___](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2022/06/photos-more-than-100-days-of-war-in-ukraine/661217/) + +The United States made some incremental additional commitments of forces to Europe, including two destroyers for a naval base in Spain. The policy declarations were important as well: a decision to expand by an order of magnitude NATO’s high-readiness forces; a formal recognition of the challenge (NATO avoided for now the word threat) posed by China; and an agreement to welcome Finnish and Swedish applications to join the alliance. + +But these moves, beneficial as they may be, only partly meet the needs of the moment. Time and again Ukraine has demonstrated its ability to absorb high-end military hardware and deploy it quickly and effectively. This seems to be the case with HIMARS, the mobile rocket systems that are extremely accurate, and with which Ukrainian forces seem to be already hitting Russian ammunition dumps and military headquarters. Instead of the promised eight, the Ukrainians need 80, and work should be happening now to scale up transfers of these and like weapons as fast as possible. + +What the Biden administration still struggles with is the ultimate purpose of [Western assistance to Ukraine](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/ukraine-western-support-concession-economic-cost/661155/). At his press conference, the president said that the United States and its allies would not “allow Ukraine to be defeated.” That is the wrong objective. It should be, rather, to [ensure Russia’s defeat](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/why-ukraine-must-defeat-putin-russia/629940/) — the thwarting of its aims to conquer yet more of Ukrainian territory, the smashing of its armed forces, and the doing of both in a convincing, public, and, yes, therefore humiliating way. Chicago rules, in other words. + +In the same way, the administration is wrong to titrate arms out of a misguided desire to avoid provoking Russian escalation or enabling the Ukrainians to do too much. The West is in a moment of military-industrial crisis; it should be taking concrete measures to ramp up industrial mobilization, with the goal of equipping Ukraine to the maximum while rearming the expanding forces of a newly awakened NATO. + +Even as Western allies counter [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine](https://www.theatlantic.com/category/russias-invasion-ukraine/), they must also meet the broader and longer-term threat that Russia poses to the eastern members of NATO, particularly the Baltic states. + +The Western allies will not invade Russia, nor will they overthrow its regime directly — one day, hopefully, Russians will do that. Putin is motivated by imperial fantasies of imitating Peter the Great and other, even less savory Russian leaders. And Putin’s successor, should the Russian leader die or become incapacitated while in office, will likely be no better. For evidence of that, one need only consult the ravings of key advisers such as Nikolai Patrushev. If and when the battles cease in Ukraine, Russia’s intentions to expand and subjugate its neighbors will remain. + +The good news here is that if one sets aside misleading memories of World War II and the Cold War, and disregards the ominous mutterings of experts who exaggerated Russian capacity before the war, then it becomes obvious that Russia is a weak state. + +Russia’s GDP is less than that of South Korea. Its leadership is afraid to openly mobilize its middle class, so it refuses to declare war and send young men from Moscow and St. Petersburg to the slaughterhouse that is the Donbas. Its generals are, for the most part, incompetent, which is why purges of them continue. It is scraping the bottom of its manpower barrel and so raises to absurd heights the age level of potential service members. Corruption and indiscipline have rotted out its maintenance and low-level leadership. What it has is Cold War–era stockpiles of weapons and munitions (and those are huge, but finite); some pockets of excellence, for example its railroad units; and utter disregard for human life throughout the chain of command. + +Even so, a mangy, myopic, and rabid bear is still a dangerous beast. That’s why beating Russian forces in Ukraine is not enough. The West must impose upon Russia sanctions intended not, as the current ones are, to punish, but rather to enfeeble (Chicago rules, again). The plummeting of Russian car production is an example of a basic fact, which is that Russian production depends, more than one might think, on access to Western chips, machine tools, and special materials. However the Ukraine war ends, permanently or temporarily, the West needs to settle into a comprehensive sanctions regime that will weaken Russia’s economy in the long haul and throttle its ability to rearm on a large scale when the shooting stops. + +NATO expansion should assist in this process. The alliance will soon in all likelihood have Sweden and Finland as full members. They have real and potential capacity (Finland more the former, Sweden more the latter) and serious political leadership. But a NATO of 32 members will be even more unwieldy than what we now have. + +> [___Read: The accidental Trumpification of NATO___](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/07/nato-europe-america-trump-strategy/661459/) + +The solution — which cannot be publicly declared — is a NATO-within-NATO. Germany, France, and Italy have the largest economies in the European Union and in theory should carry the most weight in European-security decision making as well. But they cannot. Germany, the proverbial Hamlet of nations, is fatally compromised by its unwillingness and inability to make good on military commitments, and its recent sordid past in enabling Russia’s growth and stranglehold on European energy supplies. France is domestically torn, while the overweening vanity of its presidents makes it difficult for them to get a receptive hearing from lesser mortals. Italy, as ever, produces statesmen on occasion, but not statesmanship. + +A nascent coalition of powers is, however, willing to take Russia seriously and has the muscle to thwart her while bringing less resolute European states along. The Eastern European and Baltic states, with Poland in the lead, know Russian tyranny firsthand, and are ready to stand up to it; the Scandinavian states, in particular Finland and Norway, are almost as intent; the English-speaking external powers, including the United Kingdom and Canada, are similarly alive and determined. It is to this core group that American statecraft must look. + +The British chief of the General Staff recently described the Ukraine crisis as a 1937 moment for the West. It was an acute historical comparison. In that year the Sino-Japanese war began, setting the stage for World War II. In that year the West had before it choices that could have avoided the horrors of a far worse conflict, but it ducked. + +To their credit, in the current moment, Western leaders are performing far better than did their counterparts 85 years ago — but not yet well enough. We’re dealing with Capone, and while, like Eliot Ness, we need to stay within the constraints of law and basic decency, we also need to apply Chicago rules. + +--- + +__Eliot A. Cohen__ is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and the Arleigh Burke chair in strategy at CSIS. From 2007 to 2009, he was the Counselor of the Department of State. He is the author most recently of The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force. From 0979e225d877535e34adba7867c700cda606ea26 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 02:25:44 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 09/12] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x12 Jul.14 --- .../2022-06-22-the-it-army-of-ukraine.md | 301 +++++++++++++ .../2022-06-30-strategic-misfortunes.md | 418 ++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 719 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2022-06-22-the-it-army-of-ukraine.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2022-06-30-strategic-misfortunes.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-22-the-it-army-of-ukraine.md b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-22-the-it-army-of-ukraine.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9270ab47 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-22-the-it-army-of-ukraine.md @@ -0,0 +1,301 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : The IT Army Of Ukraine +author: Stefan Soesanto +date : 2022-06-22 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/i6DJqO7.jpg +#image_caption: +description: "Structure, Tasking, and Ecosystem" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_For several years prior to the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, the principal idea of creating a cyber volunteer army had been bouncing around in Ukrainian government circles._ _In part, those discussions were informed by the success of the Estonian Defence League’s Cyber Unit and other efforts around the globe to organize, incorporate, and surge civilian IT volunteers into existing military structures in times of need._ + +In contrast to these well-established and purely defensive cyber volunteering efforts, the IT Army of Ukraine was stood up in an ad-hoc manner without a clearly structured and proven plan. Similarly, the absence of a Ukrainian military cyber command likely also pushed Kyiv to think creatively about how to combine its nascent military and intelligence cyber capabilities with a massive, willing, and global civilian IT community in the defense of the nation. Born out of necessity, the IT Army subsequently evolved into a hybrid construct that is neither civilian nor military, neither public nor private, neither local nor international, and neither lawful nor unlawful. + +As of this writing, the IT Army consists of two parts: (1) a continuous global call to action that mobilizes anyone willing to participate in coordinated DDoS attacks against designated – primarily civilian – Russian infrastructure targets; and (2) an in-house team likely consisting of Ukrainian defense and intelligence personnel that have been experimenting with and conducting evermore complex cyber operations against specific Russian targets. Both parts of the IT Army are purely offensive in nature and serve to bring willing amateurs (civilians) and dedicated professionals (civilian, military, intel) into one – most likely – hierarchically organizational structure. In addition, the IT Army has also given rise to an ecosystem that includes Ukrainian-owned IT companies and individuals located outside of Ukraine, as well as Ukrainians living in Ukraine working for Western companies. This ecosystem has been continuously creating new tools, generating knowhow, identifying new targets, and fulfilling other intelligence support functions to underpin Ukraine’s offensive efforts in cyberspace. + +> #### Who needs a military cyber command when you have the IT Army? + +The IT Army’s structure and gravitational pull has created a myriad of new problem sets for the international community in areas such as the application of international law in cyberspace, the normative behavior of states, the targeting of civilian infrastructure, and the ethical conduct of IT companies headquartered outside Ukraine, to name a few. Many – if not all – of these problem sets have been largely ignored by the academic and information security community, as well as policymakers in both EU and NATO member states. It is unclear why this is the case, but it seems that the political and ideological support for the defense of Ukraine on the one hand, and growing anti-Russian sentiments on the other, have created an environment in which Ukrainian conduct in cyberspace is either willfully ignored, superficially analyzed, or significantly downplayed in terms of its impact and relevance. + +On the DDoS side, the IT Army’s conduct shares a wide array of strategic overlaps with the DDoS campaign against Estonia in May 2007. The 2007 campaign was organized by Russian nationalistic hacktivists via Russian language fora / websites and lasted 22 days. To this day, no clear evidence of Russian government involvement has emerged, and as such the campaign was never officially attributed to the Russian state. As a result, Estonian and Western criticism pivoted to point out that Moscow had taken no meaningful measures to mitigate the DDoS campaign (a violation of its due diligence obligation), and the lack of cooperation with the Estonian investigation was highlighted as proof that the Russian government is shielding – and thereby implicitly supporting – those responsible for the DDoS campaign. Amidst this environment of helplessness, the speaker of the Estonian Parliament Ene Ergma even famously stated that, “when I look at a nuclear explosion, and the explosion that happened in our country in May, I see the same thing”. + +Yet, in contrast to 2007, the IT Army’s DDoS conduct is pretty clear-cut when it comes to attribution, government authority, instructions, direction, and control. It is similarly clear-cut that the IT Army is persistently and indiscriminately targeting Russian civilian infrastructure, including online pharmacies, banks, food delivery services, and retailers. But while Russia has been rightfully vilified for the DDoS attacks in 2007, the IT Army and its Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Federov received two awards at the CYBERSEC European Cybersecurity Forum 2022 in Katowice, Poland, for their “heroic resistance to Russian aggression and protection of the digital borders of the democratic world”. As Federov put it, “this award is first and foremost for the entire cyber community and the volunteers who are now waging the world’s first cyberwar with us”. While there is certainly a difference between DDoS campaigns conducted in peacetime and during times of war, it seems that the West is now throwing overboard the legal and normative interpretations it has championed in cyberspace over the past decade for the sake of politically supporting Ukraine. + +On the in-house side, the IT Army’s conduct has rapidly evolved from mere defacements of Russian websites during the first days of the invasion, to sophisticated espionage campaigns, to the first destructive offensive cyber operation – targeting a civilian video platform – in early May 2022. Currently, it is unclear what kind of cyber operations the in-house team side is going to focus on in the future. But, if the evolutionary trajectory over the past 4 months is any metric to go by, Russian defenders will highly likely face a variety of experimental cyber ops that will try to produce more and more severe impacts and longer lasting effects. Considering this trajectory, it is particularly curious to witness that a group of human rights lawyers recently decided to push the International Criminal Court in The Hague to open the first ever cyberwar crime case against Sandworm – a Russian military intelligence unit that successfully targeted electric utilities in Ukraine and caused short regional blackouts back in 2015-16. + +#### Research Methodology + +The overarching aim of this report is to provide a comprehensive study that will serve as a baseline to understand, assess, and analyze the conduct of the IT Army and the ecosystem that feeds it. + +As such, this report was compiled by using only publicly accessible data. This includes public websites, Twitter posts, media articles, interviews, podcasts, Youtube videos, GoogleDoc forms, as well as hundreds of Telegram channels and chats. At no point during this research endeavor did the author participate in any of the malicious or illegal cyber activities mentioned in this report. + +Joining and reading hundreds of Telegram channels and chats was of particular importance for accessing and contextualizing the detailed information included in this report. For example, Telegram’s search function allows researchers to crawl through every channel they subscribe to and every chat they are a member of. This function was particularly helpful for tracking specific terms, targets, URLs, IPs, and port numbers across multiple Telegram channels and chat: The more channels and chats one has joined, the more visibility one has on the platform. The search function also chronologically displays the search hits which makes tracking information back to their likely origin a lot easier. + +_Please note that joining a Telegram channel or chat does not constitute any formal membership, nor did it impose any obligations – financial, political, or otherwise – on the author._ + +Joining a Telegram channel makes one a subscriber, thus, for example, enabling the option to set up new post alerts. One can also join a Telegram chat – which makes one a member of that chat – and enables the option to write in the chat. While most channels and chats can be viewed without joining, some channels and chats do prevent non-subscribers and non-members from seeing their content. A small number of subscriptions also require the confirmation of a channel administrator. Usually, these are granted within minutes and are only imposed to exercise a limited form of user admission control. In particular, Russian hacking groups are using this process to root out pro-Ukraine users. + +During this research, the author did not post in any of the Telegram channels and chats. Nor did he engage in any private conversations with any Telegram users across the multitudes of channels and chats. The author did talk to several hacking groups on Twitter that have claimed to cooperate with the IT Army. Yet, none of these claims could be confirmed – and subsequently do not appear in this report – due to the IT Army’s unresponsiveness to the author’s email inquiries. + +In terms of the report’s limitations, two items ought to be highlighted. First, the author did not have perfect visibility into all the relevant hacking communities on Telegram, as he was likely not a member of every pertinent Telegram channel and chat. It is thus unclear whether there were any other information flows occurring on Telegram that this report was unable to capture. Second, specific posts in Telegram chats are unlinkable by their very nature, and access to a good number of chats is usually granted through time-limited public invitations. As a result, this report is unable to provide functioning URLs to most of the chats and is unable to provide specific URLs to reference distinct Telegram chat posts. Wherever possible Telegram links are archived using “archive.ph” and non-Telegram links are archived via the Wayback Machine. + + +### Genesis + +The creation of the IT Army of Ukraine (IT-армія україни) begins with Yegor Aushev. Aushev is a well-known Ukrainian IT entrepreneur and the co-founder of three companies that have become increasingly relevant amidst the eight year-long war with Russia – Cyber Unit Tech, Cyber School, and Hacken.io. Sometime between 24 February (the day of the Russian invasion) and 26 February, Aushev pitched the idea of a cyber volunteer army to Mykhailo Federov, Ukraine’s 31-year-young Minister of Digital Transformation. + +Around the same time, Aushev also embarked on assembling a 1,000-men strong Ukrainian cybersecurity volunteer group at the request of a senior Ukrainian Defense Ministry official. Aushev facilitated the latter on Twitter and in various hacking fora by posting a Google Docs application form to gauge an applicant’s skill level and area of expertise. According to Aushev, this group of around 1,000 Ukrainian cybersecurity volunteers would be divided into an offensive and a defensive group. Talking to Reuters on 24 February, Aushev elaborated that the defensive group will be “employed to defend infrastructure such as power plants and water systems,” and the offensive group would help “Ukraine’s military conduct digital espionage operations against invading Russian forces”. As Aushev put it, “we have an army inside our country. ... We need to know what they are doing”. As of this writing, the ratio between these two groups is still unknown. + +Inspired by Aushev’s idea of an army of cyber-volunteers, Federov took to Facebook on 26 February at 9.00 a.m. CET and posted the following message in Ukrainian: “We have a lot of talented Ukrainians in the digital sphere: developers, cyberspecialists, designers, copywriters, marketers, targetologists, etc. We are creating an IT army. All operational tasks will be presented in the telegram channel: t.me/itarmyofurraine. There will be tasks for everyone”. Federov posted the same message in Ukrainian on his verified 170,000 subscriber strong Telegram channel. And at 7.38 p.m. CET his verified Twitter account tweeted in English that: “We are creating an IT army. We need digital talents. All operational tasks will be given here: t.me/itarmyofurraine”. + +Western media coverage on the birth of the IT Army has almost exclusively focused on Federov’s Twitter post – because it was written in English – and ignored his Facebook and Telegram ones. But there are curious differences between these three posts. First, Federov’s target audience on Twitter was clearly international, while on Facebook and Telegram it was primarily aimed at Ukrainians. Second, in his Facebook and Telegram posts Federov was very precise about the exact talent the IT Army sought. And third, in all three messages Federov misspelled “ukraine” – but only his Telegram post was later corrected. Funnily enough, because of this mishap, there is only one post in the “itarmyofurraine” channel which redirects users to the official and correct “itarmyukraine2022” channel. Curiously, someone also decided to open up a Telegram channel on the same day, named “itarmyofuraine” (one “r,” missing “k”), which currently has around 11,500 subscribers and reposts some of the content from the official channel. Probably most crucial, western media outlets missed a post by the official Telegram channel of the Ministry of Digital Transformation on 26 February at 6.48 p.m. CET. Its content was almost identical to Federov’s recruitment message, except the Ministry added one crucial sentence: “we urge you to use any vector of cyber and DDoS attacks on Russian resources”. This call to arms echoed the first ever post in the official IT Army Telegram channel, which proclaimed two hours earlier: “Task # 1 We encourage you to use any vectors of cyber and DDoS attacks on these resources”. The post then listed 31 Russian banks, businesses, and government websites. + +As of this writing it is unknown what exactly sparked the internal shift away from assembling developers, designers, and copywriters toward the IT Army’s almost sole focus on DDoS attacks. One likely explanation is that the specific Ukrainian talent that Federov outlined in his post was in the end funneled into a group called “StandForUkraine”. StandForUkraine was stood up by Roman Zakharov, a 37-year-old Ukrainian IT executive. The group currently consists of around 1,300 “software engineers, marketing managers, graphic designers and online ad buyers” that are fighting on Ukraine’s information warfare front. The group is trying to mobilize non-Ukrainians and the international community against the Russian invasion and is spreading Ukrainian war propaganda across Western media outlets and social media platforms. The group has also successfully pushed Western companies out of Russia. StandForUkraine has its own website, but in contrast to the IT Army, it is only using invite-only private chats on the messaging app Signal to communicate and organize. Future CSS research mights take a deep dive into the StandForUkraine ecosystem. + +For the IT Army, it is important to stress that Federov is very active on Telegram but has only posted on Twitter 500 times or so since November 2020. Yet, even on Telegram, Federov rarely talks about the IT Army. Between 26 February and 20 April, he only forwarded 18 messages from the official IT Army channel. For a minister who created this digital army of volunteers, Federov seems rather disinterested in it. Instead, most of his Telegram posts gravitate toward his efforts to push Western companies out of Russia, fundraise for humanitarian projects and the Ukrainian armed forces, and inform citizens about the latest work of his Ministry. + +One might assume the website of the Ministry of Digital Transformation would prominently display its connection to the IT Army and cover its ongoing activities in some way, shape, or form.18 And one would be wrong. As of this writing, there is not a single news item on the Ministry’s website that talks about the IT Army. Similarly, the Ministry’s official Telegram channel has mentioned the IT Army a mere ten times and forwarded just four posts from the official IT Army channel between 26 February and 20 April. Possibly spurred by the lack of consistent coverage, the Ministry’s Telegram channel announced on 18 April that moving forward, on every Monday it will talk about the victories of the IT Army. Notably, on 23 May, the Ministry summarized that “since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the IT army has attacked about 2,000 Russian resources”. + +Curiously, the Ministry did mention the IT Army and its Telegram channel in two news items on kmu.gov.ua – the official web portal of the Ukrainian government – more than two weeks after Federov’s recruitment call. A news item on 10 March briefly acknowledged the existence of the IT Army, while the 12 March post prominently headlined, “the Ministry of Digital Transformation has created 3 services to fight the occupiers on the digital front”: The IT Army, the Internet Forces of Ukraine, and the e-Enemy app “еВорог”. + +The uneven and rather bumpy IT Army coverage by the Ministry of Digital Transformation in the first two months after the invastion might be an outcome of the diffuse and still evolving organizational structure of the IT Army itself. + +#### How many members does the IT Army have? + +Public reporting has put the number of IT Army members at around 300,000, which is derived from the number of subscribers to the official IT Army Telegram channel. According to TGStat, a platform that provides analytics for Telegram channels and chats, the IT Army’s Telegram channel reached its highest subscriber count on 26 March with 307,165.24 From thereon out, the numbers have continuously trended downward, leading to a cumulative loss of 47,940 subscribers over the following eight weeks (15.6%). On 10 June, the IT Army subscriber count stood at 259,225. + +While it is unknown why exactly the channel has been losing so many followers so quickly, the likeliest explanation is probably a combination of (1) the loss of novelty over time, (2) boredom due to repetitive tasking, and (3) the ongoing kinetic war itself, which remains largely unaffected by the IT Army’s DDoS activities due to the focus on targeting Russian civilian infrastructure. + +To contextualize the IT Army’s subscriber number it is useful to know that Telegram offers two platform types: (a) channels in which only the channel administrator’s messages appear, and users can comment if that function is enbled. And (b) chats where users can actually have somewhat of a dialogue with multiple members. + +In the IT Army’s Telegram channel – which is literally open to anyone – there is little to no in-depth operational discussion taking place. The IT Army also has an official Telegram chat, yet its number stands at a mere 3,200 members. Discussion in the chat primarily gravitates toward helping other members solve their technical problems, and occasionally highlighting new potential Russian targets that are worth DDoSing. + +So, how many members does the IT Army really have? Nobody actually knows, not even the IT Army itself. What the IT Army does know – or more precisely put – what the IT Army’s coordination team and Telegram channel administrators know, is the exact number of people that have directly approached them to offer their skills and time via the IT Army’s Gmail account and Google Docs contact forms. As of this writing, that number has not been publicly disclosed. + + +### Targeting Flow and Coordination + +What we do know is that the IT Army’s Telegram channel is just one component within the IT Army’s organizational structure – essentially serving as a sort of megaphone to circulate DDoS targeting information. In an interview with Ukrainian outlet Media Sapiens in late March, Mstislav Banik, the Head of the Electronic Services Development at the Ministry of Digital Transformation explained that “all tasks are formed by channel curators, who distribute them in the channel for volunteers. Anyone can subscribe to the project’s telegram channel and receive assignments”. With the aid of a few practical examples the following paragraphs will explain how the visible part of this targeting flow works in practice. + +#### Simple Tasking + +The first example is on “simple tasking”. Here, the exact same targeting information the IT Army channel publishes is circulated in numerous other channels and chats. On 18 March at 3.50 p.m. CET, the IT Army channel posted the URL of vesti95.ru, one of vesti95’s IPs, and four ports. Vesti95 is the official newspaper published by the Ministry of the Chechen Republic for National Policy, External Relations, Press and Information. A mere three minutes later the same information appeared in a chat named “DDoS Joint Group” (around 1,900 members). 20 minutes after that, it was published in the “Hacker Forces” channel (around 1,100 subscribers), which is the official channel of Hacken.io’s volunteer cyber army. Hacker Forces kindly credited the source of the information by explaining that, “here is a new task from itarmyofukraine2022. Are you in?” At 5.39 p.m., a channel called “Studentcyberarmy” (around 900 subscribers) posted the exact same information with no credit to the IT Army, and literally within the same minute that information was forwarded in the “CyberFire” chat (around 5,500 members). At 7.00 p.m., a channel belonging to “Cyber Palyanitsa” (around 700 subscribers) posted the same targeting details with no credit given. And at 7.59 p.m. CET, the information popped up on the “disBalancer Ukraine” channel (around 5,500 members), which is the Ukrainian channel of Hacken.io’s disBalancer DDoS tool. On 20 March at 4.16 p.m. CET, the “disBalancer English” channel (around 13,500 members) posted the url of vesti.ru under the header of “Websites [that] were under attack on 18 March 2022”. One hour later that post was forwarded in the Hacker Forces channel. As this example shows, Hacken.io is deeply entrenched in the information flow coming out of the IT Army channel. This should not come as a surprise, given that Aushev was the co-founder of Hacken.io. But the relationship between the IT Army and Hacken.io runs much deeper than that – more on this later. + +#### Target Enrichment + +The second example is on what is best described as “target enrichment.” Here, the targeting information posted by the IT Army channel is only circulated when it is further enriched with more IPs and ports. On 14 March at 9.11 a.m. CET, the IT Army channel posted the url of asna.ru and one of its IPs. Asna represents a network of more than 10,000 pharmacies in Russia and its website functions as a nationwide online pharmacy. The IT Army’s targeting information was only re-published in the DDoS Joint Group chat and a channel called “KiberBull” (around 7,800 subscribers), but no other channel or chat visible to me. That calculus changed eight days later when on 22 March at 10.38 a.m. CET, the Studentcyberarmy announced, “Good morning, today we start our day on the cyber front with a store in the pharmaceutical industry, namely ASNA! We are attacking until 13:00!” Included in the post was the IP mentioned by the IT Army, two additional target IPs, and six ports – two for each of the three IPs. One minute later that post was forwarded to the CyberFire chat and the “DDoS Attack Cyber Cossacks” chat (around 25,800 members). At 10.51 a.m. CET the “Cyber Cerber” chat (around 600 members) posted the exact same targeting information with no credit given, and at 11.35 a.m. the “DDoS Attack Cyber Cossacks” channel (around 69,800 subscribers) tasked its DDoS teams one and four to hit the three Asna IPs. Each Cyber Cossacks DDoS team has about 1,000 dedicated members who are highly active and coordinate their activities in their own separate chats. On the next day at 12.08 p.m. CET, Cyber Palyanitsa posted the same targeting information again. Nine minutes later it appeared in the Cyber Cerber chat, and eight minutes after that it was reposted in a channel called “Anonymous-Ukraine” (around 1,900 subscribers). At exactly 12.29 p.m. CET, the Studentcyberarmy made a new post with the same Asna targeting information, which was immediately forwarded in the CyberFire chat. Seven minutes later, the DDoS Attack Cyber Cossacks channel posted the commands to pull the latest docker image to update the target information for asna.ru. Notably absent in the entire information exchange was Hacken.io. + +#### External Clustering + +The third example is “external clustering”, which is when the targeting information fails to circulate widely and only survives in a small cluster of channels and chats. On 28 February and 3 March, the URL of mvideo.ru was mentioned in the disBalancer Ukraine chat and the CyberFire chat. Mvideo is one the largest consumer electronics chains in Russia. The call to target mvideo was not picked up by anyone until two weeks later when Cyber Palyanitsa posted 3 of mvideo’s IPs and 18 different ports at 9.19 p.m. CET. Eleven minutes later the Studentcyberarmy posted the exact same targeting information, and literally within the same minute the post was forwarded in the CyberFire chat. At 10.21 p.m., Cyber Cerber picked up the information as well. On 7 May, the IT Army finally picked up mvideo as a DDoS target with one IP overlapping from the previously shared target information. A group known as Ukrainian Reaper posted the commands to update Multiddos via docker and MHDDoS via Python. + +_Note:_ Multiddos is a DDoS script that is exclusively being used by Ukrainian Reaper. It combines three tools: auto_mhddos developed by Ukrainian Reaper, db1000n, and UA Cyber Shield. The latter two will be discussed in the next section. + +#### Ad Hoc Prioritization + +The fourth example is on what might be adequately termed “ad hoc prioritization”. Here, bits and pieces of targeting information pop up now and then in various channels and chats but are only consolidated at a much later point in time when the target is designated high priority by the IT Army. Between February 28 and March 4, the targeting of qiwi.com was widely discussed in the IT Army chat, the CyberFire chat, and the two disBalancer chats. QIWI is a popular Russia payment service provider that also serves the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Multiple users on Telegram asked why QIWI was not being announced as a DDoS target. One user for example quipped that QIWI should not be targeted because there needs to be at least one path to send money from Russia to Ukraine. Others were simply stating that they were now DDoSing QIWI individually. + +The dynamics changed on 4 March, when QIWI released a press statement noting that “U.S. and EU sanctions targeting Russia have had no immediate material impact on QIWI’s operations. Neither QIWI nor any of its subsidiaries is specifically targeted by the new sanctions enacted as a result of the Russian military operations in Ukraine”. On the same day, the “DDoS Attack Cyber Cossacks” channel (around 69,800 subscribers) announced the targeting of QIWI and published one IP and two ports. A few hours later the target was changed to a different QIWI IP in a post explaining, “let’s try with more people, start 9:23, attack to the point until I give a new goal”. The discussion on targeting QIWI kept on going for the next 25 days, with different channels and chats publishing other QIWI IPs and running their own DDOS attacks. Then on 29 March, the IT Army channel surprisingly announced that “we have a need to attack QIWI now”. The post covered 15 QIWI IPs and ports, including all those that were previously circulated in different channels and chats. For whatever reason, on that very day, the IT Army decided to designate QIWI a high priority DDoS target that needed to be taken down immediately. + +Notably, ad hoc prioritization was also at play when EGAIS was targeted by the IT Army in early May 2022. EGAIS is the Russian government’s unified state automated alcohol accounting information system, which is the centralized systems that certifies and taxes every bottle of alcohol, vodka, and wine produced in Russia. Back in early April 2022, one user in the IT Army’s chat brought up EGAIS three times as being a good DDoS target. As the user himself explained on 4 April, “believe me, this goal is quite serious because it causes reputational damage. This portal belongs to the state and shops and distributors must confirm exactly according to the law of the Russian Federation to wait for documents in this portal”. On 2 May at 8.00 a.m., EGAIS was picked up as a target by the DDoS Attack Cyber Cossacks. And at 8.55 a.m. the IT Army channel announced that “today’s target was received from one of our subscribers. EGAIS is a Russian federal state-owned automatic system for tracking the production and distribution of alcoholic beverages in the country. If this system is down, the official turnover of liquor and spirits in Russia will be blocked!” + +According to Russian media outlet Vedomosti, “producers and distributors of alcohol for the first May holidays could not ship products to their customers due to a large-scale failure in the operation of [EGAIS].” Between 2 May and 12 May, the IT Army designated EGAIS a high priority target. On 7 May for example, the IT Army channel noted that “today, online shopping Russia will be cancelled ;) And don’t forget to keep ‘EGAIS’”. Similarly on 8 May, the channel explained, “we have a tradition to combat Russian propaganda on Sunday. Let’s stick to it. Additionally, we’d like to keep a firm grip on ‘EGAIS’ because due to your help, there is an ongoing flow of complaints about this service”. + +According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, “as of May 2022, over 65,000 ‘sofa hackers’ from the USA, Turkey, Georgia, and EU countries regularly took part in coordinated DDoS attacks on [Russia’s] critical information infrastructure”. + +#### IT Army Coordination Document + +Now that we have a sense of how the visible sharing of DDoS targeting information works on Telegram, let us take a look at the publicly accessible IT Army coordination document which is hosted on Google Docs and shared by the official IT Army Telegram bot. For this write-up the most recent version was accessed on 30 March. + +The coordination document is sporadically being updated by the IT Army and includes information on the priorities of DDoS targets. It also roughly tracks which websites are down or need to be re-engaged, and it serves as a resource to several DDoS tooling instructions as a guide for newcomers. On the DDoS target prioritization part, the document shows that the IT Army only had two priority designations at the time. Russian online banking services like Sberbank and payment processors such as Mirconnect were designated priority tier one. Online tellers like cse.ru were deemed priority tier two. Notably, as of this writing, QIWI was still absent from the priority list, yet it did appear under a separate tab called “find_ip_port”, with no IP and ports yet scribbled in, illustrating the ad hoc nature of the IT Army targeting QIWI. Interestingly, the document also had a tab called “IP&Port”, which on 30 March only included the URLs, IPs, and ports of six Russian Ministries. Those targets were published by the IT Army channel on 30 March at 1.48 p.m. CET. Apart from these six targets there are no other IPs and ports listed in the entire coordination document. + +Overall, the IT Army has been primarily utilizing the coordination document as an introductory guide to newcomers which is why it included two DDoS attack level categories: “attack: simple level” and “attack: advanced level”. + +The simple level lists four DDoS sites. Users load these websites in their browser, then a script on the website continuously sends requests to a pre-set list of designated targets. Some DDoS websites display which sites they are targeting while others do not. Probably the most popular DDoS attack website listed in the IT Army’s coordination document is playforukraine.org. The website was developed by members of the Lviv IT cluster and gamifies DDoS attacks by engaging users with the popular numerical puzzle game 2048. Playforukraine stands apart from other DDoS websites for four reasons: (a) it was launched on 28 February, only four days after the Russian invasion started;(b) it claims to be verified by the Ukrainian Cyberpolice; (c) it was promoted on the official Lviv Regional Administration website; and (d) it has been officially endorsed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation and even the Ukrainian Parliament. + +Speaking to FastCompany, the developers explained that “one user can send 20,000 server requests in one hour of gameplay”. On 3 March, playforukraine tweeted that “123k players performed 153 bln attacks”. Playforukraine does not reveal which sites it is targeting, but the occasional screenshot posted on their Twitter account shows web check results for dominopizza.ru, alfabank.ru, and gazprom.ru. As with all other attack vectors, playforukraine notes on its website that “before starting the game, turn on the [Virtual Private Network] if you play from the territory of Ukraine”. This essentially means that users using VPNs route their traffic through a server located outside Ukraine – most notably EU and NATO member states – to DDoS Russian sites. The reasons for doing this are manifold, with the primary one being that Russia companies have blacklisted Ukrainian IPs. + +When it comes to the advanced level DDoS attacks, the IT Army’s coordination document is rather outdated, as it includes step-by-step manuals that were drawn up back in late February. These include instructions such as utilizing free trial periods for virtual servers in the cloud – offered by AWS, Google, and Microsoft – to install DDoS attack tools. Other instructions cover a handful of GitHub repositories to set up dockers and “stress testers/DDoS testing tools”, including GoldenEye and Slowloris which are pretty old school. GoldenEye’s initial releases was back in 2012 and Slowloris three years before that. + +A site called ddosukraine.com.ua has communicated a clearer understanding of what the IT Army means by advanced level attacks. Initially it was unknown who set-up the site, but in March the official IT Army channel bot started to recommend the site every 15 minutes in the IT Army Telegram chat. The website also linked exclusively to the IT Army channel and refresheed every 15 minutes to show the latest targeting information published by the IT Army. + +Under the section on “powerful tools”, one set of instructions details how to set up a virtual machine to run “Death by 1000 needles” (db1000n). Db1000n is a GitHub repository authored by Arriven aka. Bohdan Ivashko, a senior software engineer working out of Kyiv for Palo Alto-headquartered US-headquartered computer network security company Cyberhaven. Db1000n is special to the degree that (a) it was uploaded onto GitHub on 26 February in direct response to the Russian invasion, (b) its official manual notes that “this is an instruction manual for those who want to provide their computers to the centralized management of the Ukrainian IT Army”, (c) it is mentioned more than 680 times in the IT Army chat, and (d) it serves as a foundation for several git clones that are IT Army inspired. + +For example, the instructions for db1000n on the ddosukraine.com site linked to a Google Drive folder with a docx file that read: “My name is Igor, I’m an IT specialist from Lviv. At first, I came across a channel in the Telegram ‘IT Army of Ukraine’. There I learned that there is a ready-made program ‘Death by 1000 needles’, created to bring down the sites of Mordor, as well as that it needs to run via VPN. Working for a week, I assembled a virtual shell machine for Death by 1000 needles. My shell turned out to be quite successful, so I decided to share it with others”. + +In early April, the ddosukraine.com.ua site moved to the new domain itarmy.com.ua. The official IT Army bot has been promoting the site ever since, and the IT Army channel has endorsed it as the official IT Army of Ukraine website. Probably the most intriguing change that was introduced on the new site was an announcement on 5 April that stated “very important! For an effective attack, we must all strike at the same targets and keep them in that position for as long as necessary. Therefore, we ask you not to join in the chats and not to launch independent attacks on other targets”. + +#### GitHub Repositories + +As of this writing, the number one GitHub repository discussed in the IT Army chat – with around 1070 mentions – is called MHDDoS. MHDDoS is not in any way affiliated with the IT Army and its author explicitly notes in the repository’s readme, “Please Don’t Attack websites without the owner’s consent”. The most shared MHDDoS clone in the IT Army chat is called MHDDoS_proxy authored by a user named porthole-ascend-cinnamon. In the GitHub repository readme file, porthole-ascend-cinnamon links to an unofficially guide called “DDoS-for-all”, authored by a user named SlavaUkraineSince1991. It did not come as a surprise that the examples SlavaUkraineSince1991 used in his guide were ria.ru and tass.ru. What did come as a surprise was that the guide linked to three different Telegram channels with none of them being the IT Army: “DDOS Tutorial for all” (around 5,800 subscribers), “KiberBull” (around 7,700 subscribers), and “Ukrainian Reaper” (around 4,800 subscribers). + +Looking at the three channels in question, a few things stick out. All three occasionally pick up targets that are announced by the IT Army channel. KiberBull for example, was the only channel visible to me that re-posted the target information for asna.ru on 14 March. By contrast, Ukrainian Reaper officially stated on 1 March that they are sourcing their targets from the IT Army channel and a Telegram channel called “ddoskotyky” (around 20,100 subscribers). In some instances, DDOS Tutorial for all and Kiberbull decided to help the IT Army finish off their targets, as was the case on 19 March when the IT Army announced the targeting of tutu.ru, Russia’s largest rail and flight ticket booking service. DDOS Tutorial for all explained that “we help IT Army of Ukraine to finish tutu.ru”, and KiberBull equally posted that “we will help IT-Army to put [out] one of the largest ticket booking services [tuttu.ru]”. Overall, however, these three channels do not seem to act as one coherent group, except for one oddity: DDOS Tutorial for all does occasionally support KiberBull and Ukrainian Reaper in their individual DDoS campaigns that are not IT Army designated targets. + +Should these three groups be considered part of the IT Army? Yes and no. On the one hand, they do occasionally participate in the IT Army’s DDoS campaigns. On the other hand, the IT Army itself explained in a Telegram post on 4 April: “there are quite a few channels that conduct DDoS attacks on hostile services with us. Each community has a database of tutorials, as well as a sufficient number of involved participants. It is important to understand that each community is independent and chooses priority goals for itself. But we all communicate with each other and quite often they support us in attacks on our targets. We want to thank our subscribers and the following communities for their active position and help in the fight against the enemy in cyberspace”. Among the communities listed are Ukrainian Reaper and KiberBull, but also Cyber Palyanitsa, Studentcybergroup, DDoS Attack Cyber Cossacks, Anonymous-Ukraine, DDoS joint group, and UA Cyber Shield – which we are going to look at next. + +Sidenote: Cyber Palyanitsa echoes the IT Army’s sentiment. On its website it lists several coordinating groups stating “Choose your legion. Each of our groups has both common and individual tasks, join and help Ukraine with us!” + +The third GitHub repository that has been popping-up in various Telegram channels is called UA Cyber Shield or uashield for short. Uashield is a DDoS tool that was uploaded onto GitHub on 28 February. It is a project by a group that calls itself the “Volunteer cyber defense of Ukraine”. Uashield stands out because of four oddities: (a) on the group’s website – help-ukraine-win.super.site – they display an official Ukrainian government logo with the note, “supported by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine”; (b) in its GitHub readme they explain that “ALERT!!! We are not supporting unlawful active attacks or malware campaigns that are causing technical harms. Use only for educational purposes. You can only try this platform on your own website!”; (c) they are the only DDoS tool I am aware of whose instructions have been translated into 11 different languages, including Korean and Portuguese; and (d) on 31 March, the official uashield Telegram channel stated that “starting from the current version UA Cyber SHIELD supports all attack types used by the IT Army of Ukraine: HTTP / HTTPS / UDP”. Four days later, uashield officially announced that “we are working together with the IT ARMY of Ukraine”. + +Notably, with uashield running on almost all operating systems – including mobile OS – combined with its prominent attack counter user interface, it has almost naturally attracted the attention of many young non-technical users who in turn have posted several videos of their own uashield use on TikTok. + +The fourth GitHub repo is called disBalancer. DisBalancer was designed by a team of cybersecurity and cryptocurrency enthusiasts and was launched under the umbrella of the Hacken Foundation on 2 March 2021. It markets itself as a web3 decentralized DDoS protection network. Essentially, users anywhere can install disBalancer and become members (or farmers as they are called) in a de-centralized network by renting out unused bandwidth and storage space. In return they are rewarded with DDoS tokens that can be bought and sold on most cryptocurrency exchange platforms. As disBalancer explains it: “It works similarly to a blockchain mining pool by setting up a computer node to perform the required operations and receive traffic”. Businesses that are interested in implementing disBalancer as a DDoS protection solution simply have to add their network nodes to the DNS records and “all traffic starts circulating behind the nearest ones available. Each node can then redirect traffic to others nearby to increase capacity as required”. At its core, disBalancer was inherently conceptualized as a defensive tool to offload incoming DDoS traffic. As the team itself explains, “we strive to defend companies with servers and services on the Internet against DDoS attacks. Our network will act as a warrantor, sharing unused computer power and bandwidth with companies that need these resources. Thereby we will make the world a safer place and change the meaning of DDoS to the good side”. So far so good. + + +### Hacken, Liberator, and Hackenproof + +The problem for Estonia-headquartered Hacken.io started on 4 March when the disBalancer team launched a DDoS attack tool called the Liberator. Liberator was developed in reaction to the Russian invasion with the overarching goal of “helping liberate Ukraine” by DDoSing “Russian propaganda websites and sources that contribute to the Russian invasion of Ukraine”. The disbalancer team essentially switched from DDoS defense to DDoS offense by explaining, “don’t ask us how legal DDoS attacks on Russian propaganda sites are. Our cities are bombarded where children and civilians die. We are acting in coordination with the Ministry of Digital Transformation that initiated the Ukrainian Cyber Army invention [IT Army] to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine”. By tapping into the community disBalancer had built over the past year, users across the globe who previously ran the disBalancer DDoS protection tool now heeded the call and installed Liberator for offensive purposes. For good measure, disBalancer also reminded their followers that, “if you think that this does not concern you or disagree with our participation in fighting against Russian aggression, just leave us forever. Indifference is no less a crime when it comes to other people’s lives”. As of this writing, disBalancer claims that Liberator was downloaded 100,000+ times, and between 3,000-6,000 users are running the application at any given point in time. If this were not enough to convince people to participate, the disBalancer website notes that (a) “we guarantee [the] safety of your computer and data. It’s legal and white methods” and that (b) “by buying DDOS tokens, anybody can help us to scale the app infrastructure and purchase more servers”. This means that the DDoS tokens that users could farm by being part of disBalancer’s de-centralized DDoS protection network are now being used as a financial resource to build out Liberator’s DDoS attack infrastructure. If by this point users were still unsure whether installing Liberator was a good idea, the disBalancer website reassured them under the Ukrainian coat of arms that “we’re acting in coordination with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine”. + +So how tightly is disBalancer interwoven with Hacken and the Ministry of Digital Transformation? Well, the disBalancer team leaders are prominently displayed on their website. They include Serhii Dovhopolyi, who works as tech lead and is also on Hacken’s Kyiv-based R&D team. + +Oleksandr Horlan is operations lead, and he also works for Hacken in Kyiv as a penetration tester and security analyst. Dyma Budorin serves as advisor and is also the Cofounder and CEO of Hacken. Finally, Denis Ivanov is an advisor and also the Head of the Expert Group at the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The disBalancer website’s privacy notice similarly explains that “we are Hacken OÜ, located at Kai tn 1-5M, Tallinn city, Harju county, 10111, Estonia”. This is the physical address of Hacken’s headquarter in Estonia, a NATO and EU member state. + +Interestingly, on 10 March, Politico reported that some 50 employees of Hacken’s Kyiv office were relocated to Spain, another NATO/EU member state, for security reasons. Eighteen days later, the IT Army channel officially promoted disBalancer’s Liberator to its then-306,000 subscribers for the first time. + +On 20 April, disBalancer went on to publish its first recruitment video on Youtube. The video’s message stated: “instruction is clear even for a little baby. The most effective DDoS-App against Russian Aggressor. ... Run attacks 24/7 wherever you are. We are the Cyber Army. Join Ukrainian Cyber Army in the first cyber world war. You can become a legend”. Eight days later, a US-based Youtube cryptocurrency influencer by the name of Boxmining published an 8-minute-long video urging his 268,000 subscribers to install Liberator to DDoS Russian sites. Boxmining is not just a random Youtube influencer. He visited Hacken’s Kyiv office in 2020, and in 2021 he interviewed Hacken’s CEO Dyma Burodin on his Youtube channel. Naturally, the video was warmly embraced by disBalancer and the Hacken Forces Telegram channel, as well as on Hacken’s Twitter account, which tweeted “how to defend Ukraine with ONE app? Run @thedisbalancer’s Liberator! @boxmining, a famous crypto influencer and Hacken’s friend, dropped a new video on his Youtube channel with an easy explanation”. + +Neither Hacken nor Boxmining informed their (mostly young) userbase about the potential legal consequences and blowback from running DDoS and interfering in an international armed conflict. In the US, DDoS attacks may be considered a federal crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. And in Estonia – where Hacken’s headquarter is physically located – DDoS attacks may fulfill the category of computer sabotage, which is punishable by up to 3 years in prison. Notably, back in early April 2022, Russia’s FSB detained a system administrator working for a local company in Yalta, Crimea, who installed a DDoS tool on his work computer to run attacks against Russian websites between 24 February and 10 March. He is currently facing five years in prison. It is unknown which exact DDoS tool he used. What we do know is that in mid-May, The Wall Street Journal reported that disBalancer/Hacken’s Kyiv team moved from Barcelona, Spain, to Lisbon, Portugal, another NATO and EU member state. + +Underlining this nonchalance, disBalancer decided to publish three Liberator user interviews on 27 May 2022. It is unknown whether these interviews were conducted with real users or are fictional creations the disBalancer team invented to advertise the use of Liberator. Jase Mo from the US explained that “I started off on the hackenproof.com page and went from there. I found Liberator to be, ‘EASY AF’ to use. ... Not only has Liberator made it easy AF to join the fight, but has allowed the average person to be a part of the Team that is pulling off the largest most effective DDoS champagne the world has ever seen. I love this shit”. Meanwhile, Casimir from Germany stressed the financial side of things: “what would motivate me even more? Maybe a special kind of disBalancer NFT for the verified users of Liberator. ;) I saw that there might be DDOS NFTs for those who hold more than 1000 DDOS [tokens] until the war is over (which is easy for me because I’m buying more as soon as I can)... But maybe you could make special edition NFTs for the cyber warriors?” And Daniil from Ukraine stressed what else can be done: “Besides being involved in disBalancer, I actively support Ukraine in other ways. For instance, by donating to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and assisting the cyber fight on the side of Ukrainians with other DDoS tools designed to shoot russians down. I use a few other applications like UA Cyber SHIELD, dn1000n, dripper, MHDDos, and 5 sites for DDoS attacks. Besides, I report on russian propaganda telegram groups in order to hinder the lies that spread among the people, including in the occupied territories”. + +On 8 June 2022, disBalancer announced that Roskomnadzor – Russia’s Federal Service for the Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media – blocked access to disbalancer.com. According to the disBalancer blog the “access restrictions to our site to Russian providers and Internet users from russia will not stop our DDoS attacks on russian propaganda websites, government, and infrastructure systems that provide the basis for everyday life and enable the flow of goods, information, and services. Until russia withdraws the last soldier from Ukraine and the ongoing shelling by Russian forces stops, we are going to further enhance our activities”. + +The cooperation between Hacken and the Ukrainian government does not stop there. HackenProof, which is Hacken’s bug bounty platform, has been running two vulnerability reporting programs in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine: a defensive and an offensive one. The defensive program was established around 1 March and runs under the name “Call for Ukrainian cyber defense. Stop the war”. It is geared toward finding “critical vulnerabilities” in Ukrainian government and infrastructure websites, which HackenProof then reports to the corresponding authorities. As the site explains, “we’re looking for vulnerabilities such as RCE, SQLI, RFI/LFI, or data leaks. Please don’t waste time on low-/medium-severity vulnerabilities. Save our time for what matters”. As of 25 May the program received 291 submissions by 27 authors. According to the Wayback Machine, on 8 March the number stood at 271 submissions by 23 authors. Thus, over the past 2.5 months the program added a mere 20 new submissions. + +While the program does not pay any bounties, it is important to understand that for a long-time ethical hackers “could face fines of up to $42,000 USD or even three years in prison for trying to detect bugs in the computer systems of the Ukrainian parliament, ministries, or state companies”. Only on 21 April, roughly seven weeks after HackenProof initiated its defensive bug bounty program, did the Ukrainian Parliament adopt the law on “Amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine to Increase the Effectiveness of the Fight against Cybercrime in the Conditions of Martial Law”, which tweaked the criminal code to enable bug bounty programs for the public sector. As of this writing it is still unclear whether HackenProof’s bug bounty program ever ran afoul of Ukrainian law or whether Hacken’s physical location in Estonia shielded it from prosecution. It is also unknown whether the program was supported by members in the Ukrainian government, or how exactly HackenProof streamlined its information flow to contact the multitude of Ukrainian authorities and companies affected. + +HackenProof’s offensive program was started on 27 February and runs under the name “Call for exploits. Stop the war”. Similar to the defensive one, HackenProof is only looking for submissions of critical vulnerabilities, including data leaks, which are then “put in the good hands of Ukrainian cyber forces”. The focus areas are Russian hosting providers, ISPs, aerospace/air control, SCADA systems, banks, public services, energy/oil/gas, transportation/logistics, ports/elevators, and even retail. It is unclear whether submissions pertaining to the Russian healthcare sector, humanitarian NGOs, schools and universities are also being accepted by HackenProof. Notably, the program site directly links to the IT Army’s Telegram channel explaining, “for reference, you can use Resources shared by Ukrainian cyber volunteers”. As of 25 May, the program had 422 submissions by 32 authors. According to the Wayback Machine that number has stayed the same since 14 March. Thus, over the past eleven weeks the offensive program received no new submissions. Like the defensive program, there are no bounty pay-outs. + +Surprisingly, the existence of the offensive bug bounty program combined with the fact that it is organized by a company headquartered in Estonia has to date not spurred any legal, ethical, nor political conversations on co-belligerency in cyberspace, the role of Ukrainian-owned companies operating from NATO/EU member states, and their targeting of Russian civilian infrastructure in cooperation with the Ukrainian government. There is also no conversation in the information security community on the role of bug bounty programs targeting a belligerent party embroiled in an international conflict. The current silence on these issues amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine is certainly understandable – and so is the activism of Ukrainians abroad – yet NATO/EU member states might be setting unintended legal and ethical precedents that may create significant political blowback in the future. For example, what if a Russian-owned company located in Germany were to organize an offensive bug bounty program that targets Ukrainian critical infrastructure and shares the discovered vulnerabilities with the Russian intelligence community? Would Berlin, Brussels, and Washington deem this acceptable private sector behavior? + +Apart from HackenProof’s two bug bounty programs, Yegor Aushev also started his own bug bounty program called “Hack/Fuck Russia” that ran its first phase from 1 March to 10 March. It was financially supported by Aushev’s Kyiv-based Cyber Unit Tech company with a donation of 100,000 USD. Curiously, the bug bounty announcement also included a Tether wallet address for donations. To date that wallet has received a combined 70 Tether, which is a mere 70 USD (Tether is pegged 1:1 to USD). Yet, in an interview with The Record, a Cyber Unit Tech representative explained that “our company has contributed the initial $100,000, but we see participation and contribution from all over the world. The amounts are very, very significant and might be one of the biggest bounties ever, maybe the biggest ‘unofficial’ bounty”. + +So, how do we square these two different assessments? If there is a huge donation flow that underpins Aushev’s bug bounty program, then it is certainly not going into the Tether wallet. We also know that neither Aushev nor Cyber Unit Tech have posted any other wallet addresses on their official Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts. So, how do people from across the world know to which wallets to donate in support of the cause? One feasible explanation could be that the wallet addresses are spread within invite-only groups on WhatsApp and Signal to facilitate donations from the Ukrainian IT community living abroad. Another possibility might be that the international cryptocurrency donations flowing into the Ukrainian government’s official Bitcoin, Thether, and Etherium wallets are partially underpinning Aushev’s bug bounty program. As of 21 April, neither Aushev nor Cyber Unit Tech has announced the start of phase two of their bug bounty program. It is unknown whether the program actually paid out any bounties or to whom any of the reported vulnerabilities were forwarded. Given Aushev’s closeness to the Ukrainian government and Cyber Unit Tech’s strategic partners – which includes the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine – we can infer with some level of confidence that the vulnerabilities might have ended up in the hands of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the intelligence services, or the IT Army. + + +### Non-public Structure and Tasks + +Apart from the publicly visible IT Army structures and tasking flows, there also exists an in-house section to the IT Army. + +Hints of the in-house section first popped up in early March when the IT Army defaced miranda-media.ru, which is a Russian ISP serving the Crimean Peninsula. Several other defacements followed of which almost none gained widespread media attention. The exception occurred on 2 April and 6 April, when the websites of Sukhoi.ru and Gazprom.ru were defaced with fake statements by Yuri Slyusar (General Director of Sukhoi) and Alexie Miller (CEO of Gazprom) criticizing the Kremlin for the war in Ukraine. At the time, public speculations veered between the websites being hacked by an unknown group and the statements being legitimate. The fog of war was lifted three weeks later on 23 April, when the IT Army’s channel posted a three-minute video in which it took credit for the fake statements. As the video explains, “we published the statement, but all [the content was] taken from Mr. Slyusar’s correspondence with colleagues and friends. ... Within the Kremlin’s inner circle people know about [Alexie Miller’s] position for a long time. We just made it public, completely collecting his thoughts from the correspondence”. As of this writing, discussions pertaining to defacements are entirely absent from both the IT Army channel and chat. + +On 4 April, the IT Army posted a two-minute video on the use of Clearview in Ukraine to identify Russian soldiers. Clearview is a controversial US-headquartered AI facial recognition company that has assembled a vast biometric database – by scraping facial pictures from social media and the wider Internet – to readily identify and locate any individual. The company is currently facing several lawsuits in the US and has been fined by various privacy watchdogs in the EU. On 23 May, the UK’s Information Commisioner’s Office fined Clearview more than 7.5 million GBP and ordered the company to delete all the data of UK residents from its systems. Kashmir Hill at The New York Times explained Clearview’s impact best by stating that, “searching someone by face could become as easy as Googling a name. Strangers would be able to listen in on sensitive conversations, take photos of the participants and know personal secrets. Someone walking down the street would be immediately identifiable – and his or her home address would be only a few clicks away. It would herald the end of public anonymity”. + +On 13 March, Reuters reported that the Ukrainian Defense Ministry started to use Clearview to identify dead Russian soldiers. Ten days later, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Federov, explained on Telegram that “today, we use artificial intelligence to search the social media accounts of dead Russian soldiers for photos of corpses, to report their deaths to friends and relatives, to dispel the myth of a ‘special operation’ in which ‘no conscripts’ and ‘no one dies.’” Exact figures on Clearview’s use in Ukraine were hard to come by until the IT Army posted its video on 4 April. In it, the IT Army explained that it uses Clearview to directly contact dead soldiers’ families and loved ones via social media and messaging apps, by informing them about the death of their relative and attaching a picture of the mutilated corpse and passport. While many Western outlets went on to described Ukraine’s actions as morally acceptable and almost humanitarian, one has to seriously question whether the same positive perception would apply if the Islamic State were to directly contact US families by sending them pictures of their relative’s mutilated corpse via social media. To argue that this is just a form of humanitarian outreach clearly ignores the overarching information warfare campaign that Ukraine is waging against Russian society at-large. + +According to the IT Army, as of 4 April the Ukrainian government successfully identified 582 corpses with the help of Clearview. The exact figure was likely supplied to the IT Army by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Ukraine’s intelligence services, or the Ministry of Digital Transformation. None of the Clearview aspects were ever mentioned in the IT Army channel or chat. + +On 6 April, the IT Army posted a four-minute video which showed them calling the family of a Russian soldier who allegedly looted around 100 kilograms of goods in Ukraine. The loot was sent via mail from a post office in Moyzr, Belarus, to the town of Chita in the far east of Russia. The IT Army’s video identifies the precise weight of the six packages the soldier paid for (totalling around 100 kg), as well as the phone number and address of the recipient (the soldier’s brother). The video also shows the CCTV feed of several Russian soldiers with their packages in the same post office. At the beginning of the phone call, the IT Army makes legal threats by pretending to be the FSB. The call ends with the IT Army saying, “we know where you live, where your brother lives, we know everything about your family. You will be responsible for every action that you have done on the territory of Ukraine”. + +The IT Army subsequently published two similar videos on 8 April and 9 April. In the first one, a Russian soldier sends 16 kg from the Mozyr post office to his wife in Novosibirsk, Russia. And in the second one, a different Russian soldier sends 63 kg to his wife in Khabarovsk, Russia. The CCTV video is the same in all three videos which suggests that all three Russian soldiers visited the Mozyr post office together. + +It is still unclear how the IT Army gained access to all the information necessary to run this operation. How did they know the exact Belarus post office these Russian soldiers would use? Did they breach the CCTV camera in the post office or was the footage given to them by another agency? As of this writing there are no answers to these questions, and none of the operational details of the calls were discussed in the IT Army channel or chat. + +What we do know is that on 2 June 2022, two months after the IT Army released the three videos, the Ukrainian Cyberpolice, in conjunction with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), utilized the exact CCTV footage to announce the identification of 10 Russian Rosgard soldiers from military unit 6720 that looted the homes of residents in Bucha, Ukraine. + +While we do not know who got their hands on the CCTV footage first or who oversaw this intelligence gathering operation, we can conclude that either the IT Army supplied the footage to the Cyberpolice and the SBU, or the SBU was overseeing the entire operation and utilized both the IT Army and the Cyberpolice as vehicles for their outreach components, publishing the three calls in April and announcing the soldier idenfications in June. On 16 June, the National Police of Ukraine posted a video on Youtube which showed the usage of Clearview by the Ukrainian Cyberpolice to identify the Russian soldiers in the post office. + +On 7 April, the IT Army revealed its most sophisticated campaign to date which targeted a Russian Instagram clone called Rossgram. Prior to the official release of the Rossgram app at the end of March, the IT Army claimed to have (1) breached Rossgram’s beta sign-up database, (2) created a fake Rossgram app, (3) sent invites to all the beta sign-ups, (4) pushed out notifications to all those who installed the fake app that Rossgram was hacked, and then (5) leaked the beta sign-up database to the public. To date, this is the only hack-and-leak operation for which the IT Army has taken direct credit. None of this was discussed in the IT Army’s Telegram channel and chat. + +On 14 May, the IT Army took credit for the destructive campaign against RuTube. RuTube is a Russian Youtube competitor that was created back in 2006. In mid-March, RuTube’s viewership began to skyrocket as Youtube – in reaction to the war in Ukraine – effectively pushed Russian content creators and users off its platform by suspending Google’s advertising system in Russia. Given the rapid growth of RuTube and the significant decline of independent media reporting in Russia, the IT Army identified RuTube as the “main information center for Russian false propaganda”. Timed to coincide with Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on 9 May 2022, the IT Army – with the help of “two specialists” – subsequently ran a destructive campaign against RuTube starting the night of 8 May. According to the IT Army’s video, the campaign successfully (a) changed all administrator passwords, (b) blocked all the access cards that were needed to enter and exit RuTube’s server rooms, (c) deleted “dozens of petabytes of information”, (d) “demolished all systems – virtualization, databases, content, converter, content search systems, advertising module, load distribution systems and management of the entire infrastructure”, and (e) exfiltrated internal information from the computers of the RuTube administrators and employees. The attack against RuTube is the first ever destructive campaign for which the IT Army has taken credit. + +RuTube remained offline for almost three days with partial access being restored on 11 May: Recovery commenced in stages. According to RuTube’s official Telegram channel, Russian cybersecurity company Positive Technologies helped to investigate and remediate the attack. RuTube also explained that “there have been many attacks on RUTUBE that have been successfully localized. However, the 9 May incident was of a different level of complexity. The readiness of the infrastructure for such a targeted attack can only be established by encountering it”. On 14 May, the site seemed to have been fully restored from its backups. + +As of this writing, it is still unknown how large the IT Army’s in-house team is, or who exactly is tasking and feeding them information. The in-house team likely consists of members located in Ukraine and Ukrainians living abroad. As of this writing, the IT Army has open vacancies for pentesters, desktop developers, hackers, system administrators, graphic designers, and, most importantly, connoisseurs of English. The vacancy site describes the in-house team’s tasks as “hacking enemy resources, spreading viruses, creating phishing sites, and inflicting maximum damage on the [Russian] economy and other public spheres”. + +Curiously, on 18 May, the IT Army channel put out a crowdsourcing call for information, stating that “we need your help in finding databases with phone numbers of private individuals and legal entities from the occupied Crimea as well as Russian regions next to the Ukrainian border (Briansk, Kursk, Belgorod). You can send this information to itarmyua@gmail.com”. Four days later, the IT Army thanked everyone that sent in information, and put out a second request for help, stating, “we need your help in finding databases with the phone numbers of Russians who fall under one of the following categories: (a) “young people who have radical views and are into working out (e.g. bouncers, members of martial arts groups)”, (b) “draftee (people who might be conscripted for military service)”, (c) “students”, and (d) “military service offices employees and their relatives”. + +As of this writing it is still unknown for what purpose the IT Army has been collecting this information. It might end up being used by the in-house team for one of their upcoming campaigns, it could be forwarded to the Internet Forces of Ukraine for an information warfare operation, or it could even be utilized to organize Russians in Russia to act against the Russian state apparatus. Time will tell. + + +### Where are Ukraine’s intel services? + +The IT Army is the main hub for Ukraine’s “offensive” response in cyberspace in reaction to the Russian invasion. Parallel to this cyber effort, the Internet Forces of Ukraine were stood up on 28 February to wage the nation’s “offensive” campaign in the information warfare domain. The focus of the Internet Forces is on organizing political pressure campaigns abroad and disseminating Ukrainian war propaganda via social media, including Telegram, VKontakte, Discord, and Reddit. The Ministry of Digital Transformation has taken public credit for establishing both the IT Army and the Internet Forces of Ukraine on 10 March. + +As it currently stands, the IT Army and the Internet Forces are publicly portrayed as two civilian-led government projects that function entirely separately from Ukraine’s military command structure and maintain no links whatsoever to the nation’s intelligence services. From a purely institutional point of view, however, it is highly questionable whether the Ministry of Digital Transformation has the legal authority to independently setup the IT Army and the Internet Forces without any coordination or control exercised by Ukraine’s defense and intelligence services. For Ukraine’s defense and intelligence services to roll their thumbs and let the IT Army and Internet Forces conduct operations freely and independently – particularly during war time – seems to be not only an analytical stretch but would highly likely also lead to strategic confusion and tactical interference with the defense and intelligence services’ own operations in cyberspace. + +It is also questionable whether the Ministry of Digital Transformation has the necessary in-house skills and knowledge that underpins the cyber and information warfare operations the IT Army and Internet Forces have been conducting. Talking to Wired, Anton Melnyk, who is an advisor to the Ministry of Digital Transformation, explained that “we have restructured the Ministry of Digital Transformation into a clear military organization”. Similarly, speaking to Politico on 8 March, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov noted that “we are the first in the world to introduce this new warfare. And it’s powerful, yet simple at the same time. ... It’s impossible to disrupt it or break it down”. + +Back in March 2022, Dina Temple-Raston interviewed one of the eight administrators of the IT Army channel for The Record. Probably the most interesting exchange occurred right at the beginning when Dina asked: “Do you have a military background?” The administrator answered, “Um, sort of ... It’s not the questions I can answer you fully because it may lead to a better understanding of what kind of person I am”. While we cannot be certain, we can somewhat infer that any statement on having served in the three main service branches would not have provided peculiar insights – i.e., the statement “I was in the Navy” could mean anything from being a cook to a naval demolition specialist. But the outright refusal to say anything may hint at an intelligence background. Similarly, it is highly unlikely that an unvetted random person on the internet is being entrusted with the role of administrating the IT Army channel and overseeing a community of close to 300,000 subscribers to organize Bornyakov’s “new warfare”. At a minimum one would expect some level of social media campaigning or government coordination experience, and at a maximum an intelligence/military background in cyber or information warfare. + +Interestingly, from the Russian perspective, the IT Army and Internet Forces likely maintain close relations – or might even be extensions – of Ukraine’s 72nd Center for Informational and Psychological Operations in Brovary/Kyiv. The 72nd Center was stood up back in 2003 in Sevastopol as part of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces and was one of the last military units that resisted the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014. Until recently, the 72nd was Ukraine’s main center that specialized in information and psychological operations. Very little is publicly known about the internal structure and operations the 72nd has conducted in the past, and given the current war context, it is rather difficult to distinguish between reliable new information and Russian war propaganda. For example, according to the Russian International Affairs Council, the 72nd is not only involved in intelligence, subversion, and counterintelligence activities, but also conducts “propaganda information campaigns in telecommunications networks and the Internet, and, together with the [Security Service of Ukraine], coordinate the activities of Ukrainian patriotic hacker groups, volunteer information communities and Internet resources”. + +What we definitely do know is that on 1 March the Russian Defense Ministry proclaimed that “information attacks on Russia are carried out by the 72nd Main Center for Information and Psychological Operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with the cyber operations units of the SBU, using hardware and software systems and communication facilities in Kyiv”. The Ministry went on to explain that “in order to thwart informational attacks against Russia, [Russian forces] will strike technological objects of the [Security Service of Ukraine] and the 72nd Main [Psychological Operations] Center in Kiev”. On 2 March, Russian air strikes took out the SBU’s headquarter, the 72nd Center, as well as a building that housed the control room of Kyiv’s TV tower. Notably, as of this writing, no Russian airstrike has been directed at the building of the Ministry of Digital Transformation. + +Another somewhat related piece to the puzzle appeared on 7 March, when cybersecurity consultant Jeffrey Carr published an article on his substack Inside Cyber Warfare, which claimed that the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant in Zarechny, Russia, was breached by cyber operators from the Main Intelligence Department of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (GURMO). According to Carr, GURMO exfiltrated “a large amount of data including contracts, architectural diagrams, alarm system configurations, set-up instructions for control system parts”. It is highly questionable whether Carr ought to be considered a reliable source. As he himself explains, “the problem was that journalists wanted to speak to GURMO and that was off the table. ... They could speak with me because I was the only person who the GURMO team would directly speak to”. Given the unverifiability of Carr’s claims, journalists were rightfully not willing to put their reputation on the line for a single-sourced story. As of this writing, Carr has published 16 additional pieces claiming that GURMO breached Roscosmos, Gazprom, the communication servers of the Black Fleet, as well as the FSB’s Special Operations Unit 607. None of these claims have been verified. In early April, Carr even went as far as insinuating that GURMO gained access to Gazprom’s pressurization controls, supposedly leading to the physical rupture and fire at two Russian pipelines. There is zero evidence that supports Carr’s story. What is similarly problematic is that Carr claims to be in possession of the complete data leaks that GURMO allegedly exfiltrated, but only paying subscribers to his substack are allowed access. Why does he not approach DDoSecrets like Anonymous has frequently done to publish its data leaks? Why is GURMO only using Carr as their public representative and no one else – not even the IT Army, Internet Forces, or any of the well-established professional journalists covering cyber? Given the absence of logical answers, Carr’s substack ought to be read with great caution. Having said that, Carr’s reporting does present an easy answer to the question as to what Ukraine’s intelligence services have been up to in cyberspace. If we treat Carr’s pieces at face value, then GURMO is primarily focusing on hack-and-leak operations that have even less immediate impact on the course of the war than those conducted by Anonymous and other hacking groups since the start of the invasion. Similarly, if viewed in relation to the strategic and public impact the IT Army and Internet Forces have had on Russian society, private companies, and foreign governments, then GURMO’s activities are close to irrelevant. + +The absence of known activities by Cloud Atlas – the only advanced persistent threat (APT) actor that might be of Ukrainian origin – amidst the Russian invasion is another mystery that has not yet been solved. Overall, there are currently no good answers to the question of what Ukraine’s intelligence and defense agencies are doing offensively in cyberspace. The only logical answer with the current evidence at hand is that the Ukrainian intelligence services are likely deeply intertwined with the IT Army’s DDoS targeting and tasking flow, the Internet Forces’ information warfare activities, and the IT Army’s in-house operations. Assertions that Ukrainian intelligence and defense agencies are not involved at all in any of these activities are either naïve or – at this point – wilfully ignorant. + + +### The IT Army and External Groups + +Open-source intelligence researcher CyberKnow has assembled the most comprehensive overview of all the different hacking groups/individuals that have popped up since the Russian invasion. On 1 May, CyberKnow identified 74 active groups/individuals, 46 pro-Ukraine, 26 pro-Russia, and two whose allegiance is unknown. + +Apart from the IT Army’s DDoS cooperation with a variety of groups on Telegram, there is very little known about how the IT Army views groups such as the Belarusian Cyber Partisans and the numerous sub-groups that are operating under the banner of Anonymous. + +The Partisans were formed back in September 2020 in reaction to the protests and subsequent violent crackdown following the contested presidential election in Belarus. The group’s first known public hack was the defacement of the website of the Belarusian Presidency on 2 September 2020. Only nine days later, the Partisans conducted one of their most impactful hack-and-leak operation to date by sharing a vast database of Belarusian law enforcement officers with NEXTA, which has become the biggest Russian-speaking Telegram channel/media outlet covering the protests in Belarus. In August 2021, the Partisans became one of the three founding organizations of the Belarusian resistance alliance Suprativ. The other two are the Flying Storks, who are conducting resistant activities outside of cyberspace, and the People’s Self-Defense Squads, who are publishing training videos and self-defense instructions. In the context of the war in Ukraine, the Partisans rose to international fame when they ran a ransomware campaign against the IT systems of Belarusian Railways on 24 January 2022 to disrupt the movement of Russian tanks and equipment. + +#### Anonymous + +By contrast, Anonymous is an umbrella term for a decentralized collection of activities that feed into the global Anonymous movement and its diffuse ideology. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several prominent Anonymous information hubs on social media accounts announced the beginning of Operation Russia or #OpRussia. Generally speaking, each Anonymous group/personality conducts their own operations. Occasionally, Anonymous groups/personalities loosely run operations together, and sometimes they might even breach the same target during similar time frames by pure coincidence. As of this writing, OpRussia has primarily consisted of DDoS attacks and hack-and-leak operations against Russian private companies and government digital infrastructure. What is important to stress is that each Anonymous group/personality has its own political motive and ethical reasoning. Sometimes these motives can generate initial approval and subsequent severe backlash from other Anonymous groups, as was the case when an Anonymous personality known as I_am_Mr_Grey (about 8,000 Twitter followers) announced Operation Falling Star in early April 2022. Grey essentially threatened that Anonymous would hack satellites in orbit and make them fall out of the sky. In a now deleted tweet with a video, Grey declared, “Dear NATO / UN / Putin – a message for you. We give you the rise of operation Falling Star. Should Putin attempt a second invasion and you NATO / UN does nothing, this SHALL be your fate”. Grey was subsequently ridiculed and ostracized to the point that he grovelingly apologized for his behavior. + +The first item to note is that both the Belarusian Cyber Partisans and almost all groups operating under the banner of Anonymous are primarily active on Twitter. The IT Army by contrast exclusively operates on Telegram. That being said, the closest to an official IT Army representative on Twitter is an account called sudo rm -RF (@sudormRF6), who says that he represents the “Ukrainian Cyber Front”. The connection between sudo rm -RF and the IT Army consists of at least three data points. First, sudo rm -RF posted the Rossgram beta-sign up database on 29 March 2022, – one week prior to the IT Army releasing its video on Rossgram – using the file sharing service Mega.nz. Second, sudo rm -RF posted several screenshots of RuTube’s internal folders, documents, and source code on 10 May – four days prior to the IT Army posting its video about RuTube. And third, the sudo rm -RF account appears for eight seconds in the IT Army’s RuTube video, during which the narrator discusses “gradually publishing [RuTube internal documents] on the Mega.nz file sharing service”. + +Except for sudo rm -RF, all other accounts that claim to represent the IT Army of Ukraine on Twitter are neither affiliated nor officially endorsed by the IT Army. This includes the 45,600 or so follower strong ITarmyUA account which many individuals in the Anonymous movement portrayed as being the official IT Army Twitter account. In fact, almost every time Anonymous claims to have cooperated with the IT Army they tag the ITarmyUA account in their tweets. Thus, when Twitter suspended ITarmyUA on 29 April, thousands of Twitter users viewed this as an act against Ukraine and fundamentally as political censorship. + +For anyone that bothered to take a closer look, it was immediately evident that ITArmyUA was a rebranded account created back in August 2018 that changed its user handle and scrubbed all its tweets prior to March 2022. No one in the IT Army’s Telegram channel ever mentioned or cared about the ITArmyUA account being suspended on Twitter. The official IT Army website does not link to the ITarmyUA account, and neither Mykhailo Federov nor the Ministry of Digital Transformation follows the ITarmyUA account on Twitter. + +So how does Anonymous’ outrage fit into the bigger picture? Looking at the dynamics and possible motives, it is highly likely that someone identifying with the Anonymous movement rebranded their account to pretend to be the IT Army on Twitter. The ITarmyUA account was then subsequently hyped by numerous Anonymous accounts to gain a massive Twitter following out of nowhere. The account was then utilized to provide legitimacy to the claims that Anonymous was actively cooperating with the IT Army, and by extension created the illusion that the Ukrainian government endorsed Anonymous’ actions. + +Anonymous’ desperate hunt for legitimacy and official government recognition has even led some groups to insert the Anonymous logo into copies of the IT Army’s official videos, and others went so far as to proclaim themselves to be the official international chapter of the IT Army of Ukraine. None of these claims has ever been acknowledged by the IT Army. In fact, the IT Army’s Telegram channel has only ever once used the word “anonymous” when they thanked the Telegram group Anonymous-Ukraine on 4 April for their DDoS cooperation. + +Overall, the IT Army has shown little interest in officially displaying any closeness to the Anonymous movement. This behaviour is likely due to (a) Anonymous’ decentralized nature and not knowing who is speaking on whose behalf, and (b) Anonymous’ reputation as a loose cannon in general, where every group and individual does what they want for the sake of social media clout and public attention. As of this writing it is unknown whether the IT Army’s in-house team has occasionally cooperated with groups that are close to Anonymous. Repeated email inquiries to the IT Army to verify claims made by a handful of groups (including BeeHiveCybersec) have gone unanswered. + +#### Belarusian Cyber Partisans + +Curiously, the Belarusian Cyber Partisans have also faced the same unresponsiveness from the IT Army. On 18 March, the Partisans wrote on Twitter that “we are willing to support [the IT Army] with intelligence, tools and ops. Sent them an email and then twitted about it. We did not get a reply from them as of yet”. When asked again on 29 April, the Partisans explained that we “haven’t managed to get a direct contact unfortunately”.180 As of this writing, the Partisans appear to have been unable to connect with the IT Army. + +The IT Army did target Belarusian sites on 27 February, when the channel announced 43 different sites to DDoS, including websites of the Belarusian government, media, banks, and industrial companies. The only other two instances in which the IT Army did so, was on 20 March – against the Belarusian site of Bitrix24, which is a cloud customer relationship management company headquartered in Virgina, US. And on 5 April, the IT Army targeted cdek.by – which is the Belarusian site of the Russian international express delivery company CDEK. Since 5 April, no Belarusian sites have been targeted by the IT Army. It is unclear whether this change is a deliberate restriction based on internal decisions, or simply an evolutionary process by which the IT Army has come to focus solely on Russia. + +The IT Army’s reluctance to talk to the Partisans might be following the same logic as it does vis-a-vis Anonymous. The IT Army does not have good answers to (a) who exactly the individuals are that make up the Partisans, (b) whether the IT Army can trust them, (c) what the Partisans underlying political motives are – given that they are part of the Belarusian resistance alliance Suprativ, (d) whether an IT Army-Partisan cooperation in cyberspace could be politically viewed as the Ukrainian government cooperating with the Belarusian opposition in exile, and (e) what the IT Army’s options are if the Partisans go off script with their activities. + +Overall, the hybrid setup the IT Army has mastered requires a healthy sense of paranoia and the need to take operational security extremely seriously – to guard against Russian infiltrators and information breaches. Particularly in times of war, discerning between who is a friend, a foe, and everything else in between is an inherently complicated task. + +#### IPStress + +One curious external cooperation popped up in early May when the itarmy.com.ua website began to display its one and only partner on the bottom of its site: IPStress.in. According to IPStress itself, they are the best IP booter stresser that “can down any game server such as ovh, nfo, fivem servers etc. Bypassing every protection such as cloudflare with our blazingfast methods. Buy now and enjoy the strong power from our botnets as well”. That self-description got a bit weird, when in early 2022 the IPStress.in website started to use Cloudflare’s DDoS protection service. + +On 31 May 2022, the FBI and the US Department of Justice announced the seizure of three internet domains: weleakinfo.to, ovhbooter.com, and ipstress.in. In the DoJ’s press release, US Attorney of the District of Columbia Matthew M. Graves explained that ipstress and ovhbooter “publicly offered to conduct ‘Distributed Denial of Service’ attacks, or ‘DDoS’ attacks for clients – specifically, a format called booter or stressor attacks. ... The seizures of these domains were part of a coordinated law enforcement action with the National Police Corps of the Netherlands and the Federal Police of Belgium. The actions executed by our international partners included the arrest of a main subject, searches of several locations, and seizures of the webserver’s infrastructure”. + +The simultaneous take down of all three domains and police raids in several locations suggests that this was the culmination of a months – if not year – long criminal investigation. Thus, the take down of IPStress.in did not occur in response to their partnership with the IT Army. Nonetheless it is rather disturbing that the IT Army – a Ukraine government-created entity – was willing to form and openly advertise its partnership with a cybercriminal DDoS enterprise. As of this writing, the IT Army website has changed its official partner to the hosting service ukraine.com.ua. + +As of June 7, 2022, IPStress.in is still mentioned on the IT Army website under the official English translation for the section on “Friends and Partners of the IT Army of Ukraine”. + +On June 10, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared that “according to experts, in order to carry out massive DDoS attacks involving ‘cyber volunteers’, attackers use malicious software based on the servers of Hetzner (Germany) and DigitalOcean (USA) supplier companies. Foreign specialized platforms (War.Apexi.Tech, Ban-Dera.com) are actively used, the online capacities of IPstress.in and Google servers are regularly used”. + + +### Conclusion + +The IT Army of Ukraine is a unique and smart construct whose organizational setup and operational impact will likely inform the art of cyber and information warfare in future conflicts. On the public side, the IT Army serves as a vessel that allows the Ukrainian government to utilize volunteers from around the world in its persistent DDoS activities against Russian government and company websites. As of 7 June 2022, this includes 662 targets. On the non-public side, the IT Army’s in-house team likely maintains deep links to – or largely consists of – the Ukrainian defense and intelligence services. + +Overall, both Kyiv and the Ukrainian IT community at large have shown the world what digital diplomacy on steroids looks like. Their conduct has collapsed entire pillars of existing legal frameworks regarding norms and rules for state behaviour in cyberspace and has taken apart the illusion of separating the defense of Ukraine from Ukrainian companies and citizen living abroad. As of this writing, EU and NATO member states have equally failed to adapt to – or even grasp – what the IT Army really is. Western observers and governments still believe that it is just a collection of random volunteers conducting meaningless DDoS attacks against Russian websites. They have so far failed to see the underlying organizational structure, operational conduct, and wider ecosystem that underpins the IT Army and Ukraine’s fight in the cyber and information domain. For better or worse, continuing to ignore the essence of the IT Army will wreak havoc on the future stability of cyberspace and with it the national security landscape in Europe and beyond. + +There are many questions this report leaves unanswered or can only answer in varying degrees of certainty. Time will tell how the IT Army evolves from here on out and whether history will judge this report as being both balanced and objective. + +Some questions this report has not touched upon might be of interest to future research and policy discussions including: + +(1) How is it possible that the official IT Army website (itarmy.com.ua) and Cyber Palyanits (cyberarmy.com.ua) are protected by Cloudflare’s anti-DDoS service? On both sites users can find an assortment of DDoS tools and instructions. It seems rather odd that an anti-DDoS service like Cloudflare is protecting the very sites that are organizing the most impactful DDoS activities amidst the Ukraine war. + +(2) How is it possible that the IT Army’s official email account and application forms are hosted by Google, when the itarmy.com.ua site includes detailed instructions on how to misuse Google’s Cloud Servers for DDoS attacks? Does Google have a policy in place to deal with belligerents using its products in the context of an international armed conflict? + +(3) Does GitHub – and by extension Microsoft – have a policy in place to take down repositories/tooling specifically designed for users worldwide to participate in an international armed conflict? As of this writing, senior Microsoft executives have been publicly preaching about preventing cyberwar – while actively helping Ukraine defending its networks – yet none of the GitHub repositories mentioned in this report seems to violate GitHub’s terms of service. + +(4) What are the economics of the IT Army and the ecosystem around it? Are cryptocurrency donations, influencer support, and holders of Hacken’s various tokens a major source of revenue to improve the IT Army’s DDoS infrastructure both in and outside Ukraine? + +(5) And what political prescedents are US software companies such as Clearview, Starlink, and maybe soon Palantir setting by offering their novel technologies and infrastructure to one belligerent in an international armed conflict? In the context of the Ukraine war, it might be easy for company executives to decide which belligerent to support. But what happens when that assessment runs counter to US foreign policy interests? Also, how should other governments – particularly those in Europe – view the conduct of these companies? Should they be seen as extensions of US foreign policy? Or are they independent actors? And if so, what strategic interests, foreign policies, and legal and ethical considerations underpins the conduct of those companies? + +--- + +__Stefan Soesanto__ is a Senior Researcher in the Cyberdefense Project with the Risk and Resilience Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich. Stefan works closely with the Swiss Defense Department. Among others, his writings have been published by the Cyber Defense Review, Air University, Lawfare, the Royal Institute Elcano, the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, Defense One, and the Council on Foreign Relations. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-30-strategic-misfortunes.md b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-30-strategic-misfortunes.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..d8a31a32 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2022-06-30-strategic-misfortunes.md @@ -0,0 +1,418 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Strategic Misfortunes +author: A.E. Stahl, et al. +date : 2022-06-30 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/Dgu5LrS.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_`Clipping the Eagle’s Wings: Explaining Failure and Success in the Battle of Britain, 1940`_ [｜►](#clipping-the-eagles-wings-explaining-failure-and-success-in-the-battle-of-britain-1940) + +_`El Alamein, 1942: Rommel’s Anti-Climax`_ [｜►](#el-alamein-1942-rommels-anti-climax) + +_`Israeli Strategy in the First Lebanon War, 1982-1985`_ [｜►](#israeli-strategy-in-the-first-lebanon-war-1982-1985) + +_`The Accidental Coindinista: A Historian’s Journey Back From the Dark Side of Social Science`_ [｜►](#the-accidental-coindinista-a-historians-journey-back-from-the-dark-side-of-social-science) + +_`Vietnam and After: Failure in the Vietnam War and the Enduring Defects in US Strategic Culture`_ [｜►](#vietnam-and-after-failure-in-the-vietnam-war-and-the-enduring-defects-in-us-strategic-culture) + +_`Strategy and the Chinese Civil War`_ [｜►](#strategy-and-the-chinese-civil-war) + + + +### An Introduction to Strategic Misfortunes + +Strategy is a concept that is exceptionally easy to understand – on paper that is. In practice, it remains notoriously difficult to execute. We know this because of the wealth of knowledge contained within the history of warfare – or if one chooses, throughout strategic history. Yet, precisely what is this high concept? What does it mean and what is its role? After all, these are questions that must be answered, however briefly, before one can begin to understand any misfortune in the function of Strategy. If we turn to history’s greatest military theorist, the Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, we understand that Strategy is the “use of the engagement for the purpose of the war”. In Clausewitz’s definition, “engagement” ultimately implies violence and “purpose” denotes the political condition and/or political behavior being sought. Today, one may prefer to use a definition of Strategy proffered in more modern wording: “Strategy refers to the use made of force and the threat of force for the ends of policy. It is the bridge that connects policy with military power.” Though separated by 175 years, ultimately both definitions speak to the very same meaning and role of Strategy: it is an activity, deportment, or even response concerned with the linkage of violence to political purpose. + +The history of warfare has provided posterity with a treasure chest of examples where military leaders devised and executed Strategy with sheer excellence. For one example, we can turn to the Battle of Marathon, which, with great thanks to historians such as Hans Delbrück, we now have a clearer understanding of the events that took place in this ancient battle. It was in the Vrana Valley in 490 B.C.E. that Miltiades and his hoplite forces defeated the invading Persians. He was able to accomplish this through, among others, a combination of his brilliant understanding of the terrain; the force deployment of his Athenian hoplites aimed at opposing Persian cavalry and their formidable archers prior to the battle; and in how he managed to utilize his forces in order to counter attacks to their flanks once violence began. The purpose of the engagement was simple. Miltiades and his hoplites accepted battle with the Persians for the maintenance of the security of Athens, and arguably, Greece at large. This was a display of Strategy at its finest. Brilliant lessons in Strategy aside – let alone Strategy that has been executed “good enough” – arguably, they are not equivalent to the strategic misfortunes found throughout strategic history, including contemporary and current times. + +The list of strategic misfortunes is long and bloody, too long to be listed even in a special edition dedicated to the subject. However, a few examples are necessary in order to bring forth a clear understanding of the purpose of this edition. + +While historical accounts and records of wars may be incomplete and slanted, the end result of wars cannot be. We know who won and we know who lost. As concerns strategic history, it is chock full of strategic misfortunes found within the conduct of war. A strategic misfortune can imply anything from difficulty to outright failure in linking “ends” and “means” via “ways”. Moreover, failure in the function of Strategy need not occur within one instance of fighting – it can actually be a long and drawn out process. For example, and again turning to the chronicles of strategic history, in 216 B.C.E. General Hannibal of Carthage defeated one Roman army (possibly up to 50,000 dead Romans and Italians) at the Battle of Cannae within the spate of a day. Yet, despite such a tactical achievement, Hannibal failed strategically. He subsequently occupied parts of Italy for over a dozen years and never succeeded in turning his battlefield achievements or military occupation of Italy into positive political effect for Carthage. + +In contemporary historical times, Napoleon is a prime candidate for strategic misfortunes. Despite the French Emperor’s numerous tactical successes, Napoleon racked up an abundance of strategic failures spread across the European continent, and beyond, throughout his rule. Similar to Hannibal, he could never turn his bloody triumphs into positive political achievements for the French Empire. Such failures effectively ensured that every battle won ultimately mattered little, at least for the maintenance of the French Empire. + +In World War I, volumes could be written on the strategic misfortunes that took place in Europe alone. In 1914, the German General Staff’s “Schlieffen Plan” quickly turned into a massive strategic failure for Germany, placing pressure on the entire German armed forces. As a result of, among others, amendments to the original German plan, the unexpected speed at which the Russians were able to organize and deploy, and the French ability to mount a counterattack, culminating in the Battle of the Marne, Germany’s initial political aims were quickly lost. In what was expected to be a rapid victory against France, events morphed into years of so-called trench warfare and ultimately, in the defeat of the German Empire. + +At present, and despite knowledge that the history of warfare has provided, strategic failure continues unabated. Strategic misfortunes have permeated numerous conflicts since the 1980s – from the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Argentinians in the Falklands War, the US and French in Lebanon, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the US and international forces in Somalia in 1993, United Nations’ forces in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the Israel Defense Force in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. + +So, how and what can we learn from both historical and current strategic failures that will assist in the future? Answering these questions through the examples provided in the following articles is the purpose of this Infinity Journal Special Edition. In this edition, six individuals have written on a wide range of topics that do not simply point out the strategic failures that have occurred, but perhaps more importantly, why they happened. It is from these writings that we must learn and subsequently apply lessons if one desires to avoid, as best as possible, future strategic misfortune. + +_Eminent strategic theorist Professor Colin S. Gray argues that the Luftwaffe’s failure in the summer of 1940 was the direct result of the excellence of RAF Fighter Command, rather than because of its own mistakes, serious though these were. In this Infinity Journal Special Edition article, Gray explains the strategic nature of the German defeat._ + +_Lt. Col. Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, II, a world-renowned historian, Clausewitzian scholar, and Director of Research for the U.S. Army War College, argues that Erwin Rommel’s generalship continuously pushed men and materiel to their limits, which precipitously wore down forces that were merely intended to provide security and stability along the flank of the main theater of operations against the Soviet Union. Rommel failed to appreciate the operational interplay between land power and air power – and his forces paid the price at El Alamein._ + +_Defense analyst and lecturer at the Israeli Defense Force Command and General Staff College, Dr. Eado Hecht, holds that adaptation of Israel’s successful strategy to quell Palestinian attacks emanating from neighbouring Arab states to the unique circumstances of Lebanon led to the First Lebanon War in 1982. However, after initial success, the strategy failed._ + +_United States Army Colonel and Director of Military History at West Point, Gian P. Gentile, provides a self-critical assessment of how he came to violate the dictates of being a good historian: he began to think like a social scientist and embraced a model that placed the primacy of strategy over tactics in war. What he found, however, is that history does not always conform to that model._ + +_Associate Professor and Senior Analyst, Dr. C. Dale Walton, examines US decisions regarding war and peace from the Vietnam War to the present. He finds a disturbing pattern of “anti-Clausewitzian” behavior. Walton argues that the US military is very good at fighting wars, but America’s civilian leaders frequently have misused their military instrument, engaging in ill-conceived adventures without first carefully assessing likely human, financial, and other costs, establishing clear goals, and crafting a realistic roadmap for winning the conflict in a timely fashion._ + +_Lastly, Adam Elkus, a defense and security analyst and doctoral candidate in international relations, writes that the sheer scale and complexity of the Chinese Civil War belies assertions that today’s substate conflicts are uniquely challenging. Elkus looks at what lessons we can grasp from the complexity and contingency of Mao’s victory and the Nationalists’ strategic misfortune._ + +--- + +### Clipping the Eagle’s Wings: Explaining Failure and Success in the Battle of Britain, 1940 + +_`Gray, Colin S., “Clipping the Eagle’s Wings: Explaining Failure and Success in the Battle of Britain, 1940”, Infinity Journal, IJ Special Edition, “Strategic Misfortunes”, October 2012, pages 5-11.`_ + +![image1](https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/69.jpg) + +> #### Stephen Bungay + +> _The most fundamental reason for the German defeat was a failure in strategy. Most of the decisions which determined the outcome of the Battle had been made before it began. Given the defence systems, the aircraft, the training and the plans, all put in place by the decisions of a few people in leadership positions on each side, the odds were stacked heavily against the Luftwaffe from the first._ + +Bungay is right in his unequivocal claim, quoted above. But, is it more correct to register the outcome of the Battle of Britain as a failure of strategy on the German part, rather than as a success for British strategy? When scholars and others choose to focus on the behaviour and misbehaviour of only one side to a conflict, balanced judgment is likely to fall victim as a consequence. Clausewitz insists that war is a duel and every PowerPoint presentation on strategy more or less faithfully restates the obvious important truth that the enemy votes on how well we need to do. And yet, somehow, the duelling nature of strategic affairs frequently escapes proper notice and attention. + +If one asks ‘why did the Luftwaffe lose the Battle of Britain?’ the question encourages a biasing emphasis upon German performance that is anchored in the fact of defeat. Although the Luftwaffe made many mistakes in the summer of 1940, it would be a serious mistake to attribute its defeat to strategic misfortune – it was not bad luck. Similarly, it would not be useful or persuasive to argue that a different German choice here or there should have made all the difference between defeat and victory. The Luftwaffe failed strategically in summer 1940 because Britain, and especially its Fighter Command, was too good for it in the geostrategic context of the conflict at that time. + +Undoubtedly, the Germans did not conduct a sufficiently effective campaign against Fighter Command, but it needs to be appreciated that the German weaknesses and errors were not, in the main, misfortunes (i.e. instances of bad luck), rather were they the products of a system that was not capable of fighting with strategic sense. The Battle of Britain in the summer and autumn of 1940 was a struggle that has to be understood as a unity, not only as a German defeat or a British victory (pick one). However, as an exemplary tale of strategy, or its absence, in action, the Battle is much better explained as a British victory than as a German defeat. History records many cases of ‘fighting and winning ugly’, but the evidence of 1940 shows unmistakeably that the Luftwaffe, fighting ugly or not, was never likely to prevail. RAF Fighter Command strictly did not require good fortune in order to win, but one cannot deny that German folly certainly was welcome. The Battle of Britain serves as one of history’s clearest examples of the rewards and the costs of both good and poor strategy. + +#### Theory and Practice for 1940 + +There is an intellectual key to the understanding of strategy that is not difficult to present. Simply stated: a strategy should achieve desired political ends by using appropriate means in effective ways. There are usually good reasons why ends, ways, and means fail to mesh as cooperatively as one would like, but the practical ambition is only to function with strategic sense well enough, not to perform perfectly. In the military realm one has to expect to fight under less than perfect conditions, which is why one should strive to learn from unfolding experience, and be sufficiently flexible as to be able to adapt to unwelcome developments and yet survive and even succeed. Because of its super-reductionist simplicity, the ends, ways, and means formula enables us to test historical experience fairly reliably for strategic sense. + +To the strategic trinity just cited one needs to add the intellectually and evidentially challenging factors of assumptions and also of context. The people and the machines of 1940 had to perform in action then, but they were very substantially the products of the circumstances of a British context for homeland air defence that had form from 1916, and of a German context rooted only in 1933 (and then not for an air campaign against Britain at home). The rival air forces had to fight in 1940, but each was made in the preceding years. Most of the RAF’s system and the Luftwaffe’s advantages and disadvantages can be traced to pre-war circumstances and concerns. RAF Fighter Command in 1940 was the product of a fairly consistent focus on homeland air defence traceable back to 1915-16, while the Luftwaffe’s close attention to Britain was a novel phenomenon in the summer of 1940. One side was long prepared for the battle of the day, the other was not. These are facts. + +I do not wish to employ ends, ways, and means mechanistically in the analysis that follows, but readers are alerted to the value that of this gloriously inclusive yet still taut inherently holistic conceptual trinity. It permeates my argument. Although I will argue that RAF Fighter Command won a well merited strategic victory in 1940, it is necessary also that I explain why the Luftwaffe suffered strategic defeat. I must proceed thus, given the essential unity of strategic experience between rivals and enemies. + +#### Preparation and Battle + +Any military force can have a bad day or two, and the reasons for poor combat performance can be many and complex. That said, the history of military aviation shows that air forces tend to fail or succeed for reasons with paper trails over many years. The Battle of Britain was a struggle with two timelines. It mattered critically how effectively the rival air forces fought from July to October 1940, but that net effectiveness was influenced massively by the strategic events of the previous quarter-century. Typically, in popular histories and TV documentaries the strategic tale begins in Flanders in May-June 1940, and then proceeds at a galloping pace from the opening probing ‘round’ over the Channel in July, to the main event (in two or three ‘rounds’) in August and September. All too often, strategically vital differences between RAF Fighter Command and the Luftwaffe pass unflagged. Neglecting the contextual dimension to the air warfare of summer 1940 is probably the most punishing mistake one can make. + +To explain, although now we know most everything that there is to be known about the air warfare of 1940, that very familiarity can function unhelpfully as a barrier to our understanding. We have knowledge, but we tend to lack empathy because we do not think about air warfare as people did in 1940. It would be hard to exaggerate the relevance of the strategic historical fact that the Battle of Britain was the first air battle in all of history effectively unconnected to on-going terrestrial warfare. This was an attempt to win well enough in and from the sky, leading either to terrestrial success with brute force in combat, or to political victory as a result of coercion from altitude. Could it be done? More to the point, could the Luftwaffe do it in August-September 1940? No-one knew, and in part they did not know because it had never been tried before, anywhere by anyone. Theory was plentiful, if not abundant, but reliable evidence was lacking. + +The reality of 1940 was that only one air force, the RAF, knew what it had to do and, in principle, how to do it. The Luftwaffe, in contrast, was committed to the world’s first stand-alone air campaign. Moreover, the RAF, and the Royal Flying Corps before it, had been devoted to the strategic mission of homeland air defence since 1915 with some activity, and certainly since 1917 in the most careful detail. British air defence had a track record of considerable success in action in 1916-18,was reorganised twice in the inter-war years, albeit with large continuities, and it was always fit enough for its contemporary purpose – as far as one can judge for peacetime(!) – through the 1920s and 1930s. This is not to deny that there was a brief period in the very early 1920s when the air defence narrative seemed in peril, but this was fixed by 1924 (courtesy of anxiety occasioned by a perceived French air menace). More troubling was the delay in 1937-8 in reequipping with the new fast monoplane fighters, with the Luftwaffe’s Bf109 acquisition being two years in advance of the Hurricane and Spitfire. The Hurricanes were delivered for squadron service in November 1937, Spitfires on 4 August 1938. The Bf109 first flew on 28 May 1935, the Spitfire on 5 March 1936. The new first-generation monoplane Bf109s were fed into the Condor Legion’s war in Spain, but it was untried against a similarly equipped enemy until it met Spitfires over Dunkirk in late May 1940. The point of historical contextual significance, though, is that Britain had ready enough an organisation, peopled, trained, and equipped adequately for the task of the hour, homeland air defence – and Germany did not have sufficiently offsetting advantages on the offensive side. + +British air defences had defeated three German air campaigns conducted from 1915 to 1918 (2 by Zeppelin airships and one by Gotha aircraft), and then had prepared for the threat that materialised by and in 1940. The Germans had to improvise most aspects of their air campaign against Britain in 1940; the British needed to improvise hardly anything. The Luftwaffe fought with the weapons it had, ones acquired and then employed briefly in relatively short-range continental warfare. This is not to suggest that the Germans could not succeed in the air in 1940, but it is to highlight the abundantly evidenced fact that only one belligerent in 1940 had prepared over time and in depth for an air battle across the Channel over Britain. + +The literature on the Battle of Britain is abundant, vastly repetitive, and typically innocent of much strategic sense. There are, however, two exceptional readable yet scholarly studies which tell the story of 1940 as well as one needs to have it told. Without qualification, I recommend Richard Overy’s The Battle of Britain: Myth and Reality (2010), and Stephen Bungay’s The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain (2000). Because of the excellence of the granular histories of the Battle in 1940, I will not waste space with more than a summary of the story arc of the most relevant combat in 1940. + +- __May – June:__ German assault beginning on 10 May routs the French army and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Most of the BEF (226,000) and some French soldiers (112,000) are evacuated from Dunkirk between 26 May and 4 June. The RAF in France is ineffective, but Fighter Command aircraft from British airfields provide a nasty shock to the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk. The 9 days of air combat associated directly with the Dunkirk operation cost the RAF 177 aircraft to 240 for the Luftwaffe. + +- __10 July – 11 August:__ The Luftwaffe tries to entice RAF Fighter Command into battle over the Channel. The Germans avoid crossing the Channel and instead probe British air defences by attacking shipping in a rather desultory fashion (the kanalkampf). 10 July – 11 August saw the RAF lose 115 fighters and 64 bombers, these 179 compare with Luftwaffe losses of 216. Both sides learnt from the fighting, but the Germans did not unravel the architecture and operational design of Fighter Command. In order to preserve assets and deny intelligence to the enemy, the Command deliberately limited its reactions to the German campaign against Channel shipping. + +- __12/13 August – 6/7 September:__ This brief period was the main event of the Battle, militarily considered (it included days when flying was either impossible or severely restricted by bad weather). Between these dates the Luftwaffe strove none too consistently to render RAF Fighter Command hors de combat. The Command was attacked directly on its principal airfields (the Luftwaffe was not well informed about dispersion to much rougher satellite fields), and in its specific industrial base (aircraft and engine manufacturing plants). The most vital target set, the coastal radar stations were attacked heavily on 12 August, but very little thereafter (the number of Chain Home and Chain Home Low radar stations grew from 51 in July 1940 to 76 by the end of September that year). The attritional combat was heavy, if somewhat episodic, but Fighter Command survived into early September, damaged but definitely not crippled. The operational air general, Keith Park commanding 11 Group (London and the South East), was not compelled to evacuate his airfields to the south and east of London. + +- __7-15 September:__ Desperate for a more speedy victory than they had achieved thus far, the Germans shifted strategy to bomb British urban targets (in daylight), especially London and its docks. The hope was that RAF Fighter Command would be obliged to ascend in the largest number it could still manage, where it could be attrited in greater numbers than before. This ‘round’ in the Battle, really the final one, concluded on 15 September, when the Luftwaffe sought to darken the sky over London with 965 aircraft (348 bombers and 617 fighters). The scale of the attacks, and the geographic depth of their necessary penetration, allowed Fighter Command the time to assemble a large enough near continuous defence as to inflict immensely demoralising damage on the German bomber crews in particular. + +- __Late September — :__ The daylight ‘Blitz’ principally against London of the 7-15 period, was succeeded by a largely nighttime ‘Blitz’ through the autumn and winter, a campaign to which Fighter Command had no answers at that time (lacking airborne radar in 1940). + +Hitler officially postponed sine die the planned invasion of Britain (Seelowe) on 17 September 1940. + +#### Explaining the Defeat + +Why did RAF Fighter Command win in 1940? The answer is only two-fold when stated bluntly and minimally: because of Britain’s 25 year record of competent professional attention to homeland air defence, and because of the superior performance of Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding as the strategic leader and military commander of British air defence. The whole story is of course complex and contains as much detail as anyone finds tolerable. However, these two reasons – 25 years of dedicated practice, and Dowding – comprise the heart of the matter. Because my argument is advanced so confidently in praise of the RAF and Dowding, it is only prudent to lead this part of the analysis with a summary of the reasons why Germany lost the Battle. + +#### Germany’s problems + +1. __Ignorance of the enemy:__ Thinking in German terms of RAF Fighter Command as a target set, it would be difficult to improve on this judgment by Stephen Bungay: “The core problem for Kesselring and Sperrle was that they literally did not know what they were doing.” Luftwaffe intelligence, to ignore the glaring irony, correctly understood little that was vitally significant about Fighter Command. Oberst Beppo Schmid, the catastrophically incompetent head of Luftwaffe Intelligence, persistently underestimated RAF Fighter Command. This goes a long way towards explaining why Luftwaffe morale suffered heavily, following aircrew puzzlement, when their enemy continued resisting into September in numbers not visibly much if at all reduced, despite the cumulatively high ‘kill’ rates claimed. In every aspect of the Battle the Germans were hampered severely by acute, literally lethal, ignorance of the enemy. They knew about British radar, but they did not know how the RAF used it. In fact, Luftwaffe Intelligence had no comprehension of RAF Fighter Command as the world’s first, and then only integrated air defence system. Because the Luftwaffe in 1940 did not centralize its radar data and filtering, it did not occur to them that Fighter Command was truly a network, which is to say a system with integrated sub-systems (thanks to Post Office land lines). A key part of the German ignorance was their lack of comprehension of the existence and role of the 7 Sector Stations that Air Vice Marshal Keith Park was using as instruments of his operational air generalship. Naturally, since the Luftwaffe did not know of what Fighter Command consisted and how it functioned, bombardment for strategic effectiveness – identified by Giulio Douhet as the “most delicate and difficult task in aerial warfare … defined as aerial strategy” – had to be a substantially haphazard affair. + + __Comprehensive failure of strategy:__ Germany’s political ends did not sit comfortably well enough with its selected ways or its enabling means. In short, Germany needed its Luftwaffe either to assist its navy and army to win the war by a successful invasion, or to coerce the British government by air action alone into acquiescence in German political leadership (which may not have required many German boots on Britain’s green and pleasant land). In failing to suppress the RAF the Luftwaffe effectively thwarted the political ‘end’ of a compliant, possibly even friendly, government in London. The political guidance to the Luftwaffe’s operational level commanders (Generalfeldmarschall Alfred Kesselring – Luftflotte 2, Brussels; Generalfeldmarschall Hugo Sperrle – Luftflotte 3, Paris) was minimal. Indeed, Hitler showed little interest in the air campaign, while Hermann Goring did not function strategically in military perspective). + +2. __Inadequate military means:__ The Luftwaffe of 1940 was the world-leading air force of the day – it was truly formidable. It had the finest medium, light and dive bombers, and arguably the finest single-seat fighter, the Bf109. However, the Luftwaffe was a relatively short-range force and it was always on the edge of crisis over spare parts and replacement aircrew and aircraft. The service was a near miracle of hasty construction, but it had been built as a Nazi political and cultural showcase, as a coercive instrument against those likely to be easily shaken, and if need be, as a force enhancer of swift terrestrial continental victory. It was not built to be able to sustain and recover from recurring heavy losses, or to fight across seas against an enemy over his home. Numbers are arguable because of the problems of dating the audit and selecting what really were the “serviceable” numbers. Nonetheless, a good enough count for the balance holds that RAF Fighter Command and the Luftwaffe joined serious combat in summer 1940 with orders of battle at approximately 754 Hurricanes and Spitfires in 48 squadrons versus 1,107 Bf109s. Single-seat fighters were the significant combatants. By and large, everything else in the air was only a potential ‘kill’. Fighting literally overseas, the Bf109s were too few, with their margins of numerical superiority inadequate. To illustrate: by my calculation between 1 June and 1 November 1940, Britain built 1,367 Hurricanes and 724 Spitfires (average per diem works out at 8.9 and 4.7 respectively). Compare those numbers with the total (operational) loss rate, which for the longer period 10 May to 4 November averaged 4.4 (Hurricanes) and 2.7 (Spitfires) per diem, and it is not hard to appreciate why the Luftwaffe failed to clear the air of annoying British aircraft. Among the many things that Oberst Schmid did not know was the non-trivial fact that in the summer and autumn of 1940 Britain was out-producing Germany in fighter aircraft (nor did he know about the superb RAF organisation for recovery and repair). Numbers abound in military aviation history and sometimes they are strategically meaningful. On the launch day for the great German air assault on Fighter Command, which is to say 13 August (to ignore the attacks on the radar system on 12 August), the Luftwaffe (Luftflotten 2 and 3) could commit only 871 Bf109s, against a Fighter Command total in the 640s. There were too few first-line operationally ready German single-seat fighters. As for the enemy, not only was Britain out-producing the Germans in fighters, but the relevant operationally available pilot numbers also tell the tale of strategic defeat for the Luftwaffe. On 6 July Fighter Command could call on 1,259 pilots, on 1 September 1,142 pilots and on 2 November, 1,797 pilots. This is the arithmetic of German strategic defeat. The dependable Bungay provides suitable closing metrics on the most relevant aircraft holdings. Apparently, on 17 August Schmid told Luftwaffe commanders that RAF Fighter Command had only 300 serviceable fighters in its active force. The real numbers for Fighter Command were “855 with operational squadrons, 209 at storage units, and another 84 at training units, a total of 1,438 twice as many as in the beginning of July.” + +3. __Poor campaign adaptiveness:__ German aircrew and aircraft were excellent for their place and day, but that place and day was not over Britain in 1940. Error is inevitable and unavoidable in the practice of strategy, so the unarguable fact of German mistakes cannot itself be an issue of interest here. Rather, the question is ‘how did the Luftwaffe adapt to correct for the errors which experience was revealing?’ Could it be flexible and immediately find ways to fight more effectively against Britain? The short answer, and even a long answer, is simply ‘no’. Germany lacked intelligence on most vital aspects of British air defence, and it could not possibly correct for aircraft production rate mistakes in real-time in August and September 1940. One can identify many crucial errors that could have been avoided or mitigated, had only nazi Germany in the mid to late 1930s known what historians today know. Hindsight is wonderful. The German political leadership was thoroughly disengaged from the Battle of Britain at all levels of performance: tactical, operational, and certainly strategic. Luftwaffe officers, high and low, were not formally educated at all in strategy. But, notwithstanding the many zones of German error, had the intelligence picture been far more accurate, even the physical inadequacies of the bomber force (range and/or payload) might not have been so constraining of achievement. For example, if the Luftwaffe had known what sector stations were and what they did, and if the medium bombers had attacked persistently even with their poor bomb sights, real damage with value might well have been done. Fortunately, the Luftwaffe in 1940 was not an organisation capable of improvised adaptations to the challenge from strategic hell that was the Fuhrer’s call about Britain. + +#### Why did Britain win the Battle? + +The reasons for Germany’s defeat are legion; indeed one is spoiled for choice. With respect to the RAF’s victory, it may be recalled that I staked a claim earlier for two essential , mutually complementary, explanations: the British air defence system which had a provenance of 25 years by 1940, and the performance of that system’s leader from 1936 until November 1940, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh ‘Stuffy’ Dowding. In 1940, the air defence system was Dowding’s. British air defence was a team effort, as it had to be, but Dowding’s contributions were by far the most significant to the team’s achievements. + +To summarise: in the early 1930s he had been the most important figure in decisions on research and development bearing upon air defence; his support was vital to the breakthrough on radar on 26 February 1935; his voice was reflected in the aircraft and armament steps taken crucially in early and mid decade; and after air defence was re-branded as Fighter Command in July 1936, with himself as the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, his was the dominant role over the tactics, operations, and strategy of British homeland air defence. The integrated air defence system won a team battle over Germany in 1940, but the team had an outstanding leader. Dowding designed what Fighter Command became: he established its procedures; he decided how it would function as a seamless network; and last but not least he selected the operational concept for engagement that made most strategic sense. The victory in 1940 was a victory for the system, but it was the ‘Dowding System’. The system was strong and had valuable redundancies, but had it been commanded by another brain and personality it might well have performed far less effectively. I conclude with an appraisal of Fighter Command’s success. + +1. __Dowding’s strategic sense:__ Dowding functioned persistently and consistently in strategic mode; he understood that as the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Command his responsibility was for the strategy of air defence, inclusively considered. He committed to ensuring that each of the classic constituents of strategy – ends, ways, and means, and their underpinning assumptions – had integrity both in and of themselves and, no less important, as vital enablers for the others. This claim is so familiar as to risk appearing banal, but its frequent neglect in practice highlights its fundamental importance. Dowding modernised the system of air defence and its supporting infrastructure so as to ensure that the ways and means were sufficiently adaptable to cope with unpredicted, even unanticipated, circumstances. Moreover, Dowding had to ensure that the fighting power of his command – with its physical, moral, and conceptual components – could succeed in combat against the enemy on the day, whenever that day should dawn and for as long as it might last. Dowding possessed and consistently exercised strategic sense. + +2. __Defence planning with ‘minimum regrets’:__ Dowding’s major equipment and research decisions over a ten-year period, including his long term on the Air Council from 1930-36, proved ‘right enough’. He passed the minimum regrets test. The strategist does not need to record flawless strategic performance, only one free of irrecoverable mistakes. Wherever one looks at the ends, ways, and means of British home air defence in the 1930s and into the 1940s, there is no serious room for doubt that Dowding was either right, or sufficiently correct, on the biggest decisions and in the ways in which they were to be implemented. His strategic sense enabled him to adapt to unanticipated circumstances. + +3. __Adaptability:__ British air defence and its victory in 1940 were the result of a quarter century of preparation that was nearly always paced well enough to be combat competitive with the extant or anticipated threat of the period and its near future. Even in the short lifetime of air power, Fighter Command in 1940 enjoyed a lengthy provenance. Dowding the strategist did not have to improvise on many significant aspects of his Command’s capability. Exceptions clearly included combat tactics, which in practice were adapted (away from the lethal ‘vic’ formation) at the squadron level, and with respect to night fighting which Dowding insisted correctly could be improved only when airborne radar was ready, and suitable two-seat aircraft to carry and employ it. + + Dowding succeeded in preparing an architecture of air defence that could cope with a German air menace that evoled rapidly and altered markedly in quality and quantity of tactical and operational menace as a result of unpredicted, certainly unpredictable, geostrategic changes. Fighter Command was not created, developed, and then fine-tuned to deal with a Luftwaffe based in Northern France (meaning a radar assisted warning time cross Channel of 6 minutes!). RAF leaders had envisaged the German air threat in the 1930s primarily as a menace based in Germany, just possibly the Low Countries, and taking the form of medium bombers without single-seat fighter protection. + + Some might argue that Fighter Command was always likely to win, almost regardless of German choices. With Germany and its Luftwaffe as they were in 1940, one can make a persuasive case to the effect that the Luftwaffe’s campaign direction was not critically important. Given what the Luftwaffe did not know about Fighter Command, and what Clausewitz called the “grammar” of war (applied to 1940), one might argue that it did not much matter whether the Germans bombed airfields, cities, or both. Fighter Command was resilient against the kind of performance that the Luftwaffe was capable of imposing. In principle, Britain’s aircraft manufacturing industry was highly vulnerable to attack, as also were the coastal facilities of the Chain Home radar system(s). But, principle and practice were far apart. And one should not be seduced either by common sense or by imagination into believing that the Luftwaffe might well have made a different operational choice here and there, and as a consequence won the campaign. + + There were systemic reasons why the Luftwaffe of 1940 performed as it did in the way it did. Dowding was certainly fortunate in his enemy’s incompetence, but that is not to argue that he succeeded because he was lucky. It was true that he was the fortunate command legatee of two decades of high British competence in air defence. It is also true to say, however, that Dowding personally contributed very significantly to the future strength of that air defence by virtue of his enthusiastic endorsement of vital technical developments both before and after he assumed command in July 1936. Of course, the successful defensive performance in 1940 was won by a team of outstanding contributors to Fighter Command’s combat potency, but the overarching and most persuasive explanation for the victory was that the Command benefited from superior strategic leadership for long enough to give it decisive advantages over the Luftwaffe. It was not luck that in 1940 Fighter Command had excellent equipment when it mattered most, that it was settled in pursuit of the most prudent and effective master operational concept, that its battlespace general (Keith Park) truly was Dowding’s alter ego in military grasp and strategic sense, and that scientific and technical challenges consistently were addressed competently by the Command. + +4. __Command:__ Dowding persisted with what history demonstrated to be the correct command philosophy and broad guiding concept of operations (near continuous engagement with the minimum force necessary to disrupt him – to limit British losses). He reserved for himself the role of strategist, delegating operational command to his exceptionally capable subordinate, Keith Park, at 11 Group, who played the role of Sherman to Dowding’s Grant. Park, in his turn, delegated tactical command to his sector station controllers – up to the point of air-to-air contact, when squadron commanders aloft took charge. Because he adhered firmly to a strategic standard for his performance, Dowding selected a concept of operations for Park to follow that expressed the strategic purpose of the command at that time. Dowding never forgot that his goal was to deny the Germans a convincing narrative that would support the invasion option. He could not decide for Berlin how much damage his Command needed to inflict on the Luftwaffe. What he could do, however, was ensure that no rational, if optimistic, Luftwaffe briefing to the Fuhrer could claim credibly to have defeated the RAF. Overy is plausible when he writes: “It is evident that not a lot was needed to deter Hitler from the idea of invading Britain. Fighter Command tipped the balance.” Dowding could not have known this at the time. He needed both to be able to continue to hurt the Luftwaffe seriously, all the while, in the process, never ceasing to demonstrate that Fighter Command remained alive and well enough. Dowding made his single greatest strategic contribution to British survival in 1940 in mid May over the burning issue of the immediate dispatch to France of many more Hurricanes from the home defence force. On 16 May Dowding wrote a 10 point memorandum to the War Cabinet, via the Undersecretary of State for Air, Harold Balfour, in which he explained the current strategic facts of life with characteristic exemplary bluntness. He wrote that if Fighter Command sent more planes to France (in a losing cause) they would not only fail to save the French, but their loss would all but guarantee the subsequent consequential defeat of Britain also. Dowding prevailed, Fighter Command (almost) ceased leaking Hurricanes to France, and the Command was not expended in a lost cause in May-June. Dowding was not afraid to tell Prime Minister Churchill what he did not want to hear – that we should not try to help the French anymore, even though they were still fighting. + +One can summarise Dowding’s concept of operations as minimum effective response, to deny the Luftwaffe even the possibility of a decisive victory in the air (or against airfields). Many of Dowding’s critics could not understand why Fighter Command committed only a fraction of its total force, most especially of its best fighter aircraft, the Spitfire, to combat at any one time. His was not the most exciting of operational concepts, but it was far and away the most prudent, and it was a strategic victory by any plausible definition. + +--- + +### El Alamein, 1942: Rommel’s Anti-Climax + +_`Echevarria II, Antulio J., “El Alamein, 1942: Rommel’s Anti-Climax”, Infinity Journal, IJ Special Edition, “Strategic Misfortunes”, October 2012, pages 12-15.`_ + +![image2](https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/70.jpg) + +Much has been written about Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, perhaps the most familiar of Hitler’s lieutenants. Bashing the Rommel myth has become something of a pastime for historians — and why not? The legend of the “Desert Fox” was deliberately and aggressively fashioned by Rommel himself — with the enthusiastic collaboration of the vast Nazi propaganda machine. Clearing away the underbrush of legend is one of the services that historians provide. And there is much to clear away in this case. To be sure, Rommel defeated a number of able French and British commanders before his string of successes was broken by General Bernard Law Montgomery in the autumn of 1942. The phrase “doing a Rommel” even became a catchword for outsmarting an opponent, whether on the battlefield or the game board. However, Rommel’s string of victories also worked against him — concealing not only the extent to which the German way of war had become bifurcated, but also two elements that made the Wehrmacht’s tactical successes possible in the first place, namely, logistical support and air cover. If, as Clausewitz said, war has its own grammar, but not its own logic, then Rommel’s military grammar detached itself from the war’s political logic and attempted to follow its own path. That path put a premium on waging a fluid war of movement, and continually pushed men and material to their limits, regardless of logistical realities and the operational range of air power. It was also a method that ultimately ran counter to Hitler’s larger strategic aims because it precipitously wore down the very fighting machine that was merely supposed to buy time and achieve some stability along the flank of the main theater of operations. + +The North African theater was never more than a sideshow for Hitler, an effort to bolster a failing ally who was fast becoming a liability. After June 1941, the main effort for the Reich was the war against the Soviet Union, which by the autumn of that year had escalated from a supposedly swift campaign of occupation into a brutal struggle for existence between National Socialism and Stalinism. Rommel’s theater would never enjoy anything more than a tertiary status — behind the campaign in the east and the war in the Atlantic — something he apparently understood, but refused to accept. Right or wrong, Hitler’s political logic was clear. Yet, Rommel continually appealed to the High Command for more troops, as if taking Cairo and the Suez Canal could end the war in Germany’s favor. + +Nothing in Rommel’s personal background suggests that he had the mettle to rise to high-level military command. As an officer candidate, he was rated above average, but definitely not exceptional. As a junior officer in the First World War, he proved to be intelligent, brave, and resourceful — but so were tens of thousands of other young men. Good fortune and his relentless self-promotion, perhaps driven by personal insecurities regarding his class and social standing (he was not Prussian), enabled him to make the most of his exploits: he was awarded the Iron Cross, first and second classes, as well as the Pour le’Merite. His book, Infantry Attacks (1937), was little more than a collection of war stories posing as tactical lessons; yet, it added much to his personal image as a tactician. Rommel later wrote, “position warfare is always a struggle for the destruction of men — in contrast to mobile warfare, where everything turns on the destruction of enemy material.” This is an ironic observation given that El Alamein was a classic example of position warfare. He clearly preferred a war of movement, captured rather adroitly with the phrase “Schlacht ohne Morgen” or battle without end, and — almost to a fault — consistently placed himself at the point of attack. + +Indeed, regardless of his rank, Rommel habitually exerted his personal influence at the decisive point. However, that habit reveals that he was a micromanager, a leader who was unwilling to trust his subordinates with important tasks. He often assumed command of his subordinates’ units, a practice that ran contrary to the supposed German tradition of issuing broad orders of intent (Auftragstaktik) and giving one’s subordinates the latitude to execute them according to the situation. One notable example is the 7th Panzer Division’s attempt to cross the Meuse River on May 13, 1940, during the campaign in France. The attempt failed despite Rommel’s personal intervention because, in his view, his subordinate officers “were appalled by their heavy losses and unwilling to press forward.” Ironically, while he typically expected nothing short of instant obedience from his own officers and men, he frequently disregarded his superiors’ orders, or creatively reinterpreted them so that they were less restrictive. Rommel’s practice contradicts the received view regarding the importance of Auftragstaktik in German military practice, and this contradiction is an issue historians have yet to examine more closely. Moreover, he habitually disregarded the physical and psychological limits of the personnel under his command, and deftly shifted blame for failure onto them to preserve his image. This habit inhibited his ability to conduct an objective analysis of his own shortcomings and style of command so as to increase his chances of success in the long-term. The cultivation of his image not only required constant attention; it also meant suppressing inconvenient truths. + +Rommel’s skills seem to have peaked at the battle of Gazala in June 1942, about one week before the first battle of El Alamein. For purposes of this essay, the events around El Alamein that took place between July 1, 1942, and November 4, 1942, are considered as three distinct battles. Although the battle of Gazala would end successfully, Rommel actually followed what for him had become a predictable scheme of maneuver: a wide envelopment of the British left flank, followed by an attack in the rear across the British lines of communication. The scheme pushed the Afrikakorps’ logistics to its extreme limit, and nearly caused a disaster. It is likely that Rommel’s style of leading from the front saved him from defeat in this case, as it enabled him to issue orders, and counter-orders, faster than his opponents. He operated inside his enemy’s decision cycle, to use one of today’s popular military expressions. + +However, most of the successes he enjoyed at Gazala and the subsequent assault on Tobruk were due to his foe’s ineptitude. During the encounters that took place in and around the “Cauldron” or “Sausage Pot” (May 30 to June 1, 1942), for example, Rommel had rashly maneuvered himself into a difficult situation: to his west he had a series of extensive minefields with half dozen fortified “boxes,” or strong points, occupied by dug-in infantry brigades, reinforced with tanks and artillery; while to his east he faced several British armored formations, some of which were equipped with the new American Grant tanks armed with powerful 75mm guns. A vigorous attack by the British commander, Lieutenant-General Neil Ritchie, might have crushed the Afrikakorps, which by this time had lost a third of its tanks and was desperately low on fuel. Instead, Ritchie threw his armor into the battle in piecemeal fashion, which enabled the Axis formations to fight and defeat them individually. To be saved from a desperate situation by the poor choices of one’s opponent is not the same as winning by demonstrating consummate skill. + +Tobruk fell in the summer of 1942, and during the pursuit and exploitation that followed Rommel should have pushed his air cover forward. Otherwise, he would have little real hope of taking Cairo, or of holding anything he had gained, since he would be exposed to Allied air attack. Some analysts have argued that he ought to have paused to take Malta and strengthen his logistical situation, after all Axis forces required roughly 100,000 tons of supplies per month during the late summer and early autumn of 1942; but were only receiving half that much on average. However, establishing forward air cover was actually more critical since his forces were already exposed, and because Allied ground forces essentially operated free of the threat of Axis air attack. Rommel could not win the race to build up materiel, whether or not Malta was taken, and thus — by his own formula — he was becoming less capable of winning a war of movement. His operational intelligence, ground movement, and logistics’ flow suffered markedly due to the limited range of Axis air cover. Without forward air bases, he could not prevent his ground forces or their supply lines across Libya from being bombed. + +To illustrate the point: as the Allies advanced into Italy in 1943, their air cover also leapfrogged to new bases and airfields in order to ensure adequate coverage for the next series of ground operations. The Allies’ task was, obviously, made easier by the fact that more of the Luftwaffe’s planes were being diverted to defend the German homeland from major bombing offensives. Still, modern warfare had evolved into a system by which the forward movement of ground forces was often driven by the need to capture another airfield, so that air cover could be extended to cover the next ground offensive, and so on. Fire and movement, always mutually reinforcing at the tactical level of war, had become similarly interdependent at the operational level of war as well. Rommel came to appreciate this fact far too late in the North African campaign (though he appears to have learned it by the battle for Normandy in 1944), and never took effective action to ensure his formations had adequate protection from Allied air forces. + +During the pursuit after Gazala, Rommel attempted to avoid drifting into a war of position by getting ahead of the retreating British; however, his lack of fuel, the fatigue of his men, and the state of their equipment prevented him from doing so. His troops were all but spent, having fought hard across 500 miles of desert; his tanks were low in fuel and ammunition, and badly in need of refitting. The Desert Fox, too, was mentally and physically drained, as were many of his subordinate commanders, notwithstanding the emotional boost that came from his promotion to Generalfeldmarschall in late June, and the Afrikakorps’ stunning success at Gazala. Fatigue and perhaps a bit of overconfidence led to hasty command decisions and poor staff coordination as the first battle of El Alamein began on July 1, 1942. Once again, Rommel overestimated the capabilities of his troops, while at the same time underestimating those of his foes. After three weeks of fighting, Rommel’s forces had lost 70 percent of their manpower, 85 percent of their armor, 65 percent of their anti-tank weapons, and 50 percent of their heavy anti-aircraft guns. Rommel found himself forced to transition from a war of movement, where his tight decision-cycle and his penchant for pushing his forces to their limits gave him an advantage, to a war of position, where superiority in numbers would tell. The uniqueness of the terrain around El Alamein and the rapidity with which British strength could grow meant that he would gradually lose his room to maneuver, and, thus, his ability to create chaos for his adversary. In addition, the Allies enjoyed an intelligence advantage through ULTRA that enabled them to read the coded messages sent between Rommel’s headquarters and Berlin. + +Rommel renewed his offensive on August 30, 1942, which became known as the second battle of El Alamein, or Alam al-Halfa; but it was doomed from the start. Even though he allegedly scaled back his original objectives, he apparently retained high hopes of success. As he confided in his wife, Lucie: “I have worried so much about this day, but I am taking the risk because I will not have another chance, in terms of the moonlight and ratio of forces. So much is at stake. If I succeed, this may have a decisive effect on the course of the war.” Yet, Rommel’s plan of attack was very reminiscent of Gazala, so much so that the British did not need ULTRA to prepare for it. Rommel sent the Italian infantry in a pinning attack to the front, and directed the Afrikakorps to punch through a perceived 13-mile gap between the southern positions of the British forces and the Quattara Depression. They were then to attack across the coastal roads leading west into El Alamein, thereby severing British lines of communication. + +However, the predictability of the plan and the Allies’ advantages in strategic and operational intelligence, terrain, and materiel began to tell almost immediately. The attack bogged down, and Rommel called it off on September 4, 1942. General Montgomery received the credit for stopping the Axis advance; but his plan was essentially the same as that of his predecessor, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck. Montgomery’s success was ensured, so long as he avoided committing a blunder, such as allowing himself to be baited into counterattacking prematurely. With materiel preponderance, he had the luxury of time and could afford not to chase imaginative solutions. + +When Montgomery launched the final battle of El Alamein on October 23, 1942, Rommel was in Germany on much needed sick leave. He returned to North Africa on the evening of the 25th; but the battle was all but lost by then. Montgomery enjoyed a 2:1 superiority in manpower, a 3:1 superiority in aircraft, and more than a 4:1 superiority in medium tanks. The third clash at El Alamein was little more than a World War I battle of attrition; but it was one the Allies could afford to wage. To be sure, there were several crises that required Montgomery to exert his will over subordinate commanders who were not accustomed to pushing forward against enemy fire. However, the outcome of the battle was a matter of military science, the mathematics of attrition. Military art had little say, and could not change the result. The interdiction efforts of Allied air power had severely limited Rommel’s flow of supplies. Although he attempted to launch a few counterattacks, the deficiencies in fuel and ammunition were crippling. His army was overextended and egregiously exposed, as it had been since the first battle of El Alamein, though he and many of those around him chose to ignore it. + +On balance, Rommel’s style of command, while often praised by military historians, was actually ill-suited to the conditions in which he found himself. It resembled the leadership style in vogue in the nineteenth century, where the timely appearance of the commander at the decisive point on the battlefield might tip the scales toward victory. However, in the twentieth century, command at higher levels required mastering and incorporating new dimensions, such as operational-level air support and theater-level intelligence, into one’s scheme of maneuver. Rommel did not fully incorporate those dimensions into his planning. To draw an analogy, Rommel was like a chess player who used the same combination of moves again and again, while neglecting to appreciate that the rules of the game had changed. He repeatedly went on the offensive with his armor and, though enjoying many tactical successes, fatally overextended his logistics and exceeded the range of his air cover. Hitler, rightly or wrongly, desired that the campaign in North Africa should have only a tertiary priority. Rommel was unwilling, or possibly unable, to function under such an inconsequential status. His conduct of the campaign in North Africa, and in particular the battles of El Alamein, illustrate the principal flaw in a way of war predicated on the idea that wars are won from the ground up — through tactical victories. In such an approach, strategy matters little and the influence of policy even less, for the power of tactical success seemingly trumps all. However, as Rommel’s example shows, his exquisite grammar had become detached from the larger logic of the war. His brilliant tactical successes failed to achieve anything of strategic value, and ultimately Hitler’s policy trumped them all. + +--- + +### Israeli Strategy in the First Lebanon War, 1982-1985 + +_`Hecht, Eado, “Israeli Strategy and the First Lebanon War, 1982-1985”, Infinity Journal, IJ Special Edition, “Strategic Misfortunes”, October 2012, pages 16-20.`_ + +![image3](https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/71.jpg) + +The last shots of Israel’s War for Independence were fired in early 1949. From January to July 1949 Israel negotiated separately with each of its Arab neighbours – Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria – to work out a political arrangement and an official cessation of hostilities. The first agreement was signed with Egypt in February 1949 and the last was signed with Syria in July of the same year. However, Israel’s hope that these agreements would be peace treaties or would, at least, become the first step leading to such treaties was disappointed. Concluding that a rematch was inevitable, Israel’s political and military leadership began to develop a grand-strategic doctrine and a strategic doctrine. These doctrines were not formulated in a single official document and did not develop in a single smooth trajectory. They developed in many debates, flashes of inspiration, and adapting in response to enemy activities. Different people had different ideas. Sometimes, it was who was sitting in which chair that was more important than the debates being conducted around the table. Changes in the manning of senior positions and lessons learned from specific events brought about changes in the concepts. However, it is not the purpose of the present article to describe all the twists and turns along the path, only to discuss a single event to which these doctrines were applied, achieved some success, but then failed – Israel’s war with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon, which culminated in the all-out Israeli offensive into Lebanon in 1982. The seeds of the decision to undertake this offensive were sown over thirty years earlier in the formulation of the aforementioned doctrines, and so the relevant aspects will be described in brief. + +Israel’s first order of business after winning its War of Independence was not to prepare for future conflict, but rather to prepare for peace – building a society, an economy and a legal system, while simultaneously absorbing an enormous influx of immigrants from around the world, speaking different languages and living according to different cultural norms. However, very quickly it became clear that the War of Independence might be over officially but not in fact. Palestinian Arabs who had fled into neighbouring countries began to conduct forays into Israel. Some were innocent – people trying to collect possessions left behind, and some were criminal – theft of Israeli property in order to facilitate life in the refugee camps. Gradually they began to be more and more political, aiming simply to kill Israelis and cause damage to property. The Arab armies also conducted cross-border intelligence raids or tried to nibble bits of land away from Israel. Israel’s political and military leaders concluded that they were in fact facing two distinct threats, each of which required a different strategic approach: + +- The Fundamental Threat – an all-out offensive by an Arab army or combination of Arab armies. This required Israel to build an army capable of defeating any combination of Arab armies, despite being numerically inferior, without bankrupting Israel’s still fragile economy. + +- The Routine Threat – the conduct of intermittent cross-border raids by small groups of guerrilla-style fighters or regular troops. These raids were not considered an existential threat in the sense of being able to physically destroy Israel, but Prime-Minister Ben-Gurion feared that they could destroy the self-confidence of the new immigrants, settling along the borders, and cause them to flee the country – thus achieving gradually what the Arab armies had failed to achieve in one fell swoop. Again, the solution had to be one that would not require massive expenditure of Israel’s limited manpower and treasure. + +The doctrine of Routine Security, developed through the 1950s, was the core of the decision to invade Lebanon in 1982. Israel’s initial strategy was defensive – army units were deployed in ambushes and patrols along the borders. This failed – there were not enough troops to cover more than a fraction of the border at any one moment. The next strategy was aptly named ‘An Eye For An Eye’. Following each Arab raid into Israel, the Israeli army conducted a raid aimed at causing similar casualties and damage across the border. This aroused an ethical argument in Israel, international condemnations, and failed to elicit the desired response – a reduction in Arab raids. So Israel’s leadership upped the ante – it decided to change the targets and retaliate more massively. The new target was Arab property, not people, but en masse. If an Israeli village was attacked then an Arab village was captured, evacuated and the houses destroyed. However, Arab raids continued unabated and the ethical problem was not solved, as became clear after the botched Kibya operation in autumn 1953, in which the Israeli force ordered the population to evacuate but, contrary to orders, did not search the houses to ensure that all had actually done so. 63 civilians died. The result was uproar in Israel and around the world. It was clear that this strategy was neither effective nor sustainable. + +To this point Israel had tried to achieve Routine Security by confronting the perpetrators (commonly known as Fedayeen) directly or by deterring them via retaliation raids. Both ways had failed. The Israelis could not find the Fedayeen in the field nor in their safe-havens, and the damage caused to the neighbouring Arab population did not really interest the Fedayeen because they were not from the same clans or families. The Israelis decided on a new strategy – they could not find the Fedayeen, but the governments of the host-states could. The new strategy was to compel the Arab governments to stop the attacks from their territory by retaliating for Fedayeen raids with counter-raids on the host-states’ military. Hopefully, repeated expensive defeats of their troops would shame the Arab governments and they would prefer to prevent further provocation of Israel. It took time, but the new strategy worked – Egypt was the first to gradually suspend Fedayeen activity through its border with Israel from the mid-1950s; then Syria, which, from the mid-1960s, continued to support Fedayeen activity but only if the actual raid was conducted through Jordan or Lebanon; and finally Jordan forcibly evicted the PLO from its territory in September 1970. Only the Lebanese border remained open for the Fedayeen raids. Encouraged by Syria, the Fedayeen had begun to gradually intensify their operations from Lebanon from the late 1960s. To the cross-border raids they added two new operational modes: + +- Stand-off fire – at first with short-range weapons and gradually with longer-ranged weapons culminating in the late 1970s with long-range field-guns and rockets. + +- Overseas raids – attacking Israelis and non-Israeli Jews in locations around the world. The most notorious attacks were the hijacking of civilian aircraft and the massacre in the 1972 Olympic games in Munich. + +By the late 1970s, fighting along Israel’s border with Lebanon had become an almost daily affair. In theory Israel had a proven strategic solution. However, this solution was not suitable to the Lebanese theatre. It depended on the host-state having a strong central government capable of imposing its political will, and if need be, military will on the Fedayeen. Lebanon did not have such a government. By the early 1970s Lebanon’s society and political system had unraveled. Established by the French to provide the local Christian community a state of their own, in which they were a majority, its political system had been designed on a sectarian-religious basis. However, by 1970 the Christians were no longer the majority. They were still the largest religious group, but smaller than any other two groups combined. The arrival of the PLO’s military forces in Lebanon had completely destroyed the last vestiges of Christian superiority over the other religious groups. Lebanon disintegrated into civil war. Each religious group battled the others for territory, political and economic benefits and clans within each group often battled each other for domination of the group. The Lebanese army disintegrated along religious lines. The strongest military force in Lebanon was the PLO – also divided into factions often battling each other. A new-old actor entered the Lebanese stage – Syria. Syria had always claimed that Lebanon was actually an integral part of Syria, illegitimately torn away by the departing French Empire. Covertly Syria had assisted the gradual dissolving of the Lebanese government’s control. Another Syrian interest in Lebanon was money. Lebanese banks, the international port of Beirut, Lebanese agriculture and industry – all were important to the well-being of Syria’s fragile agriculture-based economy. The civil war threatened Syria’s economy and Syria reacted by invading Lebanon. At first, the Syrian invasion was aimed to assist the Christians because they dominated most of the areas important to Syria. However, gradually, the Syrians began to assert their domination against the Christians and fighting broke out between them – the ratio of power ensuring a Syrian victory. + +#### Back to Israel in the early 1950s + +Routine Security was an important issue, but Fundamental Security was considered more critical. It was clear that Israel could never match the size of her neighbours’ military forces. Foreign powers refused to sell anything other than second-hand, mostly well-worn, World War Two vintage equipment to Israel, so it was also fairly clear that Israel could not achieve technological superiority. During 1950 – 1953 a series of tactical disasters in Routine Security operations seemed to show that even the Israel Defence Forces’ superiority in tactics and fighting spirit no longer existed. The Israel Defence Forces’ senior command addressed the quality issue in various ways not relevant to this article. What is relevant is that during this period Prime Minister Ben-Gurion advanced the idea of an ‘Alliance of Minorities’. The Jews were not the only ethnic minority struggling to float in the stormy sea of the Moslem Arab world: the Copts in Egypt, the Kurds and the Druze in Syria, the Kurds in Iraq and the Maronite Christians and the Druze in Lebanon. An ‘Alliance of Minorities’ would strengthen each separate minority in its own private struggle by splitting the attention and resources of the Moslem Arab states between a number of simultaneous conflicts. Israel’s main benefit would be that the Arab states would be hard put to enact the worst nightmare of Israel’s military leaders – called the ‘Everybody Scenario’, an organized alliance of all the Arab states conducting a simultaneous properly planned assault on Israel. As it turned out, the idea was stillborn. The Copts proved completely incapable of organizing effectively to further their political agenda. The Kurds were similarly split into rival factions, though from the early 1960s until 1975 the Iraqi Kurds managed to conduct an insurgency that diverted most of Iraq’s attention to them and away from Israel. The Druze and the Maronites were not interested. The Maronites were the only non-Jewish minority with a state of their own and saw no threat that required them to befriend Israel. However, as the situation in Lebanon gradually developed against them they turned to Israel for help. Though officially the idea of the ‘Alliance of Minorities’ had been shelved, the principle that helping another minority would help Israel remained – as in the case of the Iraqi Kurds. + +The gradually worsening plight of the Maronites also triggered another Israeli ideological concept. One of the main complaints of the Jews following the Second World War was that they had been abandoned by the world to suffer the Holocaust. Even requests for small, relatively cheap actions that could have partially alleviated the plight of the Jews suffering Nazi persecution (such as the bombing of Auschwitz Extermination Camp which would have slowed the killing-machine) had been refused. When faced with cries for help from a religious minority, ostensibly about to suffer decimation and persecution, Israel’s political leaders were incapable of denying assistance. Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad and the Israel Defence Forces were ordered to provide equipment and training and occasional military action to support the Maronites. + +By 1980 some of Israel’s political and military leaders were already beginning to formulate a new strategy for solving the Lebanese conundrum. The new strategy was based on a series of assumptions: + +- The reason the Christians had lost power in Lebanon was the arrival of the PLO after it had been forcibly ejected from Jordan. + +- Destruction of the PLO’s military power and evicting its political infrastructure from Lebanon would enable the Christians to reassume their position as the dominant group in Lebanon. + +- Evicting Syrian military forces out of Lebanon would also be required. + +- The Christians would gratefully acknowledge Israel’s assistance in achieving their political goals by signing a full peace treaty with Israel – the second Arab state to do so (after Egypt) – and prevent the return of the Palestinian political and military leaders to Lebanon, thus terminating the Routine Threat on this front too. + +Israel’s Minister of Defence at the time, Ariel Sharon, hoped that the successful result would also cascade into other theatres of conflict: removal of the PLO’s political and military infrastructure from its last contact with Israel’s border would fatally weaken its standing among the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states in general. This would also enable Jordan to sign a peace treaty with Israel, leaving only one Arab state on Israel’s border, a defeated Syria, alone in its refusal to accept Israel but far too weak to do anything about it. However, implementing the new strategy required a particular set of political conditions that would legitimize such an offensive in the eyes of the Israeli public and the world at large – especially Israel’s only ally, the United States. + +In January 1981, and again in March and in April, the PLO initiated a series of artillery attacks on northern Israel, each lasting a few days. In late April, following the indiscriminate bombardment by the Syrian army of the Lebanese Christian town of Zakhle, Israel threatened to intervene against Syria. To put the point across forcefully, the Israeli air force was ordered to shoot down two Syrian helicopters flying near Zakhle. The Syrians responded by violating a tacitly agreed ‘red-line’ – they deployed a number of Surface-to-Air Missile batteries in Lebanon. Only American diplomatic pressure stopped Israel from immediately attacking these missile batteries. Meanwhile, on June 7th, while the diplomatic exchange was still in progress and tensions high, Israel surprised the world by destroying Iraq’s new nuclear reactor. On July 9th the Palestinians again fired a salvo of rockets into northern Israel. Over the next two weeks Israel and the PLO exchanged fire, and Israel prepared to conduct a large-scale strategic punitive raid into southern Lebanon. An attempt by the Syrian air force to intercept Israeli aircraft over Lebanon resulted in a Syrian aircraft being shot down. An Israeli air-strike on a Palestinian headquarters in Beirut accidentally killed and injured many civilians living around the target. This prompted American intervention, which brought about a ceasefire. However, the exact agreement was not clear. The Palestinians claimed the ceasefire was only for the Lebanese-Israel border and they were free to attack everywhere else. This left Israel at a disadvantage since it could be attacked almost anywhere but could not respond because all of the Palestinian’s political and military infrastructure was in Lebanon. From August 1981 to May 1982 the Palestinians conducted 248 attacks in Israel and overseas. Israel responded with threats and troop deployments, but each time backed-off. In March 1982 and again in April Israel retaliated with air-strikes in Lebanon, and the Palestinians fired dozens of rockets from Lebanon into Israel, though aimed mostly at unpopulated areas so as not to over-antagonize Israel. On June 3, 1982 Palestinians shot the Israeli ambassador in Britain. Israel retaliated again with air-strikes in Beirut and the Palestinians again fired rockets into Israel. On June 5th, after two days of mutual firing, the Israeli government decided that it would not tolerate a repeat of the previous summer’s artillery duel. The Israeli Defence Forces were ordered to invade Lebanon and capture all the terrain from the border to just beyond the extreme range of the Palestinian artillery – that is to say, to advance to a line that was nowhere closer than approximately 40 kilometers to the border. + +Theoretically, the supporters of the new strategy described above had received the ‘go ahead’ to implement it. In fact, they had not. Implementation of the strategy required the Israeli army to reach and capture Beirut – that was where all of the political infrastructure and leadership and most of the military infrastructure were located. It also required the Syrians to be either maneuvered into withdrawing from Lebanon or defeated and forced out. Both were well beyond the objective defined by the government. Minister of Defence Sharon faced two tactical problems to implement the new strategy: the political problem of convincing the government to increase the scope of the operation and convincing the public to support this; and the military problem of conducting the operation in disjointed phases as the government gradually allowed each extension of the operation, thus allowing the enemy time to recover, reorganize, reinforce and gradually comprehend the operational plan, making each succeeding phase harder to carry out. + +The Israeli offensive began at noon on June 6th. Sharon gradually overcame both tactical problems but the price was that an operation planned to last a few days stretched to a number of weeks, then a few months. This stretching produced new problems. Politically, it allowed internal and foreign resistance to the operation to build up. As the war dragged on, parts of the Israeli public began to question the validity of the decision to initiate it and foreign powers began to intervene diplomatically. Militarily, the cost in casualties rose and further fueled the growing resistance in Israel to maintain the effort – the first mass Israeli demonstration against the war occurred on July 4th. However, despite all problems, the military objective was partially achieved towards the end of August – the PLO agreed to leave Lebanon and was shipped to Tunisia, and overt Syrian presence was removed from Beirut-proper. + +The time had come to implement the second political phase – handing power back to a Christian-dominated government. The Israelis withdrew from parts of Beirut. The Lebanese conducted elections on August 23rd and Israel’s ally Bashir Jumayel, head of the largest Christian party, was elected to be the President of Lebanon. Israel’s strategy, as interpreted and implemented by Defence Minister Sharon, had prevailed. Then, suddenly, everything began to unravel. It quickly became clear that the Palestinians had covertly left a portion of their fighters in Beirut to conduct a guerrilla campaign against the Israelis. Having promised not to enter certain areas in Beirut, the Israelis demanded that the Lebanese government prove its ability to handle the common enemy on its own. However, on September 14th Syrian intelligence operatives assassinated President Jumayel. He was replaced by his brother Amin – who was understandably less willing to actually implement the agreements his dead brother had with Israel. Meanwhile, the Jumayel’s private military militia, tasked with clearing Palestinian guerrillas from two Palestinian neighbourhoods in Beirut – Sabra and Shatilla, avenged the death of their leader by massacring a few hundred Palestinians. Though conducted by Lebanese Christians the massacre was blamed on Israel – not just around the world, but also inside Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis – nearly 10% of the Jewish population, gathered in the largest ever demonstration in Israel to protest the fact that the Israeli army had not prevented the massacre. Lastly, Israel’s outright support for the Maronite Christians reassuming full power in Lebanon did not sit well with the other ethnic groups – the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Druze. Initially many members of these groups had supported the Israeli invasion, greeting Israeli soldiers with flowers and rice. Now they began to attack the Israelis. Leading these attacks were two Shiite parties – Amal (the larger of the two) and Hizbullah. + +The primary political and military objective of the war had been achieved – the PLO had been evicted from its last stronghold directly in contact with Israeli territory. It could no longer conduct cross-border attacks on Israel proper. However, the secondary political object, though seeming at first to be in hand, was lost. The single bomb that killed Bashir Jumayel proved to be more powerful than all the thousands of bombs and shells fired by the Israelis. The Syrians remained in control of Lebanon. An Israeli judicial committee sacked Sharon for failing to prevent the massacre in Sabra and Shatilla. The Israelis did not give up immediately. But gradually, as casualties mounted and it became clear that their continued presence in Lebanon was not going to achieve their second political objective of obtaining a peace treaty with Lebanon, they decided to cut their losses and make do with a half-win. The withdrawal was gradual and completed in 1985. To secure their border, the Israelis organized a buffer-zone held by the South Lebanese Army – a militia manned by local volunteers from southern Lebanon, funded, equipped and trained by Israel. + +Israel’s withdrawal was accepted by all the Lebanese militias fighting against them as well as terminating the war – all except Hizbullah. For approximately 18 months the fighting subsided as Hizbullah grew from a small almost insignificant group into a major player, and then began a guerrilla-style offensive on the Israeli buffer-zone, forcing the Israelis to reinforce the South Lebanese Army with Israeli units. It seemed that Israel’s decisive defeat of the PLO had only achieved a brief reprieve and simply replaced the enemy at the gates. Against this new enemy the Israelis had no clear policy and no clear strategy other than to stick it out at the least cost possible in blood and resources. They continued to do this until 2000, when they withdrew from the buffer-zone. + +To sum up, from the mid-1950s Israel’s ultimate strategy against the Routine Threat was to punish the host-states until they prevented hostile actions from their territory. This strategy was not possible in Lebanon because the Lebanese government was too weak. In attempting to manufacture a strong Lebanese government Israel invaded Lebanon and evicted the PLO and then, in accordance with the concept of the ‘Alliance of Minorities’, tried to hand over power to the Lebanese Christians – thus alienating the other Lebanese religious groups. Moreover, the Israelis misjudged the Christians’ political and military strength relative to these other Lebanese groups – even with Israeli backing the Christians were no longer capable of ruling Lebanon. Three years later – in 1985 – under continuous attack, hundreds of additional casualties, and billions of shekels worth of resources more than planned, the Israelis decided to cut their losses and they withdrew. Not properly adapted to Lebanon – Israel’s strategy had failed to achieve more than a partial victory. This, it turned out, was just the beginning of a new war, with a new enemy (Hizbullah) upon the same turf. + +--- + +### The Accidental Coindinista: A Historian’s Journey Back From the Dark Side of Social Science + +_`Gentile, Gian P., “The Accidental Coindinista: A Historian’s Journey Back From the Dark Side of Social Science”, Infinity Journal, IJ Special Edition, “Strategic Misfortunes”, October 2012, pages 21-24.`_ + +![image4](https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/72.jpg) + +Over the last half decade since arriving at West Point to teach history after three years of Cavalry Squadron command (one of those years in combat in west Baghdad in 2006) I have made a sustained argument in many published works about the primacy of strategy over tactics in war. My argument has basically said that if a state gets its strategy right in war then the tactics of war will fall into place. However, I argued simplistically and wrongly, if a state fails at strategy, then no amount of tactical excellence can save a war fought under a botched strategy. I began to develop this argument in response to a certain narrative that had formed since the Surge of Troops in Iraq in 2007. That narrative offered the attractive proposition that the US Army had failed at the tactics of counterinsurgency in Iraq from 2003 to 2006 but then the army was saved by an enlightened general named David Petraeus who turned his army around, got it doing the tactics of counterinsurgency right, and Iraq was put on the path to success thus giving Iraqis, in Petraeus’s own words, a “new hope.” + +I still believe the Iraq Surge triumph narrative is misleading. Petraeus as a general performed in essentially the same way as his predecessor General George Casey, and there was no radical shift in operational method between the Surge army and what came before. Instead, violence in Iraq dropped by the end of 2007 primarily for other reasons, such as the spread of the Anbar Awakening, the effects of the previous two years of sectarian warfare, and the shia militia decision to stand down attacks. There is a growing body of analytical literature to support this explanation. + +Yet I also believe that I have become somewhat dogmatic in my sustained argument about the primacy of strategy over tactics. Last year while giving a lunchtime keynote address at a history conference at Columbia University in New York City where I made the argument of the primacy of strategy over tactics, Professor Anders Stephanson, a scholar of American diplomatic and political history at Columbia, pushed back in the ‘question and answer’ period by saying that my argument was “a-historical.” In the weeks following my lecture I reflected on what he said and concluded that he was right. If by rule strategy is always more important than tactics, then the logic of that rule is that tactics in war simply don’t matter. But they do. Any military historian worth his or her salt knows that sometimes in war tactics mean a lot, and wars can be lost by failing at tactics. Consider Louis XIV and the War of Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1713. Louis’s aims in the Low Countries were not stymied by poor strategy but more so by generals who were unable to fight effectively with the emerging technologies and tactics of early modern linear warfare. In fact, if Louis had been asked which one was more important during the war of Spanish Succession he almost certainly would have said tactical competence. + +Yet such a nuance of historical understanding was buried by my rule of the primacy of strategy over tactics. By establishing as a rule the primacy of strategy over tactics I have turned into what historians most often fear: the social scientist and the constructionist of models, which lead to the cherry picking of history to confirm the model. I found myself using historical examples that conformed to my rule. My favorite example to support the rule of the primacy of strategy over tactics was the German army in World War II. Probably one of the finest industrialized tactical fighting forces the world had ever seen, I argued, that all of their tactical excellence could not rescue Germany from a dysfunctional strategy and morally perverse policy under Nazism. True enough of course for Germany and World War II, but for the historian just because something is true in one part of history, does not mean it is true for it all. This is what historians call contingency and the uniqueness of historical events. + +Being slaved to my model of the primacy of strategy over tactics also caused me to fail at one of the hallmarks of good scholarly history: factual accuracy. Here is what happened to me. About three years ago when I was arguing forcefully that better tactics did not turn the war in Vietnam around under Abrams, nor in Iraq did enlightened counterinsurgency tactics under Petraeus turn that war around either, I came across a quote that was apparently made by Sun Tzu. “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, but tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” That reported Sun Tzu quote summed it all up for me in one short, clear, and brilliantly insightful phrase. Get your strategy right and the tactics will fall into place. Get your strategy wrong, however, and tactical excellence is only noise. But Sun Tzu never said it. To be sure it is an apocryphal quote where people believe Sun Tzu said it, though being apocryphal is different from established fact. I had become trapped by my model of the primacy of strategy over tactics and Sun Tzu’s reported quote seemed to sum it up so nicely with the weight of history and the power of the philosophy of Sun Tzu behind it, that I failed as a historian to check the actual primary source, The Art of War, to see if he actually said it. + +Such is the seductive power of social scientific models: they order and rationalize things so well and explain present day problems so neatly. For me, the principle of the primacy of strategy over tactics in war became an unalterable rule, which history and my own writings of it had to conform. + +But I have seen the errors of my ways and am recovering from the addiction of a rule-bound model that overly simplifies the past. My recovery was aided, naturally, through the study of history and teaching it in the classroom. It is not that I have come to believe that tactics matter most in war, or that tactical excellence can save failed strategy. Instead, through the study and teaching of history I have come to see that tactics do matter, sometimes a lot, and battles matter too. + +George Washington and the year 1776 in the American Revolution come to mind. It was a difficult year for the Continental Army, Washington, and the Revolution itself. The previous year saw a string of apparent American victories by militia forces at Lexington-Concord and at Bunker Hill. But in 1776 the British became focused and allocated resources toward crushing the rebellion. Thus, the Continental army under Washington felt the full weight of British imperial power at the Battle of Long Island, White Plains, and the embarrassing retreat of Washington and his Continentals across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania. + +Washington’s army was poor at tactics relative to British regulars, and the general knew it. Let’s play with history here a bit. Let us say we went back in time, put ourselves down in Washington’s headquarters in November 1776 – as his army was in tatters – and we told him of two famous aphorisms about counterinsurgency warfare from the modern world. First, that strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory but tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. Second, that in an insurgency (like the American Revolution) the insurgent wins if he doesn’t lose. I think Washington would have laughed at those two aphorisms. He would have scratched his head and said my big problem right now at this point in time is not strategy, but the simple fact that my army can’t fight effectively at the tactical level, and it has shown at such battles as Long Island in August 1776. He would have also been puzzled by the concept of simply not losing, for Washington knew that to maintain the morale of his army and the citizenry, there came a time when he needed to win a battle or two. I think he would have also said that at least in his war bad tactics could lose the war for him, and conversely that tactical excellence was a key component to rebel victory. + +But back to the present. If I had stuck with my model of the primacy of strategy over tactics it would have led me to a false understanding of Washington’s situation in late 1776 and the criticality of tactical performance of his army. I would have concluded that for Washington tactics simply didn’t matter, as long as he got his strategy right. In a sense this is what American counterinsurgency expert John Nagl, sometimes whimsically called a Coindinista by American investigative reporter Carl Prine, did in his 2005 book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. He constructed a model that said if an army learns and adapts following a certain set of steps, and if it has as a certain end point of learning – call it the perfection of population centric counterinsurgency – then it can win. + +With that model in hand Nagl undertook a study of the British in Malaya and the United States in Vietnam. Using his model of organizational learning as a template Nagl concluded that the British in Malaya followed his model and therefore they won, and the American’s didn’t follow his model and therefore they lost. It is a strikingly clever and seductive conclusion and one that led many to take that very template and apply it to Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is also a conclusion that horribly distorts the past and one fundamentally not supported by primary evidence. In so trying to make his model work Nagl severely misinterpreted Clausewitz and Jomini. He then went on to distort history by characterizing 18th Century warfare as made up of single battles “that often decided a war.” Yet the historian is hard pressed to find even one example of such a battle that ended a war during that age. More importantly Nagl’s apparent addiction to his model led him to misunderstand the two wars of Malaya and Vietnam. In the former the concern of senior British leaders was never really about the Army’s performance but of the Malayan police. And in Vietnam, the primary evidence shows quite well that the American Army followed Nagl’s learning model to a tee, but the US still lost the war. + +Such are the perils of social scientific models when applied to the past in an attempt to explain it through history. In my journey back from the dark side and addiction of social scientific model through the study of history I believe that I have come to a more balanced understanding of the relationship between strategy and tactics in war. Generally speaking, history does show the importance of good strategy in war and that if it is not done right dubious results will often follow. But history also shows that bad tactics can cause a state to lose a war, or at least cause it to modify its original war aims. And I also think that in some historical cases one can find examples of where a war was fought with a faulty strategy but solid tactics from the start generated opportunities for strategy to reform itself. + +Even though I have jettisoned my rule-bound model of the primacy of strategy over tactics in war, I still believe that the problems America faces in Afghanistan today are widely tied to a broken strategy. + +Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran writes in his new book on Afghanistan, Little America, of a war fought by the United States that has seen buckets and buckets of wasted energy and effort, bungled military operations, dysfunctional command and organizational structures, and naïve, misguided priorities. To be sure the American war in Afghanistan has seen those things from the very start, just like in Iraq. But wars in general and the militaries that fight them are never models of efficiency – far from it. The Prussian philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz in his seminal book, On War, first published in 1832, introduced the idea of “friction” in war. Since wars are fought between peoples and militaries with opposing wills in the realm of death and destruction, friction has the effect of making seemingly smooth running military organizations quite imperfect, and at times, dysfunctional. The American military in Afghanistan in this regard is no different. + +Consider some examples from military history. In the American Civil War the Union Army’s command structure never produced efficient staffs at the higher levels to adequately convey orders and plans to subordinate units, and the Confederates were even worse. Nor did the Union Army prioritize its resources in the most efficient way throughout the war, as evident in its telegraph systems being concentrated solely at the highest levels of command and never really making their way down to where the telegraph could have assisted lower level commanders. Moreover, the Union Army, arguably, never really got its organizational structures for combat right. It never developed a powerful striking force of all arms that could exploit victories in battle to make them truly decisive. Union commanding General George Meade at Gettysburg had soundly defeated Lee’s army but since he lacked a powerful counteroffensive force of cavalry and infantry and artillery he could not destroy Lee’s Army through exploitation. + +In World War II, prior to the Normandy invasion, the American Army under General Omar Bradley had badly conceived the use of airpower to destroy German defensive positions on the bluffs overlooking Omaha Beach. There was an assumption that American high-flying strategic bombers would pulverize the beach defensives so that when the 29th and 1st Infantry Divisions landed they would easily move off of the beach and on to the high ground. But airpower did not have the assumed effect so that the plan that the assaulting divisions carried out went dreadfully wrong, and there was a high payment in blood as a result. + +But in both cases — the Union Army in the Civil War and the American Army at the Normandy landings — the wars were fought under a broader strategic framework that made sense. When a state gets its strategy right in war, problems with tactics, organizational structures and procedures, and even problems with generalship tend to be subsumed and improved within a functioning and rational strategy. The Union Army in the American Civil War and the American Army in World War II, to be sure, had their fair share of “friction” but good strategy smoothed those problems out in the end. What Chandrasekeran essentially exposes in his new book on the Americans in Afghanistan is nothing new in war: friction. But when a state fights a war under a botched strategy — as the United States is currently doing in Afghanistan — without that umbrella of a functioning strategy then such friction is exposed to, and laid bare with, nothing higher for cover. Without good strategy the flaws and dysfunction that Chandrasekeran exposes is seen as instrumental noise, but without the melody of music — good strategy — to make sense out of it and give it direction and purpose. + +Although Sun Tzu never said “strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory but tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat,” he did actually say something similar in The Art of War about the meaning and relative worth of strategy and tactics in war: “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer,” argued Sun Tzu, “but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.” + +The problem with American strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan is that everyone could see the tactics of counterinsurgency, but as they saw them they also saw the strategy. And therein ultimately rests a profound point of which history teaches, and that can’t be reduced into a simplistic, social science rule. In some wars there may be times where tactics, in terms of relative importance, are more important than strategy. But as long as strategy is seen for what it is, and viewed in a separate light, then it can employ effectively tactical action. But let the two become one, as in Iraq and Afghanistan where it was not uncommon to hear pundits and generals referring to a “counterinsurgency strategy,” then we have lost the bubble on the proper relationship between tactics and strategy in war and the end result is nothing more than a hopeless strategic muddle that wastes blood and treasure. + +Oh yes, Sun Tzu said another thing about the temporal aspect of war: “ There is no instance of a country having been benefited from prolonged warfare.” By merging the tactics of American counterinsurgency with strategy in Afghanistan, the United States has allowed its military to adhere to a tactical imperative of counterinsurgency — that counterinsurgency campaigns take a long, long time. + +Commenting in 2010 on how long the United States would be in Afghanistan, General Petraeus said, “this is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.” With regard to his strategic assessment of Afghanistan relative to Sun Tzu’s aphorism of the perils of protracted war for states, General Petraeus was wildly off the mark. + +Time is a calculation of strategy, and good strategy in Afghanistan should have discerned long ago that such an investment of time combined with massive amounts of blood and treasure was simply not worth the cost. + +--- + +### Vietnam and After: Failure in the Vietnam War and the Enduring Defects in US Strategic Culture + +_`Walton, C. Dale, “Vietnam and After: Failure in the Vietnam War and the Enduring Defects in US Strategic Culture”, Infinity Journal, IJ Special Edition, “Strategic Misfortunes”, October 2012, pages 25-28.`_ + +![image5](https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/73.jpg) + +The resources that the United States allocates to national security inspire awe. The precise amount spent annually is open to debate—among other things, the figure arrived at is impacted considerably by what percentage of national debt payments are counted (reflecting past spending) and how factors like equipment depreciation and pensions (which will impact future spending) are treated. In any case, however, the expenditures are staggering—sufficient, for example, to cover the entire cost of Alexander the Great’s bid for global hegemony many times over. Unlike Alexander’s Macedon, however, the United States does not typically win its wars anymore — the US military history of the past half century largely is a dismal tale of outright loss (the Vietnam War), de facto defeat (the Afghanistan War), and Pyrrhic-victory-at-best (the Iraq War). There are exceptions, of course — most notably, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, as well as are a variety of small wars against powers ranging from the minor to the microscopic; the latter category includes the Kosovo War, the invasions of Panama and Grenada, and similar operations. Nevertheless, the general arc is clear. + +The US armed services are an extraordinary strategic instrument, and have been throughout the period under discussion. The image of the US Army in Vietnam as a drug-addled rabble owes more to urban legends about the supposed ubiquity of officer “fraggings” and the script of the decidedly fictional Apocalypse Now than actual history. The US military, particularly the Army, did suffer discipline problems in the Vietnam era, mostly in the later years of the war with rear-echelon units and, especially, ones stationed outside of Vietnam itself. The services responded to this by implementing successful reforms that purged the ranks of troublemakers and reimposed discipline. Yet, the excellence of the US military itself does not guarantee strategic success; indeed, a paradox of the sort which Edward N. Luttwak described in his classic Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace bedevils Washington: because their military is such an impressive tool, American civilian leaders feel a great temptation to use it, and they do so too liberally, often without having carefully and realistically weighed the likely long-term consequences of military action. + +When fighting second and third-rate enemies, operational excellence generally is sufficient to avoid complete humiliation in the short-term; the US military is sufficiently competent that it has not allowed an enemy to win a major tactical victory since the Korean War. The Tet Offensive of 1968, though widely perceived as a defeat for the United States, in fact was perhaps its greatest battlefield victory of the conflict: the indigenous Viet Cong suffered a bloodletting from which it never recovered, and the revolution in the South effectively was crushed. From that point forward, keeping the war alive required ongoing very large-scale infiltration by North Vietnamese forces (People’s Army of Vietnam – PAVN). The Iraqi and Afghan enemies of the United States have failed even to win a dubious victory of the sort enjoyed by the Viet Cong: they have proven incapable of overwhelming all but the smallest US units. When they have attempted to do so, as the Taliban did in the early months of the Afghan conflict, they have suffered accordingly, as their efforts played directly to the defining US military strength from the Second World War onward: quickly bringing crippling firepower to bear against enemy targets. Thus, both Iraqi and Afghan insurgents had little choice but to rely on terroristic tactics, killing and wounding American troops through sniping, the planting of improvised explosive devices, and similar methods. + +#### Ending Wars: Afghanistan and Iraq + +The inability of these foes to win large-scale battlefield victories against US forces, however, did not make strategic success impossible for them. Indeed, it could even be said to have encouraged them to focus their efforts on a dimension of war in which they enjoyed a singular advantage over Washington: time. The Vietnam and Afghanistan Wars are dissimilar in many obvious respects, but alike insofar as both involve the United States fighting an expeditionary war on foreign territory against non-great power foes. These circumstances clearly are distinct from those facing Washington in many of its other conflicts; for instance, the Second World War provides a vivid contrast. From mid-December 1941 onward, it was entirely obvious even to the most politically disinterested American that a crushing military and political victory was the only acceptable outcome to the war in which the United States had finally become formally engaged. The precise character of that victory might be debatable — whether something less than unconditional Axis surrender might be contemplated, for instance — but, in any case, the war must not end with either the Japanese Empire in command of the Western Pacific and the Rimland of Asia or a hostile Nazi superpower consolidating its control over the bulk of the resources, industry, and population of the European continent. + +The Vietnam War was a more vague endeavor. Certainly, the United States government was attempting to prevent South Vietnam (more formally, the Republic of Vietnam – RVN) from falling to communist control, and — aside from the more radical elements of the left and the tiny surviving remnants of the isolationist right — there was broad public agreement that the United States should resist the spread of communism in general and Soviet and Chinese power in particular. Whether it was especially important that the RVN survive was, however, a rather more difficult question — indeed, over time discussion increasingly shifted away from the importance of the country itself and focused on whether its collapse would damage US credibility as a protecting power more generally. + +The motive for the US occupation of Afghanistan was plain — the Taliban’s refusal to surrender Osama Bin Laden and his associates in a prompt and appropriately contrite manner — but what precisely the United States is attempting accomplish now in that country is not altogether clear. The fantasy that Afghanistan could be turned into a stable democracy has long since evaporated. At this point, it seems that President Obama is repeating the experience of his predecessor Richard Nixon: saddled with a unpopular and apparently endless war which he did not begin, he is mainly trying to avoid national (and personal) disgrace and wind down US involvement on acceptable terms. President Nixon, however, was in a somewhat superior position for an ironic reason: he and his subordinate Henry Kissinger were negotiating the American exit from Vietnam with the icy leaders of a totalitarian enemy state. + +Throughout most of the Vietnam conflict, the United States fought in a very constrained fashion. The Johnson Administration — deeply fearful of the possibility that China might enter the war and enamored of the notion that “graduated escalation” was the appropriate methodology for attaining US goals at minimal risk — always conducted the war diffidently. The United States even left much of Hanoi, not only the capital of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) but also its most important industrial city, and the port of Haiphong, the key point of entry for the Soviet and Chinese war materiel that made the PAVN’s expeditionary conflict possible, untouched by its bombing campaign, despite having the ability to devastate both cities at will. Throughout most of his first term, the Nixon Administration was more assertive than Johnson’s in some respects — undertaking, for example, Operation Menu, the bombing of North Vietnamese troops and facilities in Cambodia in 1969-70; however, it largely continued the American policy of caution in the use of violence against the North. The results were as unimpressive as one might expect, but by early 1972, the Administration’s successful efforts to effect a rapprochement with China had given the president the confidence to increase the military pressure on Hanoi through efforts such as the mining of Haiphong Harbor and initiation of the Linebacker I bombing campaign, which hit a range of previously excluded targets. + +As a result, Hanoi’s massive 1972 operational push (called the “Easter Offensive” by the Americans), was broken, with very heavy losses to the PAVN in both men and materiel. From August 1969 onward, Kissinger and his DRV counterpart, Le Duc Tho, had held secret negotiating sessions, but following the collapse of the offensive the prospects for a settled peace appeared especially promising. By October, the general outlines of a US-DRV peace agreement existed, but Hanoi remained cagy, still seeking favorable revisions and refusing to finalize an agreement. + +In November 1972, Nixon won an impressive electoral victory over Democratic Party nominee George McGovern, but the president nevertheless was rightly concerned about the possibility that the incoming Congress, with Democratic majorities in both houses and a very strong Congressional “peace wing” which included many liberal Republicans, might undermine his efforts to achieve a favorable peace. At the same time, Saigon opposed any peace settlement that did not contain various concessions — such as the recognition of the South Vietnam as a separate, sovereign state by the DRV — that Hanoi certainly would not grant. + +Given his temporarily strong but nonetheless precarious position, Nixon decided on the risky gambit of giving the DRV a very sharp shove — the massive Linebacker II bombing campaign. The campaign that occurred from 18-29 December (interrupted in the middle by a 36-hour stand-down for Christmas Day) was operationally devastating. The United States took significant losses — including the shooting down of fifteen B-52s and significant damage to several others — but North Vietnam was gravely wounded, its air defenses largely destroyed and its highly sophisticated logistics network (briefly) wrecked. Nixon’s gamble succeeded: in January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed. + +There is no Afghan equivalent of the government in Hanoi: the forces undermining Afghan stability are a motley collection of tribal warlords, religious fanatics, drug lords, kleptocrats, Pakistani intriguers, and generic thugs. Many individual actors fall into more than one of these categories. Moreover, unlike the leadership of the DRV, many of them lack the intellectual discipline necessary to make prudent strategic decisions; the generals running Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) appear to have a special genius for devising elaborate plots, which invariably backfire and cause chaos in Pakistan itself. Given all this, even if Obama possessed the will to unleash violence on a Nixonian scale, it would make no difference. + +The closest equivalent to the DRV perhaps is the government of Pakistan, but of course it formally is a US ally. The practical reality is considerably more complex — Islamabad is more enemy than ally — but, even leaving aside all considerations of global diplomacy and US domestic political opinion, violence directed against the Pakistani government would be deeply counterproductive. The simple truth is that Afghan stability is not especially important to the overall security of the United States; however, Pakistani stability is important, particularly insofar as that country possesses a sizable nuclear arsenal which might fall into very unsavory hands if Pakistan collapses into anarchy. Thus, it would unwise to take any action that might fatally damage the chronically unhealthy government of Pakistan. Even if that worst-case scenario did not transpire, it would certainly be undesirable if one or more of the factions within Pakistan’s military leadership – angry and humiliated by US action – decided to ramp up their efforts to undermine US interests. The apparent links between the ISI and the terrorists who conducted the 2008 Mumbai attacks serve as a stark illustration of how spectacularly imprudent many Pakistani policymakers are; if sufficiently motivated, they might even attempt to organize attacks on US embassies or other targets. + +Aside from Pakistan, there is no potential negotiating partner remotely worthy of the name. The United States already has accepted the indignity of negotiating with the Taliban, but its efforts to negotiate an acceptable peace ultimately will prove futile. The Taliban is not a unified body, but rather a set of factions loosely united by ethnicity (as an instrument of Pashtun supremacism in Afghanistan), religious obscurantism, and a loathing of the West and its values. Even if a peace agreement is extracted from “the Taliban”, factional rivalry soon will render it worthless. Thus far, both the Obama Administration and its Republican opponents apparently are unwilling to accept – regardless of precisely how the US ends the war – that it already has been lost. American withdrawal (correctly) will be perceived globally as an operational retreat reflecting a strategic (and policy) failure — the collapse of the US effort to craft even a modestly convincing imitation of a modern, democratic, and secure Afghan state. + +It was possible to craft a better outcome to Vietnam, and the Nixon Administration did so. The Paris Peace Accords hardly reflected a stunning US victory and, indeed, were somewhat embarrassing — particularly the tacit acceptance of a permanent PAVN presence in South Vietnam and the refusal of the DRV to recognize that country’s legitimacy — but their terms, if enforced, insured an (admittedly very imperfect) US strategic victory in Vietnam. The core US goal was the survival of a non-communist South Vietnam and the core DRV goal was the absorption of that country — therefore, at the time that the treaty was signed there was every reason to believe that the United States had won the Vietnam War, just as it had in essence won the Korean War. These were frustratingly incomplete victories, but ones that allowed for the survival of a weak post-colonial Asian ally confronted by a stronger communist counterpart. + +The Paris Peace Accords did not permit a continuing US military presence of the sort still ongoing in South Korea — but, given the US domestic political atmosphere of the time, the maintenance of a large US military force in South Vietnam would not have been feasible in any event. South Vietnam, however, was not without the ability to defend itself — the serious “Vietnamization” efforts of the Nixon era had shown considerable success. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) did not have the man-for-man fighting power of the US Army of the day, but neither did the PAVN. The question was whether it was good enough to insure the RVN’s survival even against an invasion on the scale of the 1972 Easter Offensive. The answer almost surely was “yes,” provided that two conditions were met: first, continued provision of ample financial and military aid to the South; second, direct US military intervention should the DRV ignore the Accords and mount a full-scale invasion. + +South Vietnam, however, was then doomed by a bizarre series of events. The Nixon of January 1973 was a respected global statesman with a domestic stature sufficient to enforce the Accords militarily, if need be — but the Watergate scandal soon thereafter began to corrode his status radically. In June, a much-weakened Nixon was compelled to accept a (constitutionally very questionable, as it seriously constrained the president’s authority as the commander-in-chief) ban on the expenditure of funds for military operations in Southeast Asia after 15 August 1973. The following year he resigned office, and the 1974 Congressional elections resulted in a Congressional majority strongly inclined to starve Saigon of aid. As the PAVN offensive gained momentum in early 1975, President Gerald Ford faced a bleak choice. He could have ordered the American military to intervene on behalf of the RVN, thus directly challenging Congress’ attempt to hamstring the commander in chief. Doing so, however, would have caused the greatest US constitutional crisis since the Civil War. Alternately, he could observe helplessly as strategic gains made at the cost of tens of billions of dollars, and nearly 60,000 US (and hundreds of thousands of allied) lives were tossed away. When all factors, domestic and international, are considered, he probably was wise to choose the latter course. The fact that the US Congress obliged him to make the decision, however, was an act of shocking strategic irresponsibility. + +The end game in Afghanistan of course will be radically different from that in Vietnam. Most likely, either the second Obama or first Romney Administration will continue the current policy of slowly winding down the war until, finally, it can quietly end US combat operations altogether (a concluding stage similar to the one in Iraq). Yet both conflicts reflect a central flaw running throughout US strategic culture: an unwillingness on the part of most US civilian policymakers to apply Clausewitzian analysis – applying military violence in a well-considered way and crafting an intelligent strategy that ultimately furthers US policy aims at an acceptable price. + +#### Conclusion: American Anti-Clausewitzism + +One might fairly describe US strategic culture as “Anti-Clausewitzian”, not in the sense that it has consciously rejected Clausewitz but that (aside from within the US military) there is very little appreciation of the need to apply force in a thoughtful manner, assessing the likely financial, diplomatic, and human costs of war and creating a strategy that realistically should result in desired ends being achieved at an acceptable price. This is what Colin S. Gray has dubbed “the Strategy Bridge”, and it is a calculation that has been critical to success in statecraft since before humans developed the written word. + +Precisely why US strategic culture has developed this unhealthy characteristic is complex, reflecting both moral attitudes — most US policymakers find coldly rational discussions of warfare distasteful, preferring to couch discussions of interest in happy vagaries about “spreading democracy” and “American values” — and the tapestry of US history. It is clear, however, that the United States has not, throughout most of its history, been incapable of rationally connecting political ends and military means. Small, weak republics on the Eastern Seaboard of North America do not become continental superstates if they are incapable of using violence ruthlessly and effectively against a variety of foes. + +In 1975, a reasonable observer might argue that the outcome of the Vietnam War was an anomaly, the calamitous ultimate outcome of the strategic ineptitude of Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara and a collective madness that descended upon Capitol Hill as a result of anger at Nixon for Watergate and longstanding frustration with Saigon as an ally. In 2012, however, it is obvious that there is a strong continuing pattern of poor US strategizing regarding the use of military power. + +Not only was the strategy for Afghanistan unrealistic, but the planning for the invasion of Iraq also was deeply flawed. Saddam Hussein was a long-standing irritant and the desire to see him removed from power altogether understandable. However, the fact that the Bush Administration believed that declaring Iraq a democracy would somehow prevent civil war and block Iran from having enormous influence in the country was as delusional as its belief that Afghanistan could be transformed into a functional state. When one also considers the examples of the US intervention in Lebanon in the 1980s and the US war in Libya — an adventure whose consequences are still playing out — as well as ill-considered uses of force in the Balkans that were at least nominally successful thanks to the weakness of Serbia and Slobodan Milošević’s arrogance and strategic ineptitude, the flaws in US strategic culture are all too clear. Moreover, it should be noted that they are bipartisan. + +In a Luttwakian paradox, it is a long record of US historical success that has encouraged this more recent pattern of failure. Because the United States succeeded so impressively overall in its grand strategy from the War of Independence to the end of the Cold War — and the Vietnam debacle did not completely destroy US containment, which proved a good enough strategy to bring the competition with the Soviet Union to a peaceful end — “victory disease” has taken deep root in US strategic culture. The aforementioned impressiveness of the military instrument and the fact that, even now, the United States is so much more powerful than any of its rivals blind policymakers to the limitations on their ability to impose their will on sentient enemies who react to the use of force, often in a creative and surprising manner. Victory disease is a self-correcting condition; eventually patterns of failure become so clear that policymakers are compelled to acknowledge them, whereupon they modify their strategic behavior. The questions that have yet to be answered are how much additional damage the United States will inflict on its interests and how much more it will pay in blood and dollars before it ceases to act in this dysfunctional manner. + +--- + +### Strategy and the Chinese Civil War + +_`Elkus, Adam, “Strategy and the Chinese Civil War”, Infinity Journal, IJ Special Edition, “Strategic Misfortunes”, October 2012, pages 29-32.`_ + +![image6](https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/74.jpg) + +The victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the Guomindang (GMD) in the Chinese Civil War of 1946-49 offers a powerful lesson in strategic misfortune. The GMD’s decay, corruption, and failure to offer a persuasive hope for future prosperity in the aftermath of the horrors of the second Sino-Japanese War were certainly prominent factors in its defeat. But the GMD nonetheless had the military power and will to militarily crush the CCP, as it often did before the onset of sustained Japanese aggression in the late 1930s. Political failure may have weakened the GMD, but strategic failure in managing large land campaigns sealed its fate. + +#### Strategy of Destruction + +The Chinese Civil War is a powerful case study in the centrality of battle even in civil war. Ideology, popular mobilization, and governance were all important. But to heavily focus on these factors ignores Mao’s oft quoted maxim that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” European counterinsurgency theorists such as David Galula studied Mao, but rarely understood the centrality of battle to early 20th Century China’s strategic history. Guerrilla operations and peasant revolts sat alongside large-scale operations waged by those with European military training and ideas. Mastery of continental land warfare as well as guerrilla operations proved key to victory. + +China’s defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War motivated the Qing leaders to create a powerful and bureaucratic military organized around European lines with the aid of German advisors. The 1911 revolution was not won by mass mobilization; Sun Yat-Sen’s GMD was a secret society that focused its efforts on winning over intellectuals, economic elites, and soldiers in Qing military forces. Yuan Shikai, Marshal of the Qing’s forces, defected with his elite Beiyang Army to Sun’s side and tilted the military balance in favor of the rebels. A lack of political consensus over the structure and distribution of political power helped fragment the military balance and thus create the impetus for China’s infamous ‘warlord period’. + +Both sides in the Chinese Civil War were also thoroughly familiar with European political-military ideas and training. German advisors instilled in warlord armies an appreciation of the importance of large infantry armies, artillery, and the necessity of controlling land forces with telegraphic communication and railroad transport. German influence may have been eventually eclipsed by the Soviets, but German ideas still figured strongly in GMD doctrine and operations. GMD and CCP political-military commanders both had military training in Europe and received training from Soviet advisors in the Whampoa Military Academy, before the White Terror suppression of CCP forces in Shanghai and beyond by the GMD that ended their putative alliance in the late 1920s. Both the GMD and the CCP adopted political commissar systems and were strongly influenced by the Soviet idea of the party army. + +From the beginning, the GMD understood that the CCP posed an existential threat and committed to its destruction. It engaged in encirclement operations to search and destroy CCP forces, the success of which was aided by the CCP’s initial Leninist conception of a strategy of urban revolt. Mao and Zhu De worked in concert to develop an alternative strategy built around concepts of protracted war, guerrilla tactics, and political mobilization of the peasantry. The growth of base areas throughout China provided the impetus for the growth of the party army and the CCP’s distinctive military tactics. + +The GMD moved in the early 1930s to encircle and destroy the base areas, but were initially stymied. CCP forces responded by “luring the enemy into the deep,” tricking the GMD forces into overextending their supply lines and destroying individual enemy units. However, the success of these tactics must be qualified. GMD units often consisted of former warlord troops of uneven quality, and local revolts and Japanese encroachments harmed overall GMD ability to coordinate operations. When the GMD devoted its full attentions and resources to annihilating the CCP, it was remarkably successful. + +GMD forces did not have to compete for the allegiance of the populace to defeat the CCP’s base area strategy. Rather, the GMD starved the CCP base areas of resources and nullified Mao’s famed tactics by refusing to be lured into the deep. Networks of blockhouses linked by communication nodes were constructed to exert GMD control, but this time GMD troops refused to overextend their lines. CCP guerrillas were starved of resources, and any CCP attempts to exert local control resulted in destruction by pinpoint artillery and aircraft bombing. The CCP found itself fighting offensively to survive, but doing so led to crushing military defeat in pitched battle. + +The final encirclement campaign severely reduced the CCP base areas. The GMD’s aggressive pursuit of the Communist remnants during the torturous Long March destroyed nine tenths of CCP military power. Were it not for the onset of Japanese aggression, it is quite likely that the GMD would have completely destroyed the weakened CCP forces. The Second Sino-Japanese War not only provided breathing room for the CCP, but also allowed the CCP the opportunity to finally compete for political authority on a national scale. CCP forces infiltrated behind Japanese lines to organize the masses against the Japanese and build up a power base. + +#### Strategy of Consolidation + +The CCP modified its policies in order to make itself attractive to local economic elites while still seeking to lower the peasant’s burden. This politically adroit compromise enabled the CCP to play to peasant sympathies while also plying local landlords that would have otherwise supported the GMD. The increasing formalization and sophistication of the CCP’s command and control structure increased as it expanded rapidly in its base areas; it reached a peak strength of 1.27 million men under arms and 2.6 million militia members by the fall of 1945. The CCP, once regarded as yet another group of renegades with a propensity for redistributive violence, now became seen as patriots waging a virtuous struggle against the Japanese invader. The fact that the CCP’s major military efforts were largely failures did not matter, as the Communists rose while the GMD was pushed to the brink of extinction by the pressure of tackling the Japanese head-on. + +The GMD paid a high price for its efforts to maintain the prewar Chinese polity. It lost 2.4 million men, and some of its best officers perished in positional warfare against the Japanese onslaught. At war’s end, large pockets of territory remained under the control of Japanese troops, local puppet regimes, and the CCP. Even American aid was not enough to sustain the power of the sinking GMD state. The war destroyed 55 percent of industry and mining, 72 percent of shipping, and 96 percent of railway lines. Inflation in GMD territory rose to an annual average of 230 percent. The war shattered the GMD’s prewar evolution into a Soviet-style hierarchal party and the political necessity of compromising with local elites during the war led to substantial corruption. + +The GMD’s political failure to consolidate its control is heavily emphasized in the literature of the war, and for good reason. Years of warlordism, civil war, and the depredations of Japanese aggression had disrupted the political, social, and economic fabric of China. The GMD, challenged by the CCP’s competing nationalism, would have to demonstrate its competence in order to regain political control and legitimacy. But the GMD entered the postwar situation with a substantial lack of revenue, and the wartime disruption of China’s heavy industry resulted in substantial price increases. GMD reforms were crippled by a lack of understanding of modern monetary policy, though they were not totally without beneficial effect. Hyperinflation, unemployment, and indirect taxation all presented a dismal picture of government failure. + +The GMD also failed to adapt to social changes, such as the rise of labor activism, autonomous peasant uprisings, revolts from traditionally oppressed groups, and the rise of a heavily nationalist and CCP-linked student movement. The war’s destruction of traditional markers of social cohesion and class status helped create a large group of elites willing to entertain visions of a China ruled by a power other than the GMD. The GMD found it initially easy to re-establish control in the countryside and handle peasant revolts with indirect rule through a combination of local elites and coercive law enforcement. But it did not understand the need to respond the deepening social crisis in the countryside. + +The GMD strategy of attempting to gain control of large urban centers ran into severe difficulty as factional infighting, predatory local officials, and lack of governing capacity hindered efforts to rebuild. By 1948, total economic collapse had devastated the middle class, bankrupted businessmen, and severely disrupted the GMD’s elite power base. Once-tight party control eroded, and the circle of elites willing to fight for the GMD narrowed. The CCP deftly exploited these difficulties by mobilizing the urban middle class, students, and labor to frustrate the GMD’s political control of the cities. + +The CCP, however, could also be quite ruthless and at times equally inept at the task of extending its authority. The CCP’s success at radical land reform among the peasantry can best be described as mixed. Land reform’s quality varied, led to political conflicts, and most peasants simply sought to survive rather than take sides. Some even resisted the CCP’s efforts to violently overturn the prewar political and social order. More important was the CCP’s ability to create local order, manipulate local elites, and militarize its areas of operation. When it succeeded, the CCP did so by adapting to local conditions and promising all things to all men. When it failed, it was because of overzealous ideological mobilization and lack of attention to the needs of the locals. The CCP succeeded not necessarily in generating a giant peasant army, but in gaining a base for supply and support. It gained enough recruits to sustain its losses and wage a civil war on a continental scale. + +#### Strategy of Victory + +Despite the GMD’s manifold political failures, it held one crucial trump card: the power of battle. As in the encirclement campaigns, the GMD had the raw military power to crush the CCP. Without eliminating the GMD’s forces, including an elite group of American-trained units, the CCP could not win the civil war. Its liberated areas depended on military support to survive. In spite of its losses and economic mismanagement, the GMD’s armed forces had grown larger and the party continued to hold international recognition. Crucially, the GMD military could also count on American and British assistance for air and naval transport. The CCP, in contrast, could count on sporadic support at best, from Moscow. In 1945 the GMD, despite its setbacks, controlled three quarters of the country, 300 million people, all large cities, and transportation hubs. Its ranks boasted 4.3 million troops, including 2 million regulars. + +The CCP was not prepared for Japan’s sudden collapse in 1945, but the GMD could deftly exploit it. Japan’s strategic defeat, and the subsequent power vacuum it created, complicated the CCP’s slow efforts to create guerrilla bases in south and central China and develop a positional defense of the emerging CCP mini-state in the north. If successful, the plan would force the GMD into engaging in counterinsurgency in the south while contending with mobile warfare in the north. Japan’s sudden collapse caught the CCP in the middle of the process, before either front was ready for battle. The GMD used Allied transport to rapidly move its forces into north China, prompting the CCP to engage in a mad dash to prevent GMD expansion. + +The strategic decision that helped save the CCP was actually made by Mao’s subordinate, Liu Shaoqi. Abandoning the prewar plan, Liu shifted the CCP’s best troops into the northeast, gaining Manchuria and shortening CCP lines in the south. As one group of forces moved to the northeast in Manchuria, CCP units once tasked to the south would abandon their bases and move north to Shandong, Jiangsu, and Hebei. These maneuvers established Manchuria as a logistical base that could supply the war effort nationally. Nevertheless, the plan also immediately ran into problems. Building a base of support in northeast China had proved more difficult than Liu expected. In addition to political problems with the area’s populace, the GMD dispatched strong units to the area to contest the CCP’s presence. + +1946 found the CCP still struggling in Manchuria and thwarted in their quest to establish a safe rear area for the liberated areas in north China, along the Yellow River. The GMD unleashed its American-trained elite units and succeeded in severely disrupting CCP military forces in Anhui, Jiangsu, and Shandong and trapping CCP armies in the east. Meanwhile, offensives continued in the north and northeast. Yet at this point, the GMD, failing to notice the problems inherent in its failure to destroy Communist armies in the field, assumed that it had secured Shanxi, Suiyan, Chahar, Anhui, Rehe, and the Central Plains as well as the majority of Jiangsu, Hebei, and Manchuria. + +Thus, the GMD decided to embark on the Strong Point offensive, an attempt to destroy the CCP’s political apparatus to the west in Yan’an as well as the trapped CCP army in the east. The Strong Point offensive was based on the tenuous assumptions that the GMD had secured its conquered territory and could afford to shift its effort away from the northeast and northern theaters. It failed to finish off the CCP, even though it came close enough that the party headquarters in Yan’an were evacuated. By the end of the Strong Point offensive in 1947, the CCP still had its strategic base in the northeast, and the GMD had failed to fully pacify a single region or completely destroy the Communist mobile armies. The GMD’s strategic reserves were exhausted, and it lacked the resources to properly defend all of its gains. The GMD held the coastline and all of the major cities and railroads from Shaanxi to Shandong, but this counted for little as long as Communist armies remained intact. + +The GMD had failed to consolidate control over northeast and northern areas in Manchuria, Hebei, and Shanxi, while shifting the bulk of GMD forces to Shandong in the east and Shaanxi to the west. Fatally overextended, the GMD’s strength was primarily concentrated on the flanks and thus was ripe for an offensive in the center. With northeast and northern areas still in play and the bulk of GMD strength concentrated in Shandong and Shaanxi, the CCP successfully disrupted GMD defenses with its Central Plains offensives. The shock of watching a CCP army infiltrate deep behind enemy lines south of the Yellow River forced the GMD to strip Shandong, Manchuria, and north China of their defenses to shore up its center. Decisive battles in the northeast and Central Plains were now possible for the CCP. + +By 1948, the GMD had failed to gain anything more than a foothold in Manchuria, was tied down in the center and was struggling to combat counteroffensive operations in both Manchuria and the north. Meanwhile, military reorganization, improvements in weaponry, the mobilization of peasants and conscription of captured GMD soldiers allowed the CCP to transform itself into an organization truly capable of decisive mobile warfare. Collapse would come rapidly in three decisive campaigns in the northeast, north, and the Central Plains. These three campaigns would destroy GMD military power and allow the CCP to sweep over the rest of continental China. Perhaps the most notable was the Huai-Hai campaign, which stretched over 7,600 square miles and involved a million combatants. The CCP encircled and destroyed the bulk of the GMD forces in a single blow, triggering a political crisis that would mark the beginning of the end for the Republic of China. + +#### A Strategic Misfortune? + +The GMD’s economic mismanagement, corruption, and various failures in the countryside certainly cost it heavily, but the CCP’s social initiatives had mixed effects throughout its base areas and at most allowed it to stay in the game rather than win outright. Failure to crush the CCP in the 1930s allowed it to survive and grow, and strategic failures in the mid-1940s squandered the GMD’s superior position. The GMD’s bad policies may have been synergistic with its military failures, but those military failures doomed it to strategic defeat. + +The GMD proved incapable of managing a war fought on a truly continental scale, overextending its forces and exhausting its reserve. It could not hold the areas it took and failed to focus on the enemy armies rather than the territories they held. The center of gravity was not people or territory, but the political power that grew out of Mao’s guns. GMD strategic misfortune was the cause, not the consequence, of the birth of the People’s Republic of China. + +--- + +__A.E. Stahl__ is a Co-Founder and the Publisher of Infinity Journal. + +__Colin S. Gray__ is a strategist, author and professor of international relations and strategic studies at the University of Reading, where he is also the Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies. Professor Gray served five years in the Reagan Administration on the President’s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, including studies of nuclear strategy, maritime strategy, space strategy, and Special Forces. He has written 25 books, most recently including The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (2010), War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History (2nd Edition, 2012), and Airpower for Strategic Effect (2012). His next book to be published will be Perspectives on Strategy (forthcoming March 2013), and currently he is writing on “strategy and defence planning”. + +__Antulio J. Echevarria II__ is the Director of Research at the U.S. Army War College. He has over 20 years of experience in the U.S. Army, having served in a number of command and staff assignments, and has held a NATO Fulbright. He is the author of Clausewitz and Contemporary War; Imagining Future War; and After Clausewitz: German Military Thinkers Before the Great War, among many articles and monographs. Dr. Echevarria is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and the U.S. Army War College. He has been a Visiting Fellow with Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Programme. Dr. Echevarria holds a Master’s and Doctorate in history from Princeton University. + +__Eado Hecht__ is an independent defense analyst specializing in military doctrine and its interpretation. He teaches at Bar-Ilan University, Haifa University and at the Israeli Defense Force Command and General Staff College. + +__Gian P. Gentile__ is a serving United States Army Colonel. He currently directs the military history program at West Point. He commanded a combat battalion in West Baghdad in 2006 and holds a PhD in history from Stanford University. His book, “Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace with Counterinsurgency” is due out by The New Press in April 2013. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US Government. + +__C. Dale Walton__ is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, USA. He is a former lecturer at the University of Reading (UK) from 2007-12, serving on the faculty of the Defense and Strategic Studies Department at Missouri State University from 2001-07, and working as a Senior Analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy. Dr. Walton is the author of three books: Grand Strategy and the Presidency: Foreign Policy, War, and the American Role in the World (Routledge, 2012); Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century: Multipolarity and Revolution in Strategic Perspective (Routledge, 2007); and The Myth of Inevitable U.S. Defeat in Vietnam (Frank Cass/Routledge, 2002); and is a co-author of Understanding Modern Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2008). + +__Adam Elkus__ holds a Master’s Degree from Georgetown University and he is a PhD student in International Relations at American University. From 335736c9354605fe73bc630e10590691a77a501c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2022 15:01:57 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 10/12] 0x12 Add _columns post, Jul.15 --- ...ization-and-the-new-religious-movements.md | 100 ++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 100 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-07-11-secularization-and-the-new-religious-movements.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-07-11-secularization-and-the-new-religious-movements.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-11-secularization-and-the-new-religious-movements.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3f4a370f --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-11-secularization-and-the-new-religious-movements.md @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "世俗化与新兴宗教" +author: "胡清心" +date : 2022-07-11 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/YrX0pKw.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +7月8日，日本前首相安倍晋三在奈良演讲时遭枪击身亡。疑犯事后供称，其母亲信奉某宗教团体导致破产，由于该团体与安倍关系密切，因此才痛下杀手。 + +7月4日，香港新特首李家超接受中央电视台访问时提到，自己练气功超过25年。在过往访问中，他也曾表示因为练气功已不太需看医生，更达到“师傅级”水准。 + + + +7月1日，香港歌手林二汶新歌《中华颂》发布，在网络上引起争议，不少粉丝对此感到极为失望。此后网友“寻图索骥”，发现早前林二汶加入道教组织“玄武财神殿”，可能是她转变的原因。针对该组织来历和师尊背景的猜测和探究不断，更有人联想到X-Japan主唱Toshi曾自曝被日本邪教组织Home of Heart洗脑控制更成为敛财工具12年。 + +短时间内发生数起与另类宗教团体有关新闻事件，不禁让人对它们的来路不断揣测，“邪教”、“敛财”、“洗脑”等画面立刻在脑中浮现。 + +![image1](https://i.imgur.com/fmKV9wF.jpg) +▲ 2015年3月3日，韩国加平郡，数千对夫妇参加统一教会集体婚礼。 + +![image2](https://i.imgur.com/jQnHvHY.jpg) +▲ 2022年7月4日，香港特首李家超接受央视访问时称经常“练气功”。 + +![image3](https://i.imgur.com/HQXEN0P.jpg) +▲ 2019年10月26日，中国西安市，林二汶参加某财神庙前合影。 + +对于李家超、林二汶等的批评，有很多除却个人因素之外的、与公众利益密切相关的公共基础。但一提起这些另类宗教团体，就会联想产生这些负面印象，也存在一些不精确的部分。原因恐怕离不开二十世纪下半叶，数起骇人听闻的大规模群体杀人或自杀事件背后，都有它们的身影。比如分别在七十和九十年代发生集体自杀事件的人民圣殿教（The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ）和天堂之门（Heaven’s Gate），以及策划实施1995年东京地铁沙林毒气事件的奥姆真理教。然而事实上，这只是新兴宗教团体中极少数的个案，大多情况下，并不至于“邪”到反人类反社会的地步。 + +但另一方面，这些在人们印象中“非理性”的新兴宗教固然有在现代社会中“合理”的存在部分，但公众对他们的质疑，在于人们通过这些特殊案例提出了一个更具公共性的问题：在我们看待宗教的时候，评价的标准是私域还是公共责任？是否我们对安身立命的追求只应该是自我得到满足，还是我们也应该追求对社会更大的责任？ + +#### 新兴宗教是邪教？异端？还是Cult？ + +当代大众概念中所谓的“邪教”，或者为人熟知的主流宗教之外的宗教团体，学界通常称之为“新兴宗教”（New Religious Movement），这个名词最初指的是二十世纪下半叶开始，在西方出现的宗教运动或新宗教团体。1999年，根据宗教社会学家Eileen Barker估计，欧洲大约有2000个新兴宗教运动，日本有800-1000个，而美、亚、非、大洋地区加起来则可能有10000个，总共有1200万以上信徒。 + +尽管规模庞大，但新兴宗教的特质却难以概括或者描述，不同的地区之间就存在巨大差异。比如在基督教传统的欧美，一些传入的东方宗教传统也被视为新兴宗教；而在儒道佛背景的台湾和中国，不少新兴宗教都是从佛教或者道教传统中延伸变化而出；至于日本的新兴宗教运动，甚至早在十九世纪就已经开始而自成一派。正是这种碎片性、含混性和多元性，让“新兴宗教”这个词汇在学界更为流行，为的是客观地对这种宗教现象进行研究。 + +对于大众来说，“新兴宗教”听上去含混不清，反映不出这些宗教团体的面貌；而这些宗教团体自己对“新兴宗教”这个称呼也不买帐——因为他们都视自己为有道统的正经宗教信仰，对于向来谁都可以自立门户开坛作法的东方宗教尤是如此，比如六七十年代风靡欧美的奎师那知觉运动（ISKCON）就可看作不过一个印度教Guru自己创设的门派；“玄武财神殿”也自称是延续自台湾的宫庙，那又何来“新兴”之有？ + +在欧美大众文化中更常用“膜拜团体”（Cult）来形容这些新兴宗教团体，尽管Cult的概念和历史悠久而复杂，但在谈及新兴宗教的时候，往往只是聚焦在其“偏离正道”的负面刻板印象之上，并被粗疏地翻译为中文语境中的“邪教”。 + +“邪教”的概念，自然是与正统相对应，柯保罗的China and Christianity中，就提出中国宗教的正/邪之分，在独尊儒术罢黜百家之后，中国能登堂入室的正统宗教便只有儒教，其余都是旁门左道，但只要不对政权和正统构成威胁，就可以安然处之；但若是胆敢造次，就必当作异端邪说而斩草除根。可以说对宗教的正邪之分，无关教义，更大程度上是一种中国的传统统治术，维护政权稳定。 + +这种逻辑也延续到1949年之后的中华人民共和国，虽然中国名义上只有五大宗教，但并不妨碍各种民间信仰、灵性运动的发展，甚至连官方也曾在八十年代推动过气功热。然而一旦由治变乱，某宗教被怀疑有危害地方治安，甚至触动政权稳定的危险，官方就会出手以整顿“邪教”的名义进行打击，这其中最大的一次打击便是1999年对法轮功的镇压。如果搜索中国大陆有关“邪教”的学术文章，标题关键词往往是与“乱象”、“防范”、“整顿”、“治理”等挂钩，邪教在此不关宗教事，似乎更关政治事。 + +台湾亦是如此，国民党在1949年之后也曾对新兴宗教团体进行压制，比如取缔由中国和日本传入的一贯道和创价学会等，包括基督教长老教会，虽然为基督教主流宗派，亦因其政治主张而遭到政府压制，政府对宗教团体的态度和管理，更多是从政治角度出发。正是因此，1987年解严之后，随著宗教团体和社会团体注册开放，台湾新兴宗教团体如雨后春笋般冒出，并引发了一波宗教热潮。这也是为什么在宗教自由的社会，邪教只能作为民间用语使用，却不能让政府用来给某些宗教团体定性并加以干涉，因为这往往会出现为政治目的干涉宗教自由的风险。 + +无论是邪教、Cult、还是新兴宗教，这些名词所指代的是多少相似但未必完全一致的一些宗教团体，但彼此无法取代，也难说彼此的形容有问题，皆看你是从哪个角度看待这个宗教团体。比如来自中国源于基督教的全能神教，对研究学者来说是新兴宗教，对基督教主流教会来说是异端，对中国政府来说，则是邪教。 + +#### 新兴宗教的诞生恰恰充满现代性 + +新兴宗教固然充满暧昧性，又很难一概而论，但可从英语名称中看出端倪：New Religious Movement，与其说是一个新的宗教流派或宗教形式，不如说是一场仍在进行中的运动。其实，所有我们当下习以为常的传统宗教都是从一场宗教运动开始。比如说，基督教的起源就是从犹太教中发起的一场耶稣运动，而佛教是源于婆罗门教，锡克教则是集印度教、基督教与伊斯兰教为一体的宗教革命。而在宗教内部也不断有运动发生，比如基督新教是宗教改革运动的成果，新教内部的清教徒运动和大觉醒运动促成了现今的不同新教主流宗派的诞生。 + +宗教运动并非新事，其之所以出现往往与当时社会的变迁改革有关，而这场新兴宗教运动出现的社会背景，便是学者们在六十年代指出的“世俗化”（Secularization）的社会现象，指的是随著理性主义、现代主义的发展和社会进步，宗教在社会中的影响力和控制不断受限制，社会认同的价值观与制度也逐步世俗化，以致最终宗教将走向消亡不复存在。确实在上世纪下半叶，西方的传统基督教会和天主教会面临著大量的教友流失，共产主义政权也在努力消灭宗教，但宗教本身却没有如同世俗化理论预言般消亡，相反，五十年过去，在宗教领域人们谈论的是宗教复兴和灵性运动，而这其中有很大部分，与新兴宗教相关，但学者们并不认为新兴宗教的出现，证伪了世俗化理论，相反它可能是世俗化的结果。 + +有学者认为「所谓的世俗化，并不见得是指宗教影响力的消失，而是新的宗教形式的出现。而在传统结构的松动中，旧的传统受到挑战，却也有可能在其他方面（新的意义形式和新宗教）产生和现代人生活场域更吻合的一种“宗教性”（Religiosity）」。 + +在《“新兴宗教运动”的意义及其社会学意涵》中，林本炫总结了Bryan Wilson所提出的新兴宗教可以取代传统的特性，其中包括对传统宗教“属灵菁英主义”、“得救制度化手段”的反动；提供给信众“更简便的、快速的、更明确的得救方式”、理性的得救手段，以及宗教品味和诉求多元化以及小众化。 + +与传统宗教比较，新兴宗教在形式上没有太强权威性，要求信众接受并进入一套既定的复杂信仰体系，相反它们的诸多特征都迎合世俗化时代个体特性，理性化、个体化、注重个人需求得到满足，多如繁星的新兴宗教，总有一款适合你。无怪乎林本炫说，“新兴宗教运动其实已经比较像是一种消费，人们就像是在宗教的超级市场里各取所需，少有人在意宗教里的真理宣称。” + +在《台湾的新兴宗教》中，瞿海源提出了新兴宗教的两个看似矛盾的特性，“新兴宗教在教义上有两个特征，一是玄妙，二是简单。玄妙来自于这类宗教领袖的特质，即具有神奇的大能。不论所显现得多玄妙，新兴宗教领袖强调的教义又多很简易，核心道理很少，让有心人很容易掌握。这种玄妙而又简单的特征吸引力极大，对现代人而言，这些新兴宗教就像是宗教的速食店，很适合他们的口味。” + +这里我们留意到新兴宗教又一个令人感到矛盾的地方，虽然新兴宗教的出现是迎合当代社会对宗教权威的反动，何以几乎大多数新兴宗教都有一个“克里斯马”式的宗教领袖或教主？教众都对其号称的神通广大毫不怀疑更是俯首贴耳？ + +1974年，法兰克福学派阿多诺出版The Stars Down to Earth，分析洛杉矶时报的星座专栏，探讨为什么在二十世纪，在这么样理性化的情况之下，会诞生这么不理性的文化。他研究发现，当代生活的细致分工让人处于好像有很多知识但其实没有知识的状态，比如你问一个做金融的人，关于买卖股票的问题，也许他能说得头头是道，但如果要他说说自己正使用的数据流量背后是什么原理，他却可能毫无头绪。这种知识上的不平衡，让人总是对生活感到不确定，有太多自己无法把握的盲点，所以就会产生无力感，以及依赖感和顺从威权性的特征。 + +尽管阿多诺是用它来解释星座的流行，但与新兴宗教也有共通之处。这或许也能解释何以新兴宗教的教义无论玄妙还是简单，但面对人生数之不尽的不解和疑问，它总能提供答案或者一篮子的解决方案；相反的，传统宗教的教义或经典有时往往无法直接解决信众的疑问，甚至会制造更多的问题，更有时要透过一套复杂的神学阐释才会得出一个甚至好几个模棱两可的答案。毕竟，当人因未知而感到恐慌迷茫的时候，更需要的是一种所有问题都被解答、所有疑惑都被安置妥当的安全感。 + +#### 自由追寻灵性的年代，安身立命的选择或许本就多怪异 + +然而，就算宗教社会学家可以建构理论来解释新兴宗教为何会在二十世纪下半叶开始流行，但依旧无法解决大众的疑问，有些新兴宗教的教义看上去就很弱智，为什么在科学昌明教育普及的当下还是有人会相信，以致被骗财骗色，甚至作出有悖其性格和常理的事情？有些相信这些宗教就是针对低教育或者老年人行骗的，也有些相信是那些人被洗脑了，或者本身性格有缺陷才被利用了，这样才能合理化在崇尚理性、科学的现代生活中，会有这样的脱序现象。 + +或许有悖于对民间宗教信仰一般的想像，参与新兴宗教的信众中，不乏年轻、中产阶级、有较好的教育背景者的人。而事实上，研究新兴宗教的目标群体本来就可能毫无意义，因为它本身就是为了满足不同群体非常个性化的需求而产生族繁不及备载的大大小小的宗教团体。而如果认为加入新兴宗教团体的人都是被洗脑利用，则其实变相矮化（Disempower）了个体，认为他完全是一个傀儡，而毫无担当责任或者实践自由意志的能力。 + +或许我们要接受的是，在一个个体自由追寻灵性的年代，就是会有人基于自由意志，而选择一些在我们看来可信度极其低几近匪夷所思的宗教。 + +丁仁杰的《当代台湾新兴宗教的信仰体系及其“可信性”：五个新兴宗教团体的考察》就是基于这样的动机考察了台湾的五个新兴宗教团体。在文中作者认为“出于与传统信仰的差异，旁观者很容易讲信仰新兴宗教看成一件违反常理的事情（例如崇拜教主、相信新奇事物、相信个人超能力等），连带认为其所建构的信仰体系特别脆弱，这种看法可以称之为“脆弱性假说”（Fragility assumption）。 + +这种“假说”接著假设，既然这个信仰体系那么脆弱，那么一定有一个特别强的“可信结构”（Plausibility structure），也就是团体内部的社会支持体系，来让信徒克服外在的质询和挑战，或者是教团会有特殊策略来面对外界，以让信徒的信仰不致于受到否定。”这也反映不少大众的另一种合理化看法，即新兴宗教团体一定有特别的控制人的手段。 + +但最后作者的发现是，这些信仰团体根本不需要透过社会性的“可信结构”来留住教众，往往其信仰体系本身就已经有了自圆其说的性质。也就是说，或者当事人自欺欺人，或者该团体的教义已经足够健全以说服教众，也就是说其“内部可信性”是完全不成问题的。 + +那为什么作为旁观者的我们，还是会有“邪教”，“敛财”，“洗脑”的感觉呢？拿传统宗教来做对比，两者都已经建立了“内部可信性”，如果说新兴宗教“敛财”，但对不信任宗教团体的人来说，基督教会要求“十一奉献”，天主教会累积大量教产投资，又或者有些佛门子弟捐出自己半数身家，难道不也是一种敛财吗？如果说新兴宗教“洗脑”，那么对无神论者来说，相信转世轮回、相信耶稣死而复活、相信神迹，不也是一种洗脑吗？就算我们认同传统宗教团体和体制有道德污点，其教义有迷信荒谬之处，但大众仍不会带著怀疑的眼神，认为这些宗教就是一个上千年的大骗局。 + +#### “宗教”与“神棍”间是否有界线？ + +一个宗教是否能信服大众并无关其是否能信服内部教众，让大众在“宗教”和“神棍”之间划下界线的，往往是这个宗教是否有“外部可信性”，即它是否有体现社会责任，是否有公关形象，以证明其宗教信仰并非居心叵测，而是要慈惠人间。而一般来说，新兴宗教苦心经营的目的只是为了说服教众、满足教众的心灵需求，但对大众的目光或者所谓社会形象，并不那么在乎。 + +新兴宗教虽然是当代社会世俗化所产生的现象，但因为它内聚的特性，使得它往往在社会中呈现一种“他者”的形象，更对于我们主流大众的世界观、价值观和常识带来挑战，在这种情况下，他们的种种“差异”在我们眼中就会被放大成“怪异”甚至是“邪门”。 + +在当代社会，其实每个人都在拷问、追寻安身立命这个问题，更是在多元化世俗化的社会中，并不一定要寻求宗教就能解决这个问题。这个社会中有很多选择都可以赋予人们安身立命的价值，比如经济能力、社会地位、个人追求、意识形态等。不同社会更有不同的主导价值观，可能在香港社会中，有一层楼就已经可以解决一个人大部分的焦虑；在当下中国，爱国主义也可以，甚至被教化成为一种精神寄托，如果抽离地想一想，其实大多数人安身立命的选择，和新兴宗教的信众一样，不过都是基于个人需求而做出的选择。 + +而为什么到今日我们看到“宗教”这两个字眼还有一些别样的期待？或许正因为，宗教的存在并不只是为了安身立命。 + +（胡清心，香港中文大学文化及宗教研究博士） + + \ No newline at end of file From 6c7668909666f40ee0fba724dc12496dc2702f6c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2022 00:59:05 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 11/12] 0x12 Add _columns post, Jul.18 --- .../2022-06-29-jumbo-sinking-as-a-funeral.md | 21 ++ .../2022-07-12-egg-freezing-and-her-body.md | 268 ++++++++++++++++++ ...locked-catering-after-shanghai-lockdown.md | 185 ++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 474 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-06-29-jumbo-sinking-as-a-funeral.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-07-12-egg-freezing-and-her-body.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2022-07-12-unlocked-catering-after-shanghai-lockdown.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-06-29-jumbo-sinking-as-a-funeral.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-06-29-jumbo-sinking-as-a-funeral.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..427c209b --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-06-29-jumbo-sinking-as-a-funeral.md @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "沉船以葬" +author: "西辭" +date : 2022-06-29 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/bAv9Ttm.jpg +image_caption: "珍寶海鮮舫內籠，如今連同船隻一道葬身海底。" +description: "" +--- + +快四年沒回家，現在連「家」也沒了，而且是從兩種意義上——爸媽搬到了英國，香港也變了樣，都回不去了。 + + + +以前跟我媽講電話的時候，她總說「下次你回來都該認不出這裡了」。確實，地鐵築起新線路，填海區立起新高樓，歷史建築拆掉了不少，天星小輪快倒閉，大學入口的民主女神像拆毀掉，舊日同窗身陷囹圄。總說物是人非，我倒覺得要是回去看看，盡是人是物非——雖然城市變了樣，像樣的人也走了一大堆，但還是有心懷理想和不捨的人留下來，不知可喜可嘆。 + +城裡最近的大新聞，大概是珍寶海鮮舫在被拖離的路上沉沒了，像所有載滿寶藏的名船一樣葬身海底。本來是讓人扼腕之事，但在這個扭曲的大環境襯托下，居然有點恰如其分的意味。這顆風姿綽約了半世紀的海上明珠像是不忍見證城市被奪舍，不屑妝點繁華背後的墮落，不願被掏空拍賣、拆卸轉手，於是轟轟烈烈地華麗退場，像話本中不肯委身事人的剛烈貞女。哪裡有比大海更適合船舶的歸宿呢？不用被強行拖上岸成為舊時代遺物的展覽，不必被官方博物館標榜成「殖民地的時代象徵」，被貶評「與強調中華民族自豪感和國民身份認同的時代格格不入」，多好。暫且不提實際上的文物保育，從文學張力、命運角力看來，沉了便沉了，沉得乾淨，沉得瀟灑，沉得其所。 + +舊時光總會消逝，但只要人在，新事物總會留有舊日殘影，以供老人緬懷。如今滿城靈魂尚且被殺死，歷史也在被抹去；最大的悲劇已經降臨，旁的事物死得再不值，也不過是美麗的陪葬品。在這場盛大卻冷清的葬禮上，一城落葬雖然無人上香祭拜，但也像歷史上諸多沉船一樣，終有一日會重見天日。哥倫比亞的聖荷西大帆船一沉三百年，本月初才被發現；香港一艘珍寶海鮮舫，又怎會等不起重光之日。 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-07-12-egg-freezing-and-her-body.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-12-egg-freezing-and-her-body.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c419895e --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-12-egg-freezing-and-her-body.md @@ -0,0 +1,268 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "冻卵和她的身体" +author: "阿菠" +date : 2022-07-12 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/Kn9o19F.jpg +#image_caption: "「这里的女权在成功触及父权之前，就被规训成熟的母权温柔地按下去了。」" +description: "一切似乎从那个关于冻卵的决定开始，抑或早就上演了许多年⋯⋯" +--- + +我的朋友叫机玄鱼，大家都唤她作鱼仔。这是她的故事。 + +“刚才我介绍了胚胎冷冻的流程，你们有什么疑问吗？”视讯会议里，金发碧眼的凯伦医生眯着黑眼圈倚在屏幕前问。 + + + +鱼仔快速扫了眼另一个参与会议的窗口，那是她的婚姻伴侣迦牟。这一刻，迦牟已经将自己静音，他的眼神移去一侧，快速敲着键盘，应该是把注意力放回他的论文上。 + +“我们想了解基因对胚胎的影响，”鱼仔说。 + +“你们两边有什么家族病吗？” + +“没有。” + +“那无须担心。可以先做一个基因检测，看双方是否携带共同致病基因——这种情况的可能性只有1％。” + +“嗯，我还想问，如果检测出来基因不好，我们可以找捐精者来完成这个流程吗？” + +听到这个问题，凯伦好像张大了翠色眼睛，但她很快从容道：“若结果真的不好，我们再讨论捐精的方案。不过相信我，概率真的是极低的……” + +“明白了，谢谢医生！”鱼仔害羞地笑。 + + +### 联盟 + +![image1](https://i.imgur.com/0eBs36g.jpg) + +今年是迦牟的本命年，鱼仔也已三十三。若近期无生育打算，未来又想要小孩，在鱼仔三十五岁卵子质量下降前，冻卵是一个保险方案。 + +一般有伴侣的女性会直接冷冻胚胎，即将从夫妻体内分别取出卵子、精子，然后在培养皿里将其合成受精卵，最后冷冻这些受精卵。冷冻胚胎比单冻卵子安全：卵子在解冻过程中会有损耗，可能还未能够精子结合就被浪费了。 + +鱼仔不着急做妈妈。最近遇上转行契机，她需要再努力尝试一次。但她期待未来拥有一段亲子关系。 + +“通个电话吗？”手机上是鱼妈在询问。 + +“要聊什么？”鱼仔很警惕。 + +鱼仔曾经很爱与父母通话，但自适婚年龄起，这些沟通变得令人窒息，内容无非是从催找男友到催婚再到催娃。尤其在鱼仔临近三十岁那段时期，鱼妈频繁以念女儿未嫁彻夜难眠的说辞作开头，不断袭击。那几年鱼仔的脑子一直被“结婚”击打，严重时每听到这个词就头晕、想哭。她甚至怀疑母亲来电就是为了宣泄焦虑，成功让自己难受了，就心满意足地挂电话睡去。鱼仔怀疑母亲的期待只是转嫁压力的借口，她无须再遵循。 + +还是接了语音电话。尽管之前已辩论过数次，但鱼妈功力又涨，不等鱼仔开口，径直背诵赶紧生娃几大论点。 + +“我准备去冻卵了，”鱼仔打断她。 + +“为什么冻卵？！直接生吧。一冻就更有借口不生了。” + +“我是对自己负责。我有事，先不聊了。”鱼仔及时退出。 + +母亲的催促有另一层推力。迦牟的妈妈盼望释家添丁，碍于面子不好与儿子提，就示意鱼妈让鱼仔去做儿子的思想工作。 + +两位妈妈的联盟让鱼仔烦恼，甚至愤怒，凭什么默认就只该女人操心这个？果然，隔天鱼仔收到牟妈的信息：“孩子，我不干预你俩的人生，但从女人的角度不得不考虑生育年龄。我们能否谈谈明年生娃的事，咱先不冷冻可以吗？” + +“卵子质量是每年递减的，得冻。”鱼仔不知还能说什么。 + +无数小火苗在她的肺腑燃烧，呐喊：“我的身体，我自己不能做主吗？” + +本质上鱼仔的想法与两位妈妈并不冲突。她当然知道年轻的身体产后恢复快，但她不想说出她和迦牟的真实分歧。她仿佛能预见一团嘈杂的能量场，她不需要那么多的声音。 + + +### 白马 + +![image2](https://i.imgur.com/Z90Mgh1.jpg) + +迦牟当丁克的愿望越来越强，他的步步坚守让冷冻胚胎一事也很难推进。在意基因的其实是迦牟。他的郁结不在身体，而是在心。 + +从二十五岁起，他就对很多事都提不起兴趣了。当时他在波士顿读硕士，约了学校的心理咨询，医生的总结是，他可能是对人类不抱什么希望。迦牟后来定期见心理医生，虽未确诊，但抑郁症的症状他都有，他对世界的看法太悲观了。 + +留学生鱼仔第一次在旧金山见到留学生迦牟，就觉得他是个心思细腻的同类。他着黑色粗呢子长外套，两侧发帘有些乱，话不多，心事很重的面容，像一位身残志坚的音乐家。鱼仔觉得不该与这样敏感的人恋爱，因为过多的浪漫容易走向脆弱。但迦牟见到她就会自然地笑，那大概是他最正向的一面。认识半年后，他们相约去徒步。 + +徒步的路线像潘神的迷宫。两人走岔路，手机也没信号，兜兜转转四小时还没到出口。眼看太阳就要下山，想到可能会遇上山狮，鱼仔非常紧张。迦牟却弯下腰捡起从树上落下的果荚，轻嗅，放在鱼仔手上。 + +“你闻，这很像画室的味道。” + +是油画颜料的味道。鱼仔侧首看迦牟，觉得自己像一头卷过风沙和山峦的骆驼，路过森林时窥见深谷里，一匹不食人间烟火的白马心无旁骛地伸展脖颈。别人都在赶路，唯他淡然自若，真好看。于是她逃逸了，脱离驼队，躲进深谷。 + +走出林子时太阳刚要降入海里，月已悄悄高挂。是满月，有些太美，能记一辈子。 + + +### 梦想 + +![image3](https://i.imgur.com/Ybde2ou.jpg) + +鱼仔现在的压力叠着三个家。长辈不知道，强灵魂追求的低欲望生活是她和迦牟共处的基底。吸引两人的，恰是要剪断精神脐带的共同希望。 + +迦牟不爱外出，因为是蜜月旅行他才肯动身。目的地是墨西哥，他的爸妈当时正在那里工作。一进门，茶还没沏，牟妈就问起生子计划。牟爸话不多，与迦牟对坐着同时低哼钢琴曲，这是他们的交流方式。家里只有牟妈和鱼仔在说话。 + +整趟旅途几乎每天都在聊生育。在霍奇米尔科的画船上，友人的儿子被牟妈抱过来在两人眼前摆弄，挥着小胖手朝鱼仔说，“你们赶紧也生一个。”古运河上波光粼粼，售卖花环的阿兹特克妇女撑舟泊在柳荫下小憩，而鱼仔只能忍受熊孩子的叫唤。 + +牟妈悄悄地问鱼仔儿子的情绪状况，得到答案后，不假思索地说，“他就是这种艺术家性格，生活上的事，你得多想一些；你多鼓励他调整心情、出门社交。” + +可我才是搞艺术的那个啊，鱼仔想。 + +男人是艺术家、学霸、创业者；女人则打辅助，是家政、辅导员、秘书。薛宝钗在新世纪仍是好儿媳的模板，便也成了培养女儿的目标。好言劝诫的婆婆和无怨牺牲的妈妈构成中式家庭里困住女性的完美系统。这里的女权在成功触及父权之前，就由被规训成熟的母权温柔地按下去了。 + +鱼仔从小被叫作仔，父母把她当男孩养大，要求她有大的抱负和眼界，几乎没受过性别上的区别对待。如今差异像刀一样突然戳出来——或许幼时她得到的开明只是策略，为了筹备一种非物质的嫁妆。 + +“我和朋友做了一个很大的展览，在上海开幕，你们去看吗？”鱼仔在电话里问鱼妈，证明自己并非一事无成。 + +“我们要去昆山考察项目，可以顺便去看你的展览。如果能和昆山合作，迦牟回国就能直接加入了。”鱼妈全然不在意鱼仔说的展览。 + +“迦牟迦牟迦牟，是不是所有和事业有关的事都只和他挂钩？”鱼仔一阵无名火窜上来。 + +“那未来肯定是主要靠他，你说的展，你是画了一幅画吗？” + +“我是策展人。我策的都是装置展，不展画。”鱼仔憋着气。 + +鱼妈从来无心搞清女儿的职业，反倒是收藏了女婿的简历，定期翻看。这让鱼仔害怕。一方面，她反感自己想从别人身上兑现希望的渴求；另一方面，她感觉自己不被看见。 + +“你的展览是不是和元宇宙有关？上周看小蔡的朋友圈，我还问她什么是元宇宙，”鱼妈问。 + +小蔡是鱼仔的闺蜜，住在硅谷的注册会计师，刚生二胎，先生在元界当工程师。 + +“你怎么不和我聊元宇宙呢？”鱼仔不解。 + +“我也不知道为什么和其他年轻人都能聊天，和你就不能，”鱼妈抱怨。 + +他们于她都是独立的人，而母女是衍生的关系，不能平等对话。 + +鱼妈又说：“小蔡现在什么都有了。事业与家庭，女人总得有一头。” + +鱼仔并不是“没有事业”的。迦牟到纽约附近小镇读博士，鱼仔跟来了。次年，有熟人在广州开艺术空间，请鱼仔去当策展人，主策本地艺术家展览。鱼仔很心动。她在美国给自己办好杰出人才签证，工作出差在身份上稍微自由些。不过，追随工作全球跑的美梦很快被疫情打破。 + +她选择了家庭那一头。 + +“会好起来的，”鱼妈安慰，“迦牟毕业带个好项目回来，边教书边开工作室，你帮他打理。我们深圳这边现在给教授开的条件很丰厚。我们努力实现我们的梦想。” + +鱼仔想大笑。牟妈说过另一个版本的梦想——迦牟要回牟妈牟爸所在的北京，教职首选清华北大。比起才发展四十年的深圳，教育资源，不，所有资源都集中在北京。 + +几年前，迦牟第一次跟鱼仔去深圳，出发前他的脚发炎，在高铁上开始高烧。下车到深圳，鱼妈联系医生，接他俩直奔市人民医院急诊。此时牟妈的信息发来：“立刻回京，看病不用商量。” + +“回京”二字极有家庭外的震慑力，连北字都不带，有复命的隐喻。鱼仔很感激迦牟没有更改行程，但她意识到，如果连一只脚都需要报备，前途更难自由选择。 + +迦牟自己的梦想是什么？他想回国到乡村做田野调查，设计能解决部分农村医疗需求的产品。 + +这很伟大，但以上梦想都和鱼仔没什么关系。没人问过她的追求，配合她的发展做选择。她愿意妥协，但没有谁的牺牲是理所当然的。而且，世俗的付出会有世俗的回报吗？ + +“他的梦想是他的，不是我的，也不是你的，更不是我们的，”鱼仔反驳。 + +“你太冷漠了……”鱼妈说，“哎，迦牟他家都是很好的人，你不要这么倔强。” + +母亲和牟妈的热络让鱼仔慌张，她不想当刻板的儿媳，只想自然相处。但鱼妈却热衷替她表演，这种表演会持续到孩子降生，也许会更久——通过出谋划策培养孙辈来继续牵制子辈。 + +身体是权力撕扯的修罗场。如果自己不是女儿和儿媳，一定能和她们成为好朋友。鱼仔觉得很可惜。她与迦牟说起，他却认为这种撕扯皆是正常。鱼仔发觉，这位曾经寄托精神的伴侣在成为配偶后，竟融入了原生家庭，成为名正言顺地控制她的摇柄。 + +她无处逃离。 + + +### 基因 + +![image4](https://i.imgur.com/sdJ8PnH.jpg) + +“我很想和你聊一聊，你有时间吗？” + +迦牟放下手中模型，半转过身。听完她的倾诉，他低了一会儿头，没做声，准备转回去。 + +“说点什么吧，我想和你有情绪的交流，”鱼仔喊住他。 + +迦牟说：“不是不想交流，但每天光是压抑自己的负面情绪就已花去我大部分的精力。” + +“我懂消化负面情绪对你来说很难，但我现在真的很难过。” + +迦牟想了想，说：“做好自己的事，别让其他人影响你。” + +“这些压力都不在你身上，你感受不到我的痛苦。” + +“不要迎合别人对你的期望。” + +“我实际上是想有一个孩子的，我不想因为你欺骗自己。” + +迦牟还在沉思，鱼仔继续说：“我想明年去冻卵。” + +“这是你的决定，如果这真的对你很重要，我支持。” + +“那你愿意和我一起冻胚胎吗？” + +迦牟又沉默，说：“我一直很不喜欢自己的DNA。我妈那边的基因里有易致郁的遗传因子……如果从精子库里买一个优秀的呢？” + +鱼仔否决这个选项。从冰冷的精子库像逛linkedin一样地筛选外貌、身高、学历、职业，却不了解对方为人，更难信任其品质。而且只看这些外在条件，一路常春藤的迦牟就是最佳人选。她希望有一些情感上的联系。 + +“不如我先约医生聊聊吧。”她提议。 + +“好。” + +每次聊严肃话题，家中气氛都会僵上几天，在后疫情时代尤为膈应。刚好打完了第三针，鱼仔问迦牟，我们一起出去走走？ + +“下个月要参加一个会议，我得准备，”迦牟说。 + +疫情给了迦牟不旅行的借口。牟妈每隔几天就在群里嘱咐“注意防疫，少出门，不聚餐”，他多少受影响。频繁读到这样的话，鱼仔感到压抑。为了健康着想，她要说飞就飞。 + +鱼仔飞到南加州，见了很多朋友，发现同在考虑冻卵的人不在少数。很多公司还为员工提供与生殖相关的医疗保险，这对想拥有更多选择权的女性来说是一大鼓励。 + +鱼仔去探望表姐一家。晚饭后，小姨递来意味深长的眼神，说起鱼妈的担忧。鱼仔硬着头皮熬了几个来回，终于等到表姐去开车。她意识到表姐和小姨今夜都是说客。从尔湾回洛杉矶的路有点长，表姐从鱼仔未来的定居追问到情感状况，又从生育计划往更隐私的话题试探…… + +“目前不想生孩子，准备冻卵，”鱼仔在被触及底线前塞了一句。 + +表姐搬出过来人经验继续质疑鱼仔，比如年过三十五后生育的难度，比如冻卵是商家包装的暴利服务……“我真不理解，为什么你要承担取卵针一针下去带来终身不孕的风险？” + +“我不想再聊了。首先，我做了调研，你说的风险非常低；其次，我们是亲人并不代表你有权过问我的隐私；我是信任你才与你分享这些信息的。如果你是其他人，来问这些，我理都不理你。” + +话已至此，只好改聊工作以及新上映的电影，气氛立刻变得轻松。 + +回到纽约，鱼仔开始与诊所咨询、预约。在她的坚持下，迦牟参加了与医生的首次会谈。 + +“我还是很不想让我的DNA在这个世界上延续下去。”谈话结束后，迦牟说。 + +“先做个检测吧，刚医生说的，基因问题只是极少的情况。”鱼仔想再为共同胚胎争取一下。 + +“这些检测是看不出来的。心理上的遗传缺陷不会显现在报告里。” + +鱼仔觉得无从再聊，鼻酸喉哽但忍住了。做这个决定并不容易，冻卵需要很长的流程，不管是金钱上还是身体上都将有一次大消耗。她想确保冻上的卵在未来尽可能有效，让花费耗得其所。 + +她觉得自己此刻像一只落汤老母鸡，冒着滂沱大雨从草棚角落将散落的蛋一个个拱进窝里，张开翅膀哆哆嗦嗦地护着它们。 + +“我有一个想法，”鱼仔犹豫了一会，把大致概念说了出来。 + +迦牟呆了，但似乎早有心理建设，道：“如果你真觉得这件事是这辈子必须做的，那就应该做。你去问问吧。”又说，“我也要给医生写邮件，问是否有相关法律文件。我没想好，如果未来会有这个孩子，我是否要赡养Ta。” + + +### 容器 + +![image5](https://i.imgur.com/SyW4hPt.jpg) + +以琛看到鱼仔狼狈地被哈德逊河刮来的寒风推进商厦。他张开双臂，朝鱼仔小跑，在周日早上无人的商场里给了她一个大大的拥抱。 + +以琛和鱼仔是高中同班同学。他个子高瘦，面容清秀，品学兼优，笑容阳光，很多女生偷偷喜欢他。但鱼仔很早就发现，他们可能同时对某个男生有过好感。 + +他俩在一间咖啡店坐下，侧面五层楼高的玻璃窗外是曼哈顿的地标Vessel。这座像一尊镂空阔口花瓶的奇怪建筑由百多架楼梯交错组成，已经关闭。那里发生了数起自杀，几名不满二十五岁的年轻人纵身跃下，原因不明。报道只说空间的视效会刺激人结束生命的冲动。 + +从这个角度看，它很像一个子宫。把卵子人格化，无论大脑多么理性与决绝，说：“我不需要繁衍后代”，但卵子们依然历经万难从输卵管进入子宫，等了个空，然后随着经血下落，结束生命。肉身的冲动很难解释，不管求生抑或向死。 + +他们从同学的现况、各自的人生，聊到LGBTQ与女性的困境，又聊到多元家庭制度，最后聊到鱼仔的冻卵计划。然后，她顿了一下，问：“你有感受到我的目的性吗？” + +以琛怔住了，笑：“我才发现，哈哈，这种事，每次听说了都很支持，但没想象过会发生在自己身上。” + +“这只是我的proposal，你不用觉得必须接受。” + +以琛答应会认真考虑这个提议，在她下一个生日前答复，包括是否捐赠、是否想与这个孩子有更多的连接。而鱼仔会尊重任何决定，毕竟比决定更难的是它带来的伦理反应。 + +她优先等待以琛的答复，但还是发信息问了一位以前喜欢过的朋友。她问的不是很坚决，不敢想象屏幕对面的表情。对方可能被吓到了，回复说受宠若惊，问可否想一阵子再回答。 + +“当然可以，”鱼仔输入，心想，希望他快点忘掉这件事吧；如果其他人知道了我的计划，会不会觉得我很奇葩？ + +“My body is not someone's legislation. My body is my own. My body is not your political playground!”（我的身体不是别人的立法。我的身体是我自己的。我的身体不是你的政治游乐场！） + +鱼仔在看乐队“Dream Wife”（理想妻子）的演出视频。主唱呼应前一天罗诉韦德案被推翻的事件，在表演前加了这几句词。 + +但世上有这么多奇葩事情，也许因为社会规范本就奇葩，我们需要在标准格子里安身立命，只好做出奇葩的行为。 + +也许我的苦恼是无解的，但在生育这件具体的事上，永远只有母体有资格做决定，鱼仔想。 + +--- + +_时间前进到2022年，但方向似乎是反的。不少人类社会在十几年甚至几十年前赢得的成就与进步，此刻正被粗暴地抹去。其中一个失守的战场，就是女性的身体。随著1960年代以来一波又一波的女权主义运动，正当我们敢于相信一切都在好起来，却又要直面对于全球各地无处不在的身体暴力与心理暴力。_ + +_对不少困在父权国家中的女性而言，通过留学、工作、婚姻或投资等等方式，将肉身迁徙到传说中更自由开放的世界中去，曾经是黑暗中的一丝亮光。但不管去到哪里，我们还是会发现自己的身体仍在天罗地网中。对于女体的控制是双重的，一方面，女体仍在被严重物化、性化，是性暴力频发的“现场”；同时，女体仍被化约为生产工具，从家庭组织到国家机器甚至私有机构都忙不迭地监控女人的卵巢、子宫和阴道。_ + +_女性主义运动常常能够引发广泛的参与，部份就是因为无论身处社会等级的哪个角落，女性都摆脱不了父权社会对于我们身体的管控，这种痛苦的共同经历使得大家愿意称自己为一个集体的或大写的“女性”。本文讲述的是一个这样女性的真实故事，故事中的她穿梭于中美两国多个城市之间，试图在亲密关系、自己与伴侣的原生家庭以及多元社会中找回对自己身体的控制权。她的身分、过往与未来，她的伴侣、亲人和朋友，也许是独特的，是专属于她的；但她的挣扎、痛苦和决绝却是女性共有的，是那个集体的或大写的“女性”所共有的。_ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2022-07-12-unlocked-catering-after-shanghai-lockdown.md b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-12-unlocked-catering-after-shanghai-lockdown.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..cb1ae465 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2022-07-12-unlocked-catering-after-shanghai-lockdown.md @@ -0,0 +1,185 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "上海解封餐饮业" +author: "王丹阳" +date : 2022-07-12 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/nm8mvpx.jpg +image_caption: "2022年6月初，上海解封后仍禁止堂食，有餐厅老板关门熄灯招待熟客「静默」用餐。" +description: "" +--- + +解封不是结束，只是另一个开始。 + + + +#### 重启堂食 + +七月的第一个周日，李江南扫了一遍徐汇区某高端商场。这家商场以餐饮密集而闻名，中午12点半，中庭冷落，曾经排队就餐的身影已无处可寻，他透过落地窗窥探几家堂食的情况，有的满座，有的空落。所有食客簇着头，四下寂静，像是一部城市灾难片的余韵。 + +李江南在上海拥有一家超过20家门店的连锁品牌，以白领精致食堂的美誉驰名沪上。而像他这样的中端餐饮的中坚代表，在三四个月的错乱、茫然、停摆和崩盘后，已濒临绝境。 + +六月底是上海恢复堂食的日子，规定繁琐，让李江南摸不到头脑：“桌长制”、“一米线”、“数字哨兵”、“一网统管”，还有“按最大承载量50%比例控制就餐人数，实行隔位，错位入座......” + +在上海干了20年餐饮，这一刻李江南知道，“解封不是结束，而是另一种开始”。 + +手机上的客流和营销数据app，一打开就是实时的各店扫码结帐的流水。周日的营业额比周六高了15%，看起来是一波小高峰，上座率五六成，营业额达到封控前的七成，跟同行比起来相对漂亮，他却完全快乐不起来。“没用，依然是亏的，情况还是严峻。” + +那个周末，陈亮作为一家有着10家门店的大型江浙菜连锁餐饮副总，同样无法振奋。“至少我是悲观的。”几个月来，公司千把个员工走了三成，在封控的后期和解封初期，拿不到工资的年轻人大批撤离上海。 + +“我现在没人啊，走了的多数是前厅服务员，现在就算恢复堂食也没法全开，整个市面上招不到劳动力。”陈亮的品牌在上海家喻户晓，门店面积都在1500平米左右，是婚宴、商务、企业年会的常规选择，平时的大厅人声鼎沸，椅子、桌子摩肩擦踵，塞得几乎没有空隙。如今，他遵照堂食规定，每个门店撤了一半的桌椅，上座率仅一半。 + +“横向比较我们已经相当不错”，在上海扎根将近30年，深耕品牌，陈亮的老板和股东是同行间少有的非扩张型的，所以流动资金还充足。停摆的企业，开始约定俗成地向雇员发放2590元上海市最低工资，陈亮的企业向20%的员工发了最低工资，在同行中这个受波及面积已算很小。“但现在不是钱的问题”，他发现城市变了，市场经过残酷的冲刷，一地鸡毛，人心惶惶。 + +#### 与公安局谈话 + +李江南认为，上海堂食的最终开放，有他的一份绵薄贡献。6月29日，市商务委正式解禁了封控三个月的堂食，让濒临崩溃的餐饮业终于看到曙光。 + +在那天的前几天，他和几位餐饮同行，坐在一家品牌策划公司里，向对面三位市公安局的民警大倒苦水：堂食要开放的传闻在市面上七里传八里，但槌子不落地，何时开放、是否即刻开放，餐饮人在分秒滴答中走到了生死线上。 + +那一阵，微信公号上流传一篇《疫情下上海餐饮人的心声：请求支援，等待堂食》，组织人之一就是他。市公安局平心静气地找到他们，说此文舆论效果太大，希望他们节制，并顾及时下业已层出不穷的民意事件，和可能引发的“社会性后果”。他们聊到了两周前七浦路服装批发商户集体退租事件，这事带来的局部性骚动在上海这座温和的城市已如同警钟。 + +当李江南得知几位民警来自上海市公安局的“宣传部门”、是负责“专门把意见反映到决策层”的，只想抓住最后一根稻草。“我给他们指出一组数据，上海餐馆总量25万左右，平均每家10到15个劳动力，算下来250万到300万人，而产业链上游做餐饮服务、营销装修设计、加上供应商起码还有300万人，这个行业吸收劳动力500万以上，即使对上海GDP贡献没那么大，但对社会稳定的作用可想而知。” + +此前，作为半官方组织的上海市烹饪行业协会和市商务会已经接触过几次，会也开了，一些巨鳄品牌如杏花楼、新荣记、王家沙的代表都在，事后李江南一看会议记录，蜻蜓点水的提了提难处和期望，“就是没人说到重点，但这次，我觉得他们是听懂了”，总的来说，那是一次和民警的良性互动。 + +#### “我们要找媒体” + +6月1日，上海宣布“全面恢复正常生产生活秩序”，2500万常住人口走出住宅。外卖和扫码点单率先启动，街上人头攒集，店家清一色在门口竖起二维码招牌，食客足不入店，一时间造成了人人坐在马路牙子上吃流水席般的盛景。 + +![image1](https://i.imgur.com/zGx13KV.jpg) +▲ 六月初，上海，食客露天进餐。 + +复工不堂食，微信成了魔幻场面的中枢，胆大商家偷开包房，引食客入堂，“暗黑料理”，“堂食谍战”，“游击战”的照片疯传，绝大多数只是“焦头烂额的小餐厅”和“食客无处安放的屁股”。 + +![image2](https://i.imgur.com/cJRaGhU.jpg) +▲ 六月初，上海，食客围坐熄灯，手机打光，仿如秘密聚会。 + +沪上餐饮人吴天旗在6月第三周和餐饮老板们来到徐汇滨江夜跑，黄梅天的燠热化作夜雾和汗水，每年此时会在体感上提醒他们。但今年不同的是，滨江从早到晚汇聚着“获赦”的市民，他们把塑料餐盒带到这片空旷地带，拾阶而坐，如同节庆般地重新打量黄浦江上来往的驳船。 + +吴天旗所在的餐饮老板圈，有做新疆菜、苏浙菜、椰子鸡、剁椒鱼头、日本居酒屋等等。十几号人在江边拍了张合影，打上“餐饮人相约黄浦江，都有想跳的心”的抬头，扔到朋友圈里，配文说“都挺住”。 + +朋友圈里每天在更新哪些经典老餐厅和上海永别了。彼时，他投资的20来家餐厅，已有两家闭店，损失150万，是掏现钱清债关门的。当然，对于每家只占股10%左右的他来说，比起李江南这样奋斗在一线的老板，封城对他的影响只是表皮伤。 + +“他每家占股10%，损失150万，这样说来他投资的所有店面从解封以来的亏损已达2500万。”李江南是这样给他算这笔帐的。其实吴天旗在餐饮江湖上的角色相当于高档购物中心和餐饮企业的中间介绍人——“选址仲介”，他对接商场不拿佣金，以少量入股的形式拿分红，不参与经营，只聊战略。这在上海餐饮江湖上算是别开生面的一种玩法。 + +在上海做生意极其讲究“市口”，“选址中介”背靠大量商场资源，摆得动招商经理，由此和无暇选址的一线老板形成牢固的上下游。吴天旗也是李江南手上一家门店的股东，他让李江南来江边散散心，李江南没去，“谁有那个心去聚会？” + +其实即使坐在江边也无法好好喝一顿啤酒，因为每次都十几号人，巡逻民警就特别注意他们，在身边绕行，有次还遣散了他们，“你们人太多了”。民警也说不出几个人才叫“聚集”，反正就是“人不能太多”。 + +彼时，李江南的办公室里不时有同命相连的老板来喝茶，互倒苦水、比惨。供应商的货款、员工工资和租金三座大山压在身上，很多同行患了抑郁症，包括他，寒暄时总有人惊讶道，“你怎么头发变那么少了”。他觉得自己来到了至暗时刻，每天在被一个问题拷打：如果企业早晚要死，那是今天死还是晚些死？ + +上海市政府在封控初期曾经发文表示，本市所有国企物业将为承租商家提供半年免租，但执行下来就是乱。上海多数国企物业被二房东、三房东层层转租，当中关系盘根错节，一房东一刀切免租，但下面的私人房东就各有对策。20家门店，20家业主，是免是减，多数连锁餐饮老板每天在来回的谈判中消磨。 + +“更恶心的是私人开发的商场，一分钱不免，刚复工直接让你把四五月的租金付清，六月的物业费打进来，不然违约走人。”朋友们建议联合起来跟大商场谈，比如已经有文章在微信公号里呼喊潘石屹，“请您看一眼正在绝望中的上海古北soho业主。” + +李江南觉得这办法还是凝不起劲，大商场不会理你，反而还有给你穿小鞋的可能，不怕你走，大不了再招租，招商部“多赚一次好处费”；中间商耗着你，你不打点就违约。“我们要找媒体”，他说。 + +但之前联系的两家网络媒体，在电话里就直接回绝了他，“不可能发声”。最后是找到了一家专门给餐饮老板们做品牌营销的公号，答应发文。当晚八点，他火速凑了25个老板，各自写一段自白，两个小时后，纷纷交稿，李江南和编辑把过激的言辞删了删，在午夜发了出去。 + +#### 太多老板已经挣扎了半年了 + +“你真的认为餐饮面临的问题只是两个月的封控吗？”李江南说，太多老板已经挣扎了半年，包括他。三月，上海奥米克戎病毒来袭，散点式的爆发、封控、48小时核酸没有断过。他的店相继被封，相继解封，没完没了，三分之一的门店已经做了一个月外卖，流水相当难看。 + +3月28日，上海正式公布浦东和浦西进入各四天的轮流筛查，民间将此调侃为“鸳鸯锅式封城”。太多的餐饮老板没有反应过来，其余的人也只是乐观估计8天后解封。在上海有着30家黄鱼面馆的杨方舟便是其中一个。 + +进入轮流筛查的前一天，家在浦东的杨方舟带了两件只能干洗的高档面料棒球衫来到办公室，在旁边的酒店开了四天房。一早，他交代员工备好8天的鲜鱼，等4月1日浦东一开闸就送一半过去，如此，等4月4日全面解封时货是足的。“1号的时候浦东没有解封，黄鱼开始大量死亡，几万块没了，现在也不想了......”他说起来，有一种说书的淡定，节奏里带着嘲谑。 + +8天后，情况不妙，全市恐慌加剧，照片里的黄浦江上三座大桥气贯如虹，却没有一丝活影，交通绝迹，而酒店不提供中餐和晚餐，他得找个能发菜的居民小区。幸好有个朋友在青浦有空出来的一室户，他就去住。“那朋友是个女的，我只能在她的衣柜里找汗衫，每天穿她的衣服下楼做核酸，一直到6月1日出来。” + +三月底的三天，对李江南来说如同一场倍速播放的电影。本来在济南陪着病重的母亲，不得不在3月27日回沪，做浦东封控前的“最后准备”。因为所有的高管都住在浦东，即将不得动弹，他知道他要留在浦西善后。翌日一早，就约了几家供应商谈，还亲自拜访了嘉定的一家。“我约他们聊，就一个意思，不要断货，虽然三月份的货款给不了，但生意还是要做。” + +上海餐饮江湖有个潜规则，饭店和供应商之间的帐并不现结，一直是当月付上月的款，当月的赊到下个月，流水运作起来，营收额和各种成本每天在滚，老板们的帐户上不躺现金。 + +第二天，李江南驱车从虹口赶到松江九亭，和一个副总“隔着小区栅栏”聊了聊。这位员工三月中旬入职，第二天九亭疫情爆发，他的小区被封，就上了一天班。李江南隔着栅栏再面试了他一遍，确定要留下他后，把另一个正在试用期的员工辞退，如此节省成本。“现在这个时候，对你不需要的人当然是试用期越短越好。” + +他是打算在浦西封起来前再回济南的，但上海确诊激增，当晚老家那边宣布所有上海来客就地7+7隔离。母亲在30日过世，李江南所在的浦西在31日正式进入“压茬推进式”的封停。到现在，他是懵的。 + +#### 蛋糕没有变大，只是分蛋糕的人多了 + +“回上海两天半，老人走了，到现在还没有回。”那几天，是他餐饮生涯的分水岭，他之前经历过一次又一次谷底，每一次都知道底部在哪里，但这次，他只感深不见底。 + +他找了公司边上一家汉庭住了进去，这家酒店能提供三餐，放在门口。十几个租客住在一层里，上下层被征用给密接者，嘁嘁嚓嚓，来人不断。“直到这个时候，我反而一颗心落地了”，经济活动一停摆，所有老板都躺平，他的焦虑在没有日期、只有日夜交替的时间里沉淀了下来。 + +去年年底，他的忧郁已经很严重，这和2020年后整个上海的餐饮版图急速内卷有直接关系。武汉疫情平息后，民间投资结构急速向餐饮倾斜，“能投的领域越来越少，只有餐饮的门槛最低，比如街边服装店关门，老板们发现消防和环保标准在松动，大量门店可直转餐厅。”但吴天旗觉得，蛋糕没有变大，只是分蛋糕的人多了。 + +资本大胆进场，这两年中国的网红餐饮品牌迅速涌现、变现、离场，上海的餐饮呈现过江之鲫的景象，只是在吴天旗看来，皆是“割韭菜”而已。李江南觉得不得不转型了，他做的品类里有一匹黑马迅速窜了上来——在两年时间里扩张到40家门店，“所有股东都是大厂出来的，老板思路很清楚，就是用资本市场的钱。” + +李江南在去年下半年感到巨大压力，如果再不转，资本一旦退潮，预估两年后上海的餐饮版图会分封完毕并固化下来，他不能落单。于是，从不做商场的他在商场里开了两家，果然获客容易很多。他决定等街边店租约到期后全转入商场。 + +杨方舟在去年也切实感受到资本的凶猛，像他这样做单品面条的，虽然在品类里是头部，但也必须警惕一些更潮流的竞品，因为他们开始吸纳985院校大学生做经营，这对于做大肠面出身的他来说构成巨大威胁。 + +他从去年上半年开始谈VC资本，冀望着转型做小店化的经营。2020年前他一直去日本，观察那种只有七八个座椅，两三个服务生的拉面店，回来后大肆想像，其实只要把流程理顺，每家店只需要三个人，一人下面，一人前厅，再加个钟点工，门店绩效和经营直接挂钩。 + +上半年谈了十来家VC，这辈子第一次学会做PPT，练了口舌去路演，“做我并不擅长的事”。谁知在年中，中美贸易摩擦发生质变，滴滴和一众互联网公司停止赴美IPO，中概股哀鸿遍野。VC一下子消失，没有一家再能启动。 + +李江南在去年年中面临同样的问题，但他发觉扩张的步履不能停，于是卖了套房，腾出千万现金，计划年底开出10家商场店，与目前各10家的街边和办公楼店形成三角。“现在看，做这个错误决定的时候我已经很焦虑了。”他说。 + +2022年的春节，是他做餐饮以来最冷清的一个跨年，他发现，是市场变了，2020以来餐饮领域的一波小红海，如同一堆繁华的泡沫，在不知不觉中破裂并露出实则萧条的底子。二月份营业额同比下降15%后，三月份的工资至今只发了少部分。 + +#### 解封不是结束，只是另一个开始 + +三月底，杨方舟的公司帐户上只躺着20万现金。一开始，他每天和区域经理通视频，讨论八天后怎么复工，很快，问题就聚焦在怎么给那400多名基层员工弄吃的。他们多数住在4到8人的员工宿舍，房间里基本只有上下舖。 + +员工的情绪在崩溃，每天都有人来电，问的无非是三月的工资什么时候发，或政府规定的市最低工资2590块到底算不算数。他们不是不知道整个三月基本只做外卖，营业额只有平时的20%。更尴尬的是，那时连财务划帐系统都封在办公室，没人能拿。 + +杨方舟和几个高层临时凑了100万现款，先给一个个宿舍把方便面买足，或给要急着用钱的人先打点款过去，因为有些人在老家县城贷款买了房，本来每个月的工资是“卡得很好的”。 + +四月初，陈亮开着一辆浦东和浦西皆能跑的保供面包车，在南北高架上以120码的速度奔驰，从头到尾，没有交通管制，没有一辆别的车。“这种感受太魔幻，上海回到了原始社会。”没有语言可以表达那种驰聘在自己奋斗了25年的城市，犹入无人之境的心情。 + +市中心的街道上，初春的落樱和焦黄的树叶织成五彩的地毯，与轮胎擦出窸窣的声音，松鼠和燕雀在路中央徜徉，车到它们跟前，要揿一次喇叭才会散去。陈亮是同行中少之又少能见证这番奇景的人，因为他所在的企业拿到第一批上海市餐饮企业保供资质，配了10部保供车，其中有4部有资格穿越黄浦江。 + +虽然之后某些保供企业以巨额牟利而臭名昭著，但餐饮界都知道，餐饮企业拿到这个资质是另一回事，“说白了就是还能开工，亏得少一点。”陈亮说。他们的保供范围是门店周边街道的工作人员及大白、志愿者的一日三餐。按照500人算，一家店的负荷可想而知，他在店里吃住两个月，凌晨三点要起来做馒头和稀饭。 + +“员工的情绪极其不稳定，因为密闭环境里起早贪黑，这个时候最难管的就是人。”每一天，要调动人跟他出车外送是个难题，因为恐慌在蔓延，员工到了不敢与外界发生接触的地步。陈亮只能硬性给他们排班，轮流和他出车。那个时候，每天他要为送三顿饭跑个六次，在天色的变幻里分辨白天黑夜，困在时间的漩涡里原地打转。 + +那个时候，李江南终于在酒店房间里睡了半年来最踏实的几个觉。每晚一颗安眠药，昏沉入睡，但药性让他每个凌晨三点必醒，之后几个小时就等天亮。他发明了一个方法，每晚十点在房间里来回跑步，如此持续一两小时，用身体的劳累代替安眠药入睡。 + +“如果去年卖房的时候家人阻拦住我，如果卖房款先拿去还朋友的债，而不是去扩张，至少会止损。”李江南的心里有太多的如果和自责。6月1日，上海解封，重回人间，李江南再次回到老问题，来到崩溃边缘，“如果要把三四五三个月工资、租金和成本都补齐，那至少还要亏3000万块......哪里还有钱啊？” + +没有人比餐饮老板明白，解封不是结束，只是另一个开始。做外卖是用不了所有人力的，三分之二的员工闲着，每天讨工资，李江南的区域经理每天就在挡讨薪。他采取一种策略，为了不赔偿，不会主动裁人，只是那样耗着，不忍心但也实则无奈。后来那些主动不干了的员工串联起来，去劳动局仲裁，仲裁员还来公司倾谈，李江南让区域经理挡着，他不出面。 + +周围朋友也是哀鸿一片，劳动仲裁缠身的，“每天都在应付这些屁事。”但他最不承其重的是封控前借的朋友的债，“我跟他们说，现在的状况，没法一下子还钱，但你们相信老李，只要我不死就有希望。”他已经这么说了。 + +#### “我现在每天都在忙怎么弄钱” + +陈亮把现阶段称作“报复性消费”。6月初上海解封，陈亮带着儿子吃遍肯德基、必胜客和各种烧烤，因为人都憋坏了，需要释放，由着儿子想吃什么就吃什么。但他也在想，等这一波释放过去，失业率高涨，消费欲望低迷，那么餐饮的路在何方？他无暇跟老板聊这个话题，但转型“小店化模式”的想法在管理层中焦灼地蔓延。 + +对于“报复性消费”，李江南激动地反对，“哪里来的报复？营业额恢复五六成就算报复性消费？再看看周边江浙的疫情封控在加码，人口都流动起来了吗？外地人能正常进沪了吗？”。 + +他有个“一个顶八个”的理论，即一个外地来沪游客或商务人士可顶八个上海人的消费力，因为他们至少一天三顿外食，不是吃你家的就是吃我家的，所以人口流动对餐饮的贡献至关重要。 + +但解封后，有媒体报导每日逾万人离开上海。李江南一再强调人要进来、要流动起来，不然恢复之前的营业额就是个遥遥无期的事情，他觉得这不容争辩。他羡慕陈亮的企业，因为单店面积就大，一般是整层开在国有大型物业中，一方面租金可以谈，一方面没有那么容易被赶走，“因为物业方要考虑那么大的业主走了，也很难再招租。” + +李江南不知道陈亮也有隐衷，那就是虽然一部分门店做了保供，跟街道签了协议，但一分钱都还没有收回来。说到这点，陈亮变得谨慎和隐晦，保供菜都是他们用现金向上游保供企业结算的，成本贵几倍不说，买来的菜每天还要拣，因为腐烂的太多，起码要扔掉一半，当时干得快崩溃。 + +整个保供花掉3500万成本，是以前一个月的营业额，但公司平时进帐和出帐就大，老板们的意思是就不要盯着政府了。“要去问也是可以的，但是他们打过招呼说慢点给，就不方便催要，这次结束以后感觉和街道打好交道还是蛮重要的。”经此一役，陈亮感觉到街道主宰一切、权倾一时的味道，也知道政府现在蛮困难的。 + +6月15日，杨方舟发了3月的部分工资。“我现在每天都在忙怎么弄钱”，像挤牙膏一样地挤钱。他说，他明白，没有人愿意看到顶梁柱倒下，此刻如关店，也不是不可以，但意味着个人信誉崩塌，杨方舟怕自己在投资人眼里“变成罗永浩那样的人”。 + +2020年之前，他上过各种商学院，每年要花六位数的学费，见证了风口之下猪也会跑的经济“虚热”。资本、人脉、圈子，都喜欢一张成功的脸，所以再难也要把店开下去，吊着一口气。 + +“我也不能总是给周围人灌输前途一片黯淡的观点，否则人家为什么跟着你？”杨方舟的一对一“导师”都是身家上亿的企业主，他学到了一种要掌握时代脉搏的历史观，跟着时代的方向走，分析现在对应的是新中国历史上的哪一阶段，想明白了后就知道，如果因为这一波倒下，“我也不觉得丢脸”。 + +#### “利空出尽是利好”？ + +现在面对员工，杨方舟只能打悲情牌了，让店长冲在前线跟他们解释老板的难处，但工资不发，就没人好好干活。“30家门店，30个房东，谈成三分之一，我对去谈的人只嘱咐一点，我们不指望最低，只要跟别的业主一样。”街边店的房东最急，他的面馆多数在街边，二房东、三房东，层层关系，到了末端都看不到国企的影子。 + +借钱的渠道越来越窄，私人VC已撤，只能跟各大银行打交道，他发现自从大房企爆雷后，国有银行在向餐饮企业倾斜。杨方舟之前举债多，杠杆又高，钱都花在扩张上。算来算去，抵押贷款能贷到的共300万，对他来说远远不够。 + +李江南则不可能再去银行贷款了，自从他只剩下一套房子后，他无法面对“个人担保无限责任”这个无底洞，风险太大，他害怕他自己被带进去，没有回头路。 + +杨方舟每天都在给周围形容枯槁的同行分析时政，让他们振作，明白“利空出尽是利好”。“一个老板的状态对公司的存亡太重要，你们要学学上海市政府的新闻稿，为什么要在这个时候宣布抗疫的伟大胜利？”他把这话当成段子来讲，希望身边的人能懂。 + +总的来说，他认为政府不会不救市，中国经济的规律就是绝处逢生，做老板有时候也只能无为。只是你要把握“共同富裕”的政策风向，他会考虑将来在门店经营设计上搞共同持股。 + +“我们要发声，但是要理性地发声，超过一百人请愿，哪怕你跪在那里也要格杀勿论，这不是危言耸听，这是历史。”他告诉身边人，往前走，上海一定是东京，往后退，上海依然是中国最好的城市。 + +六月底，吴天旗来到外滩五号的二层，再次看了一眼他和一个日料老板在三月谈下来的场址。这里本来是一家蝉联米其林榜的高级意大利餐厅，蜡地钢窗，像一爿被搬空的古董店，四壁之下依然让人错觉往日的光泽在脚下跳动。透过细密暗格的落地窗，江堤上的树团掩映着对岸的“三件套”（上海陆家嘴三座高楼因外型被网民调侃为“厨房三件套”）。 + +“这种舖子在疫情前是很难得的。”他们盘下来，打算做一家人均1500块的日料店，他自己已掏了150万做定金。现在，他犹豫了，却已进退两难。2005年，他大学毕业，借了20万在浦东三林地区开了家重庆鸡公煲，那年头鸡公煲、麻辣烫、川菜主导了上海餐饮的半壁江山。 + +吴天旗在那时学会了“洋泾浜”上海话，知道了怎么跟上海阿姨和爷叔做朋友，20年来不曾对上海有过怀疑。但四月，他一家四口全部感染，他、女儿和儿子被分在不同的方舱，他没有在微信朋友圈里发一个字。如果有什么语言可以概括这段辗转三个方舱的人生履历，他莞尔一笑道：“说实在的，颠覆三观”。 + +（文中人名均为化名。） + + \ No newline at end of file From 0856d704fb09447f9f586816bad2d1b6751d0d9c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2022 01:36:06 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 12/12] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x12 Jul.22 --- .../2022-07-01-ukraines-crony-capitalism.md | 339 ++++++++++++++++++ ...2022-07-16-russian-volunteer-battalions.md | 103 ++++++ 2 files changed, 442 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2022-07-01-ukraines-crony-capitalism.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2022-07-16-russian-volunteer-battalions.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-01-ukraines-crony-capitalism.md b/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-01-ukraines-crony-capitalism.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0fd09a82 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-01-ukraines-crony-capitalism.md @@ -0,0 +1,339 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Ukraine’s Crony Capitalism +author: John Lough +date : 2022-07-01 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/HWD6Bds.jpg +image_caption: "President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy once, before his presidency, starred in the TV series Servant of the People (2015-2019) which became his political party’s name in 2018." +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Ukraine’s system of crony capitalism – described as systema – reflects the absence of a strong state, and an enduring relationship between big business and the country’s political class that puts their own interests before those of society._ + + + +Despite some setbacks since 2014, crony capitalism’s stakeholders have shown their ability to continue to manipulate Ukraine’s public institutions in the face of the deepest set of reforms undertaken since independence, as well as in conditions of war. + +Dismantling the networks of systema will require a combination of deep structural reforms, preventive and repressive measures to curb corruption, and civic activism to hold politicians, officials and business owners accountable. + +This research paper sets out how systema operates across key sectors of Ukraine’s economy, and identifies the main mechanisms that enable its stakeholders to preserve their privileges and divert public resources. It also considers the factors that may change the behaviour of those who benefit from crony capitalism. + + +### Summary + +- Ukraine’s systema – commonly described as oligarkhiya in Ukraine – grew out of a specific form of crony capitalism that took root in the late 1990s. It has proved impressively resilient and adaptive to political and economic disruption since the 2004–05 Orange Revolution. It allocates resources inefficiently and in ways that do not benefit society, and increases economic costs by reducing competition. At the same time, it weakens institutions and perpetuates high levels of inequality and corruption. As such, it is the underlying obstacle to the development of fully functioning democratic institutions and rule of law. + +- Systema has proved particularly hard to dislodge because it rests on a firm alignment of interests between big business and the political class in favour of rent seeking over wealth creation for the public good. Across the state sector, and at different levels, it has spawned an extensive supporting structure of beneficiaries that service those interests. + +- Systema’s structures are in place not just in Kyiv but across the country. The same operating principles are replicated at regional level for the benefit of powerful local elites and their accomplices in regional governments and councils. + +- The influence of systema across the banking, energy, transport and healthcare sectors rests on the same foundations, and achieves broadly similar results for its stakeholders, even if some reforms have significantly reduced opportunities for the levels of rent seeking seen before the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. The agricultural sector is anomalous partly because of the absence of the main financial-industrial groups (FIGs) and because the issue of land reform resonates strongly with society and has limited the ambitions of some of the influential players. + +- The main FIGs dominate the media sector because ownership of media assets is vital for influencing politics and thereby preserving their influence. Over time, however, a combination of regulatory changes, digital disruption, and the appearance of new channels and new models of media business may erode their control of the sector. + +- Although systema has undoubtedly suffered setbacks since the Revolution of Dignity, it still has considerable residual strength, and the ability to undo some of the most important achievements of the reforms undertaken since 2014. + +- Systema has left Ukraine with a serious lack of expertise in government that contributes to weak state capacity. The major FIGs attract and retain much of the best talent in the country, putting it to work to make governing institutions work for them. This imbalance is likely to take many years to correct. + +- Reducing the influence of systema requires changing the calculus of the main players. Rent seeking needs to become more difficult, to carry greater risk and to be less profitable than wealth creation through the establishment of well-managed, transparent businesses that attract investment and generate employment. + + +### Introduction + +_Ukraine’s system of crony capitalism reflects the absence of a strong state, and an enduring relationship between big business and the political class that puts their own interests before those of society._ + +The form of crony capitalism that emerged in Ukraine in the late 1990s has proved impressively resilient and adaptive to political and economic disruption since the Orange Revolution in 2004–05, followed by the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. It functions based on a deeply integrated network bound by shared interests described here as systema, but known more commonly in Ukraine as oligarkhiya. Breaking its grip is essential for the consolidation of democratic institutions and the development of rule of law. + +Systema is by no means a uniquely Ukrainian phenomenon. Variations of the same model exist to different degrees around the world, including in ‘old’ EU member states such as Greece and Italy as well as ‘new’ ones such as Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania. Unlike its Russian analogue, which rests on a centralized structure of power, Ukraine’s systema reflects the absence of a strong state. The common features of these governance models are high concentrations of capital in the hands of a small number of politically connected business owners in environments characterized by institutions that siphon public money for the benefit of the few, low levels of transparency, limited accountability and weak rule of law. To different degrees, the effects include the undermining of democratic governance, the distortion of economies, and the promotion of criminality and corrupt practices through the influence on public policy of a dominant group’s business interests. In short, these systems seriously hinder the functioning of an autonomous state for the public good. + +Analysts often describe the ability of Ukraine’s major financial-industrial groups (FIGs) to penetrate parliament and the agencies of government in order to put their interests before those of the country as ‘state capture’, or ‘regulatory capture’. However, what is happening is not the one-way process that these terms imply. There is a symbiotic relationship between big business and politicians and officials in which each needs the other to sustain a system that allocates resources for their benefit. The FIGs depend on politicians, who are sometimes their direct representatives, to pass favourable laws and ensure the state apparatus implements them. Major business owners such as Rinat Akhmetov, Viktor Pinchuk and former president Petro Poroshenko have even served in parliament themselves, as Poroshenko does again now. At the same time, large numbers of politicians depend on the FIGs to finance their campaigns and to deploy media assets in support of their combined interests. Both sides benefit from their ability to influence the judicial system. ‘Shadow state’ is perhaps a more accurate description of such a model in which institutions are co-opted and subverted rather than ‘captured’. + +This pernicious fusion of interests on the part of big business and a ‘service’ class creates systema. While its effects are visible in Ukraine’s poor economic performance for much of the period since independence, and in its disturbingly high levels of inequality, much of the fabric of systema is non-transparent and lives in the shadows. + +Ukraine typifies what some social scientists describe as a ‘limited access order’, in which a ruling class artificially restricts political and economic competition to amass wealth and protect itself. Since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, systema’s stakeholders have shown their ability to continue to manipulate public institutions not just in the face of the deepest set of reforms undertaken since independence, but also in conditions of war. Putting their own interests before those of society, they have shown their determination to allow as little change as possible to the functioning of systema. + +They have sustained an economic model of rent seeking that prevents the creation of a level playing field by granting benefits to some companies over others. Not only does a system of this kind allocate resources inefficiently and in ways that do not benefit society, it increases economic costs by reducing competition. A further damaging side effect is the co-optation by its participants of the law enforcement agencies and the judiciary to safeguard their assets and revenue streams as well as to ensure their immunity from prosecution. Over the years, this has limited possibilities for reforming the police, the security services, the Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Ukraine continues to score poorly in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index. In 2020, it ranked 72nd overall out of 128 countries and jurisdictions assessed – albeit six places higher than the previous year. However, it ranked 110th in the category ‘absence of corruption’, and 90th in ‘criminal justice’. + +The subversion of the legal system also creates possibilities for organized crime to operate alongside business. The problem deepened under Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency in 2010–14: mafia structures in Donbas colluded with government agencies, including the Security Service. There is no evidence to suggest that the problem of organized crime in Ukraine has diminished. It is part of a deeply rooted social culture that goes back to the 19th century, materializing in the form of a brotherhood of ‘thieves’ with its own laws and morals. The revolutionary environment of 2014 and its aftermath created increased opportunities for organized crime, particularly people-trafficking and drug-smuggling, as the new authorities focused on containing the uprising in Donbas. + +The power of systema is reflected in the concentration of economic assets. According to 2015 data, politically connected businesses accounting for less than 1 per cent of companies in Ukraine owned more than 25 per cent of all assets and accessed over 20 per cent of debt financing. In the capital-intensive mining, energy and transport sectors, politically connected businesses accounted for over 40 per cent of turnover and 50 per cent of assets. + +`According to 2015 data, politically connected businesses accounting for less than 1 per cent of companies in Ukraine owned more than 25 per cent of all assets and accessed over 20 per cent of debt financing.` + +Since the second half of the 1990s, when systema originally took root under President Leonid Kuchma, these businesses have used their political relationships to pursue a wide range of rent-seeking opportunities, including rigged public procurement tenders and privileged access to state aid, tax benefits, soft loans and debt guarantees from state banks. Several of these practices have continued since 2014 despite the closure of some of the largest schemes, notably in the banking, energy and healthcare sectors. However, political influence still translates into the capacity to gain business advantage by encouraging monopolistic practices. This is particularly visible in the energy industry. It is no coincidence, for example, that Ukraine ranked 128th out of 190 countries for ‘getting electricity’ in the World Bank’s 2020 Ease of Doing Business rankings. + +Systema has proved particularly hard to dislodge because it rests on a firm alignment of interests between big business and the political class in favour of rent seeking over wealth creation for the public good. Across the state sector at different levels, it has spawned an extensive supporting structure of beneficiaries that service those interests. Including dependents, this interest group comprises millions of people. This translates into a sizeable constituency in Ukrainian society that wishes to preserve this model and sees danger in reforms that could undermine it. + +It is unclear to what extent President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his team have ever felt able to disrupt systema in order to achieve their declared goals of rapid economic growth and reduced levels of corruption. On the face of it, Zelenskyy’s election mandate in 2019 gave him an unprecedented opportunity to use his popularity and his parliamentary majority, based on first-term MPs, to start developing a new model of governance – one that prioritizes society’s interests over those of the ruling class. However, his performance so far, exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, suggests that he cannot govern without systema and will bow to its interests. + +A number of significant developments in 2020 pointed to the renewed influence of interest groups opposed to changing the established rules of the game. First, in March 2020, was the dismissal of the government of prime minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, followed, a day later, by the removal from office of the reformist prosecutor-general, Ruslan Ryaboshapka. Then, in April, came the Constitutional Court’s blocking of judicial reforms, and a ruling by the same court, in October, that effectively paralysed the work of the National Agency for Corruption Prevention. Evidently, the Revolution of Dignity did not bring about the dismantling of these old networks, which also oppose Western influence on the reform agenda and, in some cases, propagate anti-Western disinformation. In the case of the Constitutional Court, four of the 15 sitting judges in October 2020 were holdovers from the Yanukovych era who had taken up their positions before the start of post-revolutionary judicial reform and the adoption of a new anti-corruption strategy. Those appointed later were part of the same ‘judicial corporation’, with its own interests and culture. + +This paper shows how Ukraine’s systema remains in place across the main sectors of the economy, and identifies the main mechanisms of control that enable its stakeholders to preserve their privileges and divert public resources. It also considers the factors that may change the behaviour of systema’s participants. + +The analysis deliberately avoids the terms ‘oligarchs’ and ‘undue influence’, as both mischaracterize the underlying governance problem facing Ukraine. One challenge for reformist forces is to develop a new vocabulary in Ukrainian and English that will more accurately describe certain features of systema and the obstacles to reducing its influence. + +Ukraine is not an oligarchy in the classic sense because it is not ruled by a small group of individuals. As noted above, while the owners of the largest business groups hold considerable sway over aspects of economic policy, they depend on a wider group of government officials, members of parliament, policy experts and managers of state companies to exercise their power. Some among this ‘service class’ are direct representatives of FIGs, but the majority are not. They have their own interests and influence channels. Competing regional interests further complicate the picture. Thus, to this extent, power is shared. Adopting policies requires consensus building and trading of positions with individuals that these business owners do not always directly control. + +‘Undue influence’ is a misnomer for two reasons. First, the main stakeholders are more than just influencers. They are often actors in their own right, as systema allows them to participate directly in decision-making on state policy outside formal institutions. Zelenskyy’s request, in March 2020, to leading businesses to support the government’s efforts to tackle the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is a recent example of how this can happen openly. Poroshenko’s appointment of two leading businessmen, Igor Kolomoisky and Serhiy Taruta, in 2014 to run southeastern regions is another. Second, Ukraine’s system of governance has not yet evolved to the point at which it is possible to describe key stakeholders’ influence as ‘undue’ or excessive. In a limited access order, this is the norm. + + +### Systema’s Four Pillars + +_Despite their privileges, the companies controlled by the Ukraine’s major financial-industrial groups – the primary stakeholders in systema – are less productive and slower to increase growth and create jobs than are non-politically connected companies._ + +Four pillars support systema in Ukraine and provide it with considerable stability: + +- Deep penetration of government decision-making processes via senior officials who favour the interests of big business and benefit from these connections; + +- Influence over the legislative process including through paid-for support of MPs who either have direct business interests or stand to benefit indirectly from their support of the business interests of others; + +- Influence over the judiciary and law enforcement agencies through the appointment of loyal individuals, as well as the use of bribery and other incentives to protect systema’s interests; and + +- Control of the media through ownership of the main outlets that provide a platform for selected politicians to develop their careers and for big business to shape public opinion in systema’s favour, including by attacking those who stand in its way. + +![image1](https://i.imgur.com/6y9eoij.png) +_▲ Figure 1. The four pillars supporting systema_ + +The major FIGs in Ukraine have dominated the economy over the past two decades through their ownership of vertically integrated businesses across multiple sectors, including agriculture, banking, energy production and transmission, media, mining and steel. These are systema’s primary stakeholders. Despite their privileges, the companies controlled by the FIGs are less productive and slower to increase growth and create jobs than are non-politically connected companies. Preservation of this model has depended on keeping a large section of the economy in state hands. This has allowed the stakeholders to benefit either by managing state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to extract gain through preferences granted to them by the state, or by working closely with SOEs to do so. Not surprisingly, corporate governance reform has held little appeal for these groups, while privatization has advanced at a snail’s pace, and discriminatory conditions have often excluded foreign investors. Three decades on from the collapse of the Soviet economy, Ukraine still has around 3,700 SOEs. + +With the notable exceptions of PrivatBank and the national oil and gas company Naftogaz, the business operations of the FIGs have proved sustainable, despite the costs to society, because they have continued to create value for their owners. + +The FIGs compete with one another for influence and access to rents, but have a strong motivation to coexist according to a set of informal rules. The Yanukovych ‘clan’ violated these rules in its dash to place rent seeking under its centralized control. In the process, it destabilized systema and forfeited the support of other players who concluded that they were better off without it despite the disruption of revolution. Some were quick to find their balance again in the post-revolution world in which systema still held sway, others less so. + +Rinat Akhmetov, one of Ukraine’s wealthiest business figures, was able to find an accommodation with President Poroshenko after 2014 that allowed him to rebuild his business after suffering serious losses because of the conflict in Donbas. His business interests do not appear to have suffered under Zelenskyy’s presidency, and his television channels have shown the president in a positive light. + +Ihor Kolomoisky, one of Akhmetov’s rivals at the top table of business owners, initially allied himself with the Poroshenko administration, and as governor of Dnipropetrovsk region he played a key role in 2014 in mobilizing resistance against Russian efforts to destabilize southeastern Ukraine. He left the country following a rift with Poroshenko, only to make a triumphant return after Zelenskyy’s election, determined to contest the nationalization of PrivatBank, the centrepiece of his business empire, that had taken place under the Poroshenko administration. + +Analysts were quick to point to the influence of the major FIGs in the parliament that was elected in 2019. Volodymyr Fesenko, one of Ukraine’s top political commentators, noted in September of that year that Kolomoisky could count on the support of up to 30 MPs, Dmytro Firtash, a prominent player in the energy and chemicals sectors on 15, and Akhmetov on six. It is widely believed in Kyiv that Akhmetov’s direct influence on the government has increased since the 2019 elections, even if he controls far fewer votes in parliament. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal previously held a senior position at Akhmetov’s energy company DTEK, while Olha Buslavets, the acting energy minister from April–November 2020, had a professional background in Donetsk’s coal industry, which is dominated by Akhmetov. She denied reports of having ties to DTEK. Meanwhile, the influence of Firtash appears to have waned, as demonstrated by the recent decision of Ukraine’s Security and Defence Council to impose sanctions against him. Kolomoisky’s influence in parliament may have diminished in recent months, after the US authorities imposed sanctions, in January 2021, on his close associate in parliament Oleksandr Dubinsky. The earlier fracturing of Zelenskyy’s parliamentary majority had allowed Kolomoisky to control closer to 40 votes from the Servant of the People party. + +Below these top-level FIGs are smaller groups that operate according to the same principles of rent seeking, but whose owners are not as visible and as networked in politics at the national level. They tend to have a local presence and to own local media outlets. Some of the bigger players in the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries fit into this category. Similarly, the biggest beneficiaries of Ukraine’s unreformed customs system, for example, are lower-level companies that avoid paying taxes through smuggling. They use some of the same mechanisms as the entities involved in large-scale rent seeking: penetration of the government system, including through collusion with law enforcement bodies, support in parliament, and use of the media to attack reformers. + + +### Systema’s Structure + +_The striking feature of Ukraine’s systema is the depth of its penetration and replication in national and regional decision-making processes and within the bureaucracies that implement decisions across the country._ + +The rent-seeking machinery in Ukraine operates at three levels. At the top, big business takes the largest cut. In the middle, systema’s enablers such as senior to mid-level government officials, MPs and managers of state-owned enterprises receive rewards from above and below as the largest and smallest players pay their dues. At the bottom are the low- to mid-level officials who collect bribes. They keep a portion for themselves but pass the greater part to their superiors. This is consistent with equivalent models of systema around the world. However, the striking feature of the Ukrainian version is the depth of its penetration in the national decision-making process and within the bureaucracy that implements decisions. + +Systema’s structures are in place not just in Kyiv. Across the country, the same operating principles are replicated at regional level for the benefit of powerful local elites and their accomplices in regional governments and councils. This can sometimes mean that cities and regional administrations, because of their political power, are able to defy the authority of national agencies. This has been evident during the COVID-19 crisis, when some cities have chosen not to comply with restrictions issued by the central government. + +Systema’s regional dimension gives it considerable additional stability through a hierarchy of interest groups below the biggest FIGs at the top. The decentralization reform begun after 2014 has strengthened regional and local elites. As the local elections in November 2020 showed, in Kharkiv and Odesa especially but in other major cities as well, mayors have built power bases that rest on their popularity as local leaders rather than on the appeal of national parties. The mayors of Kharkiv and Odesa have significant business interests. At lower administrative levels, the combination of political connections and wealth can also lead to local interests buying influence in regional centres and in Kyiv. + +The motivations of the largest business owners often come into conflict over the distribution of rents, but such disagreements have not proved sufficiently disruptive to threaten systema’s foundations. These key business figures share an interest in having a common set of red lines that determine the level of reforms they are prepared to accept. Even if they find themselves marginalized or excluded, they seek a way back into systema rather than trying to transform it. Most know that their businesses would struggle to survive, let alone prosper, in a non-rent-seeking environment, and that they could not easily protect themselves in a law-governed state. + +The consequences of this convergence of interests among FIGs are clearly visible in the form of a vicious circle of restricted competition in Ukraine’s politics and its economy, which results in permanently weak institutions, poor legislation and the absence of rule of law. Inevitably, this feeds corrupt practices at all levels, which provide the lubrication to keep systema’s wheels turning. + +Systema succeeds in being self-sustaining because it keeps the barrier for entry into top-level politics particularly high for independent actors. This is partly due to Ukrainian politics being a competition of money rather than of ideas. For example, with no cap on campaign finance, only political actors with high levels of monetary support could compete in the 2019 presidential election. Indeed, according to the Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law, a Ukrainian NGO, the three highest-polling candidates each spent between $5 million and $21 million, mostly on TV advertising. By comparison, in Poland, where GDP per head is almost four times higher, campaign spending by candidates in the presidential election of 2015 together amounted to some $4.8 million. The high levels of election spending in Ukraine are partly attributable to the fact that campaigns start earlier than officially permitted, as well as the fact that there are no restrictions on campaign spending. A further problem that restricts competition is that under the current rules, political parties can hide their sources of financing by using intermediaries. At the same time, they do minimal public fundraising. + +Transforming a limited access order into an open access order typically takes decades, because of the complexity of changing the calculus of the main players while simultaneously nurturing independent institutions. In the case of Ukraine, however, the evidence of the past six years points to two contradictory patterns of development. + +First, despite the exigencies of the armed conflict with Russia, which have revealed many of the country’s weaknesses, there is still no consensus within Ukraine’s ruling class about the need to change the way it is governed. Instead, the main FIGs have continued to compete for influence: Kolomoisky returned to Ukraine in 2019 on the eve of the presidential election; Viktor Medvedchuk (who was President Kuchma’s chief of staff) and Poroshenko were re-elected to parliament – although in May 2021 Medvedchuk was charged with high treason and placed under house arrest; and Akhmetov is once again in favour in the President’s Office. Even so, some reforms supported by Western countries have dramatically reduced certain opportunities for rent seeking and undercut the interests of some of systema’s beneficiaries. The IMF’s insistence on making financial assistance dependent on enacting specific anti-corruption reforms and other measures, including judicial reform, threatens to change the status quo irreversibly to the disadvantage of systema. + +Second, while these reforms remain incomplete, and there have been increasing signs that parts of systema have seen Zelenskyy’s presidency as an opportunity to recover ground lost during the Poroshenko years, that a president was chosen from outside the elite group demonstrates a striking rejection of the status quo by the electorate. This represents the most powerful challenge to systema over the past 20 years, one that it has moved fast to interrupt by replacing a reformist government and trying to upend the anti-corruption reforms begun after 2014. To function effectively, however, systema requires political leadership that is accepted by society. The dramatic fall in Zelenskyy’s approval ratings between mid-2019 and early 2020, subsequently magnified by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, carries dangers for systema’s main players. Zelenskyy’s reduced popularity could easily translate into a loss of authority and trigger new elections – although at the time of writing there was growing speculation that he may seek to run for a second term. + +`The IMF’s insistence on making financial assistance dependent on enacting specific anti-corruption reforms and other measures, including judicial reform, threatens to change the status quo irreversibly to the disadvantage of systema.` + +To date, there is no single body of research available in or outside Ukraine on how systema maintains its grip on power, let alone any detailed prescriptions for how to reduce or break it. The research conducted so far has tended to focus on specific individuals and their businesses, rather than on systema as a whole. The issue defies easy analysis because the numerous networks in operation extend across different economic sectors, and they reach deep within the machinery of the state and influence public opinion via different channels. It is easier to feel the presence of these networks than to see them because they are not just hidden, they are also fluid. + +To understand how systema functions, the chapter that follows identifies the structure of ownership in four main sectors of the economy – banking, energy, transport and healthcare – and the mechanisms of influence used by the principal players in each to protect and advance their interests. They show a consistent pattern of influence that derives from the pillars on which systema rests. The ability to control the legislative process, deploy media and law enforcement tools, and rely on an amenable government system to implement decisions is clearly visible. However, the example of land reform – an issue that is particularly sensitive for the public, and which is supported by Ukraine’s international partners – suggests that sectors where the largest FIGs are not present are less susceptible to systema’s influence. + + +### Systema in the Banking, Energy, Transport and Healthcare Sectors + +_The ability of big business to control the legislative process, deploy media and law enforcement tools, and rely on an amenable government system to implement decisions is clearly visible across multiple economic sectors._ + +#### Banking + +__Ownership__ + +State-owned institutions today account for around 60 per cent of Ukraine’s banking sector assets. PrivatBank, Oschadbank and Ukreximbank are the biggest, with combined assets exceeding UAH 1 trillion. Close to 20 banks with foreign ownership have combined total assets of over UAH 500 billion, followed by nearly 50 domestically owned banks with total assets worth around UAH 250 billion. + +The clean-up of the banking sector after 2014, by a reformist team at the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), was far-reaching, and ended a large number of the extensive schemes associated with related-party lending that had operated for many years. Around 100 banks, most now closed, stand accused of siphoning abroad a total of $15 billion of taxpayers’ money. + +__Influence of systema__ + +The authorities have so far put little effort into recovering these and other funds stolen from the state during the Yanukovych years, and there is evidence to show that parts of systema succeeded in obstructing attempts to do so. Under the Poroshenko administration, not only did the Prosecutor General’s Office fail to take appropriate action; the Deposit Guarantee Fund also dragged its feet, despite its power to initiate civil proceedings against individuals responsible for losses to banks. The president nominates the heads of both agencies. + +PrivatBank provides a particularly good example of residual resistance to reforms. It was nationalized in 2016, after the discovery of a $5.5 billion hole in its balance sheet. Its former owners started an unprecedented legal campaign to challenge the nationalization in the courts, initiating hundreds of cases and threatening the credibility of banking sector reform as a whole. + +The NBU’s assault on many of the old schemes for misappropriating public money has met with resistance not just from the former owners of PrivatBank. Parliament’s initial hesitation in 2018 in adopting IMF-backed legislation to establish independent supervisory boards for state banks reportedly demonstrated the power of some of the biggest holders of non-performing loans. These actors were able to lobby parliament from within because they were also sitting MPs. The legislation was, however, eventually approved in July 2018. Subsequently, in early 2020, a small group of MPs tabled 16,000 amendments to a draft law on banking insolvency that was required by the IMF as a condition for future lending. This was clear evidence of the influence of external interest groups that wanted to block legislation intended to prevent the former owners of insolvent banks from regaining control of them. However, the urgent need for IMF support because of the economic problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic undermined their campaign. Parliament passed the legislation, and Zelenskyy signed it into law in May 2020. + +The campaign against the NBU’s management in late 2019 and early 2020, and the highly personal targeting of former governor Valeria Hontareva, are reminders that some of the opponents of banking reform are prepared to go to extreme lengths to protect their interests. The listing of Hontareva as a suspect in a criminal case ostensibly unconnected with PrivatBank raises suspicions about manipulation of the legal process. Media owned by Kolomoisky and others have played an important role in depicting the NBU as acting against Ukraine’s interests. The NBU issued a statement in November 2019 that held Kolomoisky responsible for attacks on its reputation, including alleged paid-for demonstrations outside its building. + +In July 2020 Zelenskyy forced the resignation of Yakov Smolii as NBU governor. After leaving his position, Smolii referred to ‘systematic political pressure’ on the bank, and did not rule out a coincidence of interest between the President’s Office and Kolomoisky. He said that the President’s Office wanted to replace the NBU’s leadership with people it could control. Smolii’s resignation came shortly after Ukraine had received the first tranche of a new $5 billion IMF stand-by arrangement. A key condition for continued IMF support was the independence of the NBU, and the IMF had made it clear that it held Smolii and his team in high regard. + +#### Energy + +__Ownership__ + +The energy sector has been the source of the largest rents in Ukraine over the past nearly three decades. For this reason, energy companies form the foundation of the business empires of many of the country’s wealthiest business figures. For example, Rinat Akhmetov remains the biggest player in the coal industry. In 2017, his company DTEK accounted for 86 per cent of Ukraine’s total production of 28 million tonnes of thermal coal. Akhmetov also has interests in the production of gas and renewables, as well as in electricity production and distribution. + +__Influence of systema__ + +The major FIGs exercised powerful influence over the energy industry from the time of the Kuchma presidency (1994–2005) until 2014 – particularly over arrangements for the supply of gas, which favoured imported gas from Russia over domestic production. Illegal arbitrage schemes exploiting the difference between subsidized gas prices for households and market prices for industry were a source of enrichment for large sections of the ruling class. Gas traders ‘captured’ the national regulator to create this differential. Such practices not only distorted the gas market and discouraged households from restricting consumption; they also had profound national security implications by creating a dangerous dependency on Russian gas. By 2014, Naftogaz had amassed a deficit equivalent to 5.7 per cent of GDP. + +The gravity of the situation brought about the most serious reversal of a FIG’s influence seen so far. The reforms undertaken at Naftogaz led to the cessation of gas supplies from Russia, the removal of the previous arbitrage margins and a dramatic improvement, through corporate governance reforms, in the transparency of the company’s dealings. By common consent, the biggest loser of these reforms was Dmytro Firtash, who not only no longer had access to cheap Russian gas but also could no longer profit from the arbitrage business. Even so, he retained control of most of Ukraine’s regional gas companies, a part of the sector still considered highly opaque. + +However, if Firtash could no longer shape the gas sector to the same extent as before, another group was able to dictate policy in the coal and electricity sectors. In 2016, the National Energy Regulatory Commission (NERC) took the controversial decision to set wholesale electricity prices at levels favouring domestic coal producers, following the ‘Rotterdam +’ formula that favoured Akhmetov’s DTEK. Commentators viewed this as the product of a reconciliation between Akhmetov and President Poroshenko, after a deterioration in relations between the two following the Revolution of Dignity. In return for NERC’s decision, it seems that Akhmetov offered Poroshenko the support of MPs loyal to him. Akhmetov’s main business partner, Vadim Novinsky, and several of the senior managers in his companies entered parliament in 2014 as representatives of Opposition Bloc, a remnant of Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions. + +The secretariat of the Energy Community was scathing in its 2018 review of the NERC’s performance, noting that its members were apparently ‘under the pressure of certain political and business groups which actually influence the outcome of the decisions’. The resignations of several members of the NERC after Zelenskyy became president reportedly took place under political pressure. + +While it is still too early to say whether the NERC will function differently with its changed membership, it seems likely that the same lobbying tactics on the part of the FIGs will continue. The core problem that weakens the possibility for independent regulation is a shortage of expertise and the absence a cadre of specialists who can stand up to business interests. This is particularly visible in the Ministry of Energy and Environmental Protection and in parliament’s Energy and Utilities Committee. The greatest energy expertise is not in the public sector; instead, it is in the FIGs, where salaries are much higher and there are better opportunities for professional development. + +Planned efforts to de-monopolize household gas supply, for example, are likely to run up against Firtash’s interests. As he demonstrated after 2014, he was able to deploy powerful lobbying capacity to protect his businesses. The embargoes on fertilizers produced in Russia helped his company Ostchem to reinforce its monopoly on the domestic market. The cessation of imports from Russia disadvantaged Ukrainian farmers by denying them access to cheaper fertilizer supplies. However, Zelenskyy’s imposition of sanctions on Firtash in late June 2021 suggested that his position had weakened significantly. + +`The core problem that weakens the possibility for independent regulation is a shortage of expertise and the absence a cadre of specialists who can stand up to business interests.` + +If necessary, the FIGs are also able to use the media to support their position against the government, as well as funding friendly trade associations or Ukrainian and foreign think-tanks. They have also successfully used the courts in the past to challenge NERC decisions on tariffs. There has been speculation, too, that the blocking of efforts by the Honcharuk government to change the management of Centrenergo and three regional energy companies was a key factor in its dismissal. + +During 2020, there was significant political pressure on Naftogaz and the gas transmission system operator that was unbundled at the beginning of the year. The deep reforms of the gas sector to cut energy dependence on Russia and align Ukraine’s gas market with the free-market principles enshrined in EU energy legislation have helped the country to integrate rapidly into a wider EU market, but they have not been popular in some quarters in Ukraine. In May of that year, 47 MPs from former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party and Medvedchuk’s Russia-friendly Opposition Platform – For Life jointly called on the Constitutional Court to examine the legality of the unbundling of the transmission system. The government’s decision, in January 2021, to regulate household gas prices for the rest of the heating season may have had an economic justification to limit continued price-gouging by companies associated with Firtash that control 75 per cent of the retail gas market. Yet among the supporters of the government’s move were forces hostile to Western-style reforms and thus happy to damage Ukraine’s relations with the IMF. The fund had previously insisted on Ukraine raising domestic gas prices to market levels as a condition for its continued support. + +#### Transport + +__Ownership__ + +The transport sector is largely state-owned, but provides a stark example of how the interests of major FIGs can distort an SOE’s functioning for their own purposes. Direct losses to the sector from FIG-led schemes amount to an estimated $5 billion per year. Exceptionally, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) is a private company, owned by offshore entities affiliated with Ihor Kolomoisky. + +__Influence of systema__ + +Influence over pricing mechanisms for use of the transport system are crucial for the FIGs that operate commodity-producing businesses. This is particularly visible in the case of the railways. The cheapest and most efficient means of transporting bulk commodities such as coal, iron ore, steel, corn, wheat and sunflower oil is by rail, in part because of the unsatisfactory quality of roads. However, the FIGs’ strategy of driving down costs for rail use has left the railways in a deplorable state. Poorly maintained infrastructure and a shortage of rolling stock, particularly locomotives, have created costly bottlenecks for the system as a whole. + +FIGs have succeeded in keeping in place a system of tariffs established in the 1960s that makes it cheaper to transport raw materials than finished goods. As a result of hryvnia depreciation, tariffs are 10 times lower than their equivalents in Poland or Hungary. According to one analysis, the main beneficiaries of the tariffs are SCM (owned by Rinat Akhmetov) and Ferrexpo (owned by Kostyantin Zhevago). + +The FIGs have also profited from their participation in tenders to supply goods, fuel and maintenance services to Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia). For example, Akhmetov’s Metinvest supplies rails, while Viktor Pinchuk’s Interpipe is a supplier of wheels for locomotives and rail cars. Companies connected with Petro Poroshenko and his associate Ihor Kononenko have supplied fuel. In some cases, business interests have hijacked certification procedures within Ukrzaliznytsia to allow only purchases from monopoly suppliers. A company connected with Yaroslav Dubnevych, the former chairman of parliament’s Transport Committee is alleged to have supplied components to Ukrzaliznytsia at inflated prices. In October 2019 parliament revoked Dubnevych’s parliamentary immunity, and prosecutors arrested him on suspicion of stealing UAH 93 million through corrupt procurement schemes. He was later released on bail. In April 2020, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office reported that it was filing charges against Dubnevych and forwarding the case to the High Anti-Corruption Court for review. + +FIGs also exercise influence over the operations of the 13 seaports managed by the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA) to obtain logistical and other advantages, including customs privileges. The ports are vitally important to these groups for their exports of metals and grain as well as imports of coal and oil products. Access to limited port capacity is a key issue. One analysis notes that the FIGs influence port operations through the law enforcement agencies, MPs and the top management of the USPA. An indication of the latter is that, in 2018, 11 of 13 heads of seaports were ‘acting’ rather than permanent appointments. This is a mechanism used in other areas such as customs to induce officials, concerned for their job security, to be more receptive to certain interests. + +In the aviation sector, Kolomoisky exercises influence through appointees in the management of Kyiv’s Boryspil airport. As a result, UIA reportedly benefits from privileged conditions there. Although Kolomoisky’s lobbying of the government and legal action were not sufficient to prevent the entry of the low-cost carrier Ryanair into the market, before the COVID-19 crisis his oil products business had benefited from the growth of demand for aviation fuel. Around 30 per cent of the volumes supplied in Ukraine came from Kolomoisky’s Kremenchug refinery. + +In the road-building sector, there are strong suspicions that the interests of FIGs influence decisions at the state agency Ukravtodor to favour their businesses by determining which roads should be built, the routes these should take, and which roads should be prioritized for repair. In addition, according to one report, in 2018 and 2019, three companies won one-third of all contracts from Ukravtodvor, one of them allegedly connected with the mayor of Odesa, Hennady Trukhanov, who has been subject to multiple investigations by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau related to suspected embezzlement of state property, money laundering and other offences. None of these has so far resulted in a criminal conviction. + +#### Healthcare + +__Ownership__ + +The healthcare market is competitive, with no single company accounting for more than 6 per cent. The largest FIGs are absent from the sector. The owners of healthcare companies are often significant donors to political parties, and have their representatives in parliament’s Public Health Committee. The pharmaceutical sector as a whole accounted for only 1 per cent of GDP in 2018, according to NBU data. This almost certainly explains why it is not a sector that is attractive to the main FIGs. + +__Influence of systema__ + +Before 2015, manipulation of the tendering process through collusion between government officials and companies supplying equipment and medicines led to purchases at vastly inflated prices. The two sides shared the proceeds. In some cases the prices were two to three times higher than those paid for the same medicines in Poland. + +According to one 2017 estimate, 40 per cent of the Ministry of Health’s spending on procurement of medicines was ‘black cash’. In 2014, six companies, four of them controlled by the same person, supplied 95 per cent of the drugs for treating AIDS, cancer, hepatitis and tuberculosis. Under the leadership of Ulana Suprun as acting minister from 2016 to 2019, the Ministry of Health succeeded in closing down much of the space for these practices by outsourcing the procurement of medicines to international specialists. Manipulation of the process for registering medicines produced abroad in favour of domestic manufacturers and distributors was another major problem confronting Suprun’s team. + +The backlash from the interest groups that lost out because of the removal of these schemes was immediate and sustained. Representatives of the Accounting Chamber visited the Ministry of Health on several occasions to investigate the new procurement process. Government agencies suddenly also showed an interest, including the Security Service, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Police. Parliament’s Public Health Committee contained several individuals who were on the payroll of pharmaceutical companies. Glib Zahoriy, the owner of one of the largest such companies, Darnitsa, was an MP from Poroshenko’s party. He lobbied against changes to the procurement process in parliament and tried unsuccessfully to appoint a close associate to head the State Expert Centre that was responsible for registering medicines. + +At the same time, there were intense media attacks on Suprun and her team as well as efforts using the Prosecutor General’s Office to intimidate two prominent health reform NGOs by opening criminal cases against them for alleged mismanagement of foreign grants. In February 2019, a Kyiv court instructed the State Bureau of Investigations to open a criminal case against Suprun for interfering in the work of the court. She has said that at one point, her team faced up to 20 court appearances a week that was part of an effort to waste their time and slow down the reforms. + +The current chairman of parliament’s Public Health Committee is Mykhaylo Radutsky, the former owner of the Boris network clinics, who was elected on the Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People list. Due to his close relationship with the president, he reportedly received carte blanche from the President’s Office to reform the health service. According to some sources, Radutsky was in effect running the Ministry of Health at the beginning of 2020. In addition, an alliance of pharmaceutical companies and distributors lobbied the government not to extend the system for outsourcing procurement of medicines to international agencies that was due to end in 2020. Their efforts failed as a result of a dispute between the Ministry of Health and its own procurement agency that required the government to call again on the services of international partners at the beginning of 2021, amid urgent efforts to procure vaccines against COVID-19. + +Ukraine’s procurement practices during the COVID-19 pandemic point to efforts to bypass the Prozorro electronic auctions system to purchase protective equipment for medical staff. This has resulted in the state paying more than double the cost than in other countries for equipment meeting the same quality standards. + +As noted above, Zelenskyy convened a meeting in March 2020 with the country’s leading business owners and demanded their financial assistance and other support in providing urgently needed medical supplies. This was recognition that the government had neither the financial nor the organizational resources to manage the crisis on its own. + + +### Agriculture: A Counterexample + +_Despite the size and influence of Ukraine’s major agro-holdings, the politically sensitive issue of land reform has exposed some of their weaknesses._ + +__Ownership__ + +Agriculture is an exceptional case in Ukraine, in that it is a large sector of the economy not controlled by the top-tier business interests that dominate sectors such as banking, energy, metals and transport. Agricultural lands used for commercial farming are held by private individuals in the form of communal property. Commercial farmers lease these and operate at the level of large agro-holdings, mid-sized farms and small farms, with around 50,000 legally registered entities active in the agricultural sector. In addition, there are an estimated 1–4 million unregistered small farms cultivating around a third to half of the country’s arable land (up to 20 million hectares). These have no access to state subsidies or bank finance. + +__Influence mechanisms__ + +The reluctance of successive governments to permit the free purchase and sale of agricultural land has favoured the development of large agro-holdings controlling 50,000 hectares and more in the absence of a legal limit on the amount of land they can lease. Some have been able to secure access to land on decades-long leases. Even though the agro-holdings control less than 25 per cent of Ukraine’s agricultural lands, they have exercised decisive influence on legislation, market rules and lease prices, as well on prices for commodities and equipment. These companies include Astarta, Kernel, MHP, Salic (formerly Mriya) and UkrLandFarming. Typically, companies of this size have strong relationships with regional authorities because of their importance as employers and taxpayers. + +In a sector blighted by ‘corporate raiding’, the big companies have their own security guards but often work closely with local law enforcement agencies to protect their assets – and in some cases to increase their land holdings by using various tactics to put other farmers out of business. At the national level, they also have significant lobbying capacity. One of the best-known examples is that of Vitaly Khomutynnik, a shareholder in Kernel and a member of parliament’s Tax Committee at the time when, in 2018, it pushed through VAT legislation favouring Kernel and other companies in the oilseed-crushing business. The founder of Kernel, Andriy Verevsky, was an MP for over 10 years up to 2013, and served on parliament’s Agriculture Committee until forced to step down because of a conflict of interest. + +`In a sector blighted by ‘corporate raiding’, the big companies have their own security guards but often work closely with local law enforcement agencies to protect their assets – and in some cases to increase their land holdings by using various tactics to put other farmers out of business.` + +However, despite the size and influence of the agro-holdings, the issue of land reform has exposed some of their weaknesses. This became clear after the IMF signalled that ending the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land would be a precondition for a new support programme. Up to that point, the large agro-holdings were happy with the status quo, and in some cases actively discouraged reform, sometimes using the media to harness public support. Oleksii Mushak, Verevsky’s cousin and the then prime minister Oleksiy Honcharuk’s adviser on land reform, was an advocate of the most liberal version of the law to allow foreign ownership of land, a provision that favoured large companies such as Kernel because of their ownership structure. Faced with a popular backlash against concentrated ownership of land, including by foreign entities, the government was forced to retreat. It ultimately proposed a version of the law that favoured the interests of the operators of small farms (up to 100 hectares) over the biggest companies. Parliament adopted a new version of the bill in a second reading without revisions of substance and Zelenskyy signed it into law. Some observers consider that the government chose to disregard the lobbying of big business because of the sensitivity of the issue with the public and fear that it could have a negative impact on upcoming local elections. Others point to the risk that some of the large companies may succeed in persuading lessors that they are better off leasing land than selling it. + +The land reform issue is an important example of how dominant business interests were unable to win the day in a sector in which the biggest FIGs, with their lobbying and media tools, are absent. Although the law adopted is not as liberal as some reformers had hoped, the pressure of the IMF and the strength of public feeling proved more important for the government than any gains it may have received by supporting the position of the agro-holdings. Ultimately, these business groups do not command the same level of authority as the main FIGs which – with their representatives in government and parliament as well as their media channels – have far greater resources to influence decision-making. + + +### The Place of the Media in Systema + +_The financial-industrial groups’ dominance of Ukraine’s main media outlets – and their ability to subsidize their losses – ‘captures’ politicians who rely on media access to develop the profile needed to win votes._ + +Control of the mainstream media is critically important for the biggest stakeholders in systema because of its political power. The largest FIGs are the dominant players in the media market. Four groups own the 15 most popular nationwide television channels, as well as the most popular newspapers, radio stations, regional TV channels and internet media sources. They are StarLight Media (owned by Viktor Pinchuk), Media Group Ukraine (owned by Rinat Akhmetov), 1+1 Media (owned by Ihor Kolomoisky, Viktor Medvedchuk and Ihor Surkis), Inter Media Group (owned by Dmytro Firtash, Valeriy Khoroshkovskii and Serhiy Lyovochkin). According to one estimate, these groups together reach over 75 per cent of Ukraine’s TV audience. Ownership in the sector has experienced a remarkable degree of stability over the past decade. During this time, the top 10 media owners (by size of audience) have remained almost unchanged. This is a powerful indicator of systema’s durability. + +The FIGs’ ownership of the main media outlets and their ability to subsidize their losses – for example, Inter lost $70 million in 2012 – ‘captures’ politicians who rely on media access to develop the profile required to attract voters. This relationship leads to inevitable politicization of media coverage, particularly during election campaigns, and provides a platform to challenge unwelcome reform efforts. Elected politicians also seek to use media to maintain voters’ trust. Political advertising, especially on TV, consumes a large part of campaign budgets because of its perceived effectiveness, and contributes to a distortion of the media market in favour of FIGs’ interests. There are currently no restrictions on campaign spending on advertising. Media owners are also able to use their outlets to protect their businesses from competitors and politicians, particularly during pre-election campaigns when they can shape national news reporting. + +In some regional centres, subsidiaries of the major FIGs or local business groups have stakes in local media and exercise influence over coverage in the same way as happens at national level. + +Suspilne, the public broadcaster launched in 2015, is starting to make inroads into the audiences of FIG-controlled media as the quality of its programming has improved, but it cannot compete with their offering. There are signs, too, that it is suffering from political interference and underfunding that limit its effectiveness. Similarly, independent media are in no position to match the major channels’ ability to attract advertising for television and digital channels. FIGs also have a strong presence in the digital media sector, where they own three of the top 10 news websites (in terms of audience reach: obozrevatel.com, segodnya.ua and tsn.ua). + +Government regulation of the media remains open to political influence. The president and parliament appoint, by equal quotas, the members of the regulator, the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting. Similarly, the president nominates the head of the licensing body, the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, and parliament approves the appointment. The draft media law that has been under discussion in parliament since early 2020, and which had not yet had its first reading at the time of writing this paper, is the work of several individuals in government and parliament connected with media groups controlled by the FIGs. It is hardly surprising that the major media companies have no need to lobby against its provisions. + +For now, the FIGs’ dominance of the major media channels remains unchallenged. Over time, a combination of regulatory changes, digital disruption, and the appearance of new channels and new models of media business may erode their influence. For example, increased transparency of ownership and funding of digital media, as envisaged by the draft law, could make it harder to use digital media for political purposes. + + +### Conclusions + +_Dismantling Ukraine’s system of crony capitalism will require a combination of deep structural reforms, preventive and repressive measures to restrict corruption, and civic activism to hold politicians, officials and business owners accountable._ + +Systema as whole in Ukraine has suffered setbacks since the Revolution of Dignity, but it still has considerable residual strength – and the ability to undo some of the most important achievements of the reforms undertaken since 2014. Its four pillars of support provide possibilities for using different mechanisms in different combinations and at different intensity to advance its interests. The greatest disruption to the interests of systema stakeholders has been in the banking, energy and healthcare sectors. Yet in all three cases, there are clear dangers of regression. + +Reformist forces have not yet achieved a final victory against the former owners of PrivatBank, as underlined by the resignation of the NBU governor in July 2020, and by the fact that the Constitutional Court is due to rule on the legality of the Deposit Guarantee Fund. This fund is responsible for liquidating insolvent bank assets. If its creation is ruled unconstitutional, this will call into question the entire clean-up of the banking sector during the Poroshenko years. + +The arrest of the former deputy CEO of PrivatBank in February 2021, as he tried to flee the country, suggests that the net may be tightening around Ihor Kolomoisky and his associates, particularly as the US authorities imposed sanctions against Kolomoisky for ‘significant corruption’ shortly after. However, there are also serious concerns about the independence of the national gas transmission operator MGU and the oil and gas company Ukrnafta. There are fears, too, that corporate governance reform could further regress, particularly given the summary dismissal of the CEO of Naftogaz, Andriy Kobolev, in April 2021. To enable his removal from office, the government temporarily suspended the company’s supervisory board, all members of which subsequently resigned in protest at this blatant manoeuvre. The decision by Ukrnafta’s supervisory board, in May 2020, to cancel the process for the independent selection of a new CEO was also discouraging. Signs that the big players in the pharmaceutical industry are positioning themselves to reverse changes in the procurement system in their favour are a disturbing reminder of the institutional weakness of parts of government and their susceptibility to manipulation by narrow interests. + +By contrast, the agriculture sector appears to offer an example where reform in an area that is particularly sensitive for the public, and which is supported by Ukraine’s international partners, can limit the lobbying capacity of large companies. In this case, too, the IMF made its $8 billion loan package conditional on land reform, among other requirements. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the largest FIGs, and their lobbying capacity, are not present in the sector. + +Meanwhile, the stranglehold of the largest FIGs on the media remains the critical factor that preserves the fusion of business and political interests. For example, Zelenskyy could not have launched himself as a presidential candidate without Kolomoisky’s 1+1 channel showing his ‘Servant of the People’ series. At the same time, he and the government depend on favourable media coverage to maintain their authority. + +Reform of the judicial system and the law enforcement agencies has suffered significant difficulties, partly because of internal resistance and institutional capacity but mainly because of the interest of systema in maintaining the status quo. + +`Reform of the judicial system and the law enforcement agencies has suffered significant difficulties.` + +Since 2014, Ukraine has shown that it has a very active and increasingly capable civil society, and that its population respects democratic values. The 2020 Ukraine in World Values Survey found that more citizens want a greater say in important government decisions today than was the case in 2011. At the same time, large shares of the population perceive state authorities (72.2 per cent) and civil service providers (67.1 per cent) as corrupt. This points to the resilience of systema. Critically, the electorate still has to confront the fundamental issue of why its leaders govern for the few, not the many. Civil society’s focus has been on addressing problems created by systema, and limiting its capacity in certain areas rather than on dismantling it. However, some parts of civil society are starting to consider the problem more broadly. Low standards of living, poor public services and stubbornly high levels of petty corruption are problems largely created by the overall model of governance and the incomplete state of reforms. Zelenskyy’s electoral success in 2019 and the election at that time of a large number of first-time MPs suggest that parts of society are genuinely seeking change. However, the lack of real political parties rooted in society and committed to deep reforms does not allow the translation of these aspirations into reality. + +Since the Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine has enjoyed unprecedented attention and assistance from its Western allies. The EU and other major donors as well as international financial institutions (particularly the IMF, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) helped to launch important structural reforms by using their political leverage to impose conditionality. The EU has deployed many of the tools it has used successfully in Central Europe to promote good governance and the rule of law, as part of an overall process of political association and ‘legal approximation’ enshrined in the Association Agreement signed with Ukraine in 2014. Weak state capacity explains in part the limited progress on implementing the agreement, but there appear to be other reasons too. Efforts to improve the quality of regulations and their implementation by strengthening the regulatory authorities have, in some cases, been undermined because systema’s major players do not see the benefits and have the capacity to resist change through their influence on lawmaking and government decision-making. For example, despite long-standing efforts supported by the EU and other donors to give it teeth, the Anti-Monopoly Committee (AMCU) still requires further reform to enforce competition rules, including stronger safeguards to ensure its independence. + +Zelenskyy appeared to side with systema in the spring of 2020 when he criticized the number of foreigners on supervisory boards of state companies, and in pushing for the resignation of the head of AMCU. Some observers have suggested that an alliance of forces associated with Kolomoisky and Medvedchuk as well as former prime minister Tymoshenko is working to reverse the progress made on corporate governance in state companies. Amos Hochstein, a US businessman, resigned from the supervisory board of Naftogaz in October 2020, alleging ‘sabotage’ of its good governance reforms by the government and ‘oligarchs’ seeking to enrich themselves. Shortly before this, the highly regarded Swedish economist and Eastern Europe expert Anders Åslund had similarly resigned from the supervisory board of the national railway company, claiming that the working conditions of supervisory board members had been made impossible, and that Zelenskyy and his ‘loud MPs’ do not believe in good corporate governance. + +By June 2021, however, after the Ukrainian authorities had introduced sanctions against Medvedchuk’s assets in February and placed him under house arrest on charges including treason, Zelenskyy felt sufficiently emboldened to table draft legislation to curb the influence of big business on politics and the economy. He threatened to hold a referendum on the issue if parliament failed to support the new law. + +The challenge of reining in systema goes much deeper than forcing the wealthiest businesspeople to declare their assets and disclose their contacts with officials as the draft law intends. Systema has left Ukraine with a serious lack of expertise in government that contributes to weak state capacity. The major FIGs attract and retain much of the best talent in the country, putting it to work to make governing institutions work for them. This imbalance is likely to take many years to correct. The EU’s considerable efforts to encourage public administration reform will inevitably take time to produce results because of the long-term nature of change programmes of this kind. + +Similarly, efforts by Western donors to promote rule of law and anti-corruption initiatives through measures such as strengthening of regulatory bodies, judicial reform and the creation of new investigative and prosecutorial agencies, as well as the requirement for unprecedented levels of transparency of assets held by officials, have so far produced only modest results. This is not surprising, since the experience of transition in Central European countries has shown that reforms in these areas are typically met with strong resistance and require considerable effort over many years. However, there have also been clear examples of success on the anti-corruption front, including the cleaning up of Naftogaz and reforms in administrative services, banking, the patrol police, procurement and taxation. Decentralization has also created new opportunities for citizens to hold local authorities accountable for managing public resources. + +Recognizing the importance of accountability for high-level corruption crimes in an effort to promote the rule of law, Ukraine’s international partners have placed heavy emphasis on establishing new anti-corruption bodies, including the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the High Anti-Corruption Court. NABU and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office have suffered from the absence of a properly functioning judicial system, and NABU has come under increasing political pressure from systema interests concerned about its investigations. Judicial reform conducted in parallel has encountered obstruction from within the judiciary itself. As a small ‘island’ surrounded by hostile systema interests, the anti-corruption infrastructure developed since 2014 is likely to face further efforts to limit its effectiveness. + +There is also a risk that some forces could try to use the anti-corruption infrastructure to conduct politically motivated investigations and prosecutions against rivals. It will be important for Ukraine’s international partners to monitor developments closely, and to step in if necessary to protect the independence of these institutions. The country has bitter experience of politicized justice from the Yanukovych years. Efforts by opponents to bring criminal charges against Poroshenko through the Prosecutor’s Office are an indication that this risk is real. Oversight by its international partners remains essential at this stage of the reforms when rule of law is weak and Ukraine has still to develop a set of reliable checks and balances for investigative and prosecutorial bodies to function without abuses. + +`A vicious circle is at work: the largest FIGs have a clear interest in ensuring that they can continue to enjoy access to rents and limit competition, since most of them do not have another business model.` + +Systema has also retained the capacity to fight against measures designed to improve the law enforcement agencies and free the courts from external interference, because the reforms conducted so far in other areas have not weakened it at its core. + +The reforms that have most heavily affected systema’s interests are those that have closed down major schemes for diverting public funds. In the case of the banking and gas sectors, there was a national security imperative to do so. The healthcare sector was different: a determined reform team at the Ministry of Health successfully faced down the pharmaceutical industry with the backing of Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman as well as Western governments and the international organizations that took over procurement of medicines and delivered huge savings. The owners of the pharmaceutical companies and distributors did not have the institutional strength at the time to cancel these measures. + +The operation of the electronic public procurement platform Prozorro, developed by civil society and reformers in government together with business, has helped to close down well-established corruption schemes that were prevalent in the Yanukovych era. Punitive measures are also a necessary means to deter corrupt practices and must accompany efforts to restrict the space for corruption, although they must not become a substitute for other efforts to reduce systema’s influence. + +A vicious circle is at work: the largest FIGs have a clear interest in ensuring that they can continue to enjoy access to rents and limit competition, since most of them do not have another business model. To do so, they have an incentive to remain politically connected and maintain control of the media to shape the political agenda and influence the execution of government policy. For their part, a large number of politicians and senior officials have an interest in continuing to benefit as the FIGs’ enablers. In turn, the layers of bureaucracy below them have a strong incentive to continue operating the machinery that keeps the system functioning because they receive income from the corruption that it spawns. Consequently, the instigators and enablers of rent seeking have an interest in limiting their accountability before the law. This clearly places a serious brake on judicial reform and the establishment of reliable courts. + +#### What can Ukraine’s international partners do? + +Other countries that have attempted fundamental governance reform can provide useful reference points for thinking about what may limit the power of systema in Ukraine. For example, South Korea’s successful experience of reducing the influence of its chaebols and Chile’s exceptional achievements in becoming one of the least corrupt countries in Latin America deserve attention. There is also much relevant experience closer to home: in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania. + +There is no universal model for achieving a transition from a ‘limited access order’ whereby rent seeking is the norm to a politically and economically competitive ‘open access order’ where the needs of society come first. Every country is different, and progress may sometimes be the by-product of other changes rather than the direct result of reform measures. Antitrust legislation can over time be part of a framework to create a competitive economic environment, but it cannot be a solution on its own to addressing the wider problem of systema, particularly when Ukraine lacks an independent judiciary and other institutions that could enforce new rules. A combination of deep structural reforms, preventive and repressive measures to restrict corruption, and civic activism to hold politicians, officials and business owners accountable are necessary to address the problem as a whole. + +As a general principle, reducing the influence of systema requires changing the calculus of the main players. Rent seeking needs to become more difficult, to carry greater risk and to be less profitable than wealth creation through the establishment of well-managed, transparent businesses that attract investment and generate employment. Economic growth will then create new players and diversify the asset-owning class. The reduced appeal of rent seeking will encourage greater political competition through the diversification of constituencies. Regulating further the use of media for electoral campaigning purposes and developing a properly resourced independent public broadcaster could be part of this process, along with further efforts to regulate and control campaign financing. + +Some systema interests may be strengthened, and others weakened, as the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic plays out. Some FIGs may find themselves rewarded by the government for their support, while others may lose ground because of the conditions of future IMF support. It is notable that during the ‘lockdown’ period from March to May 2020, large companies were able to continue working, while small and medium-sized business could not. FIGs and their affiliates benefited, as did their employees. + +Privatization of state companies, and improving the corporate governance of the remaining ones, offers considerable opportunities to reduce traditional rent seeking and force some of the FIGs to reconsider their business models. However, this presupposes that the process of privatization is competitive, and not prone to the type of insider dealing seen in the past. The possibility, under legislation adopted in March 2018, to apply English law to large-scale privatization sale and purchase agreements is an encouraging development in view of the failure so far to improve the delivery of justice in Ukrainian commercial courts. + +Judicial reform is a long-term process that requires sustained support from Ukraine’s international partners, but with their acceptance that the principles of the Council of Europe do not easily translate into local reality. The attempt to respect the principle of judicial independence by leaving the unreformed High Council of Justice in charge of the reform process has produced predictably meagre results. International support to civil society and investigative journalists should continue, since they play an important watchdog role in monitoring reforms – for example, by exposing the rigging of judicial appointments and drawing attention to disciplinary proceedings in the case of allegations of malfeasance. The international partners must distinguish between cosmetic and substantial reform of the judiciary. A reminder of the state of the judicial system is that Kolomoisky’s defence against claims by state-owned PrivatBank looks much weaker in foreign jurisdictions than it does in Ukraine. International partners also need to tie financial and other support to real judicial reform. Strict IMF and EU conditionality made it possible to create the new anti-corruption infrastructure, and should make it possible to conduct deep judicial reform. Ukraine is likely to need significant financial support over the next two years to service its foreign debt and cope with the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis and a shortage of foreign investment. + +`Ukraine’s international partners must distinguish between cosmetic and substantial reform of the judiciary.` + +The most powerful tool for challenging systema is the greater part of Ukrainian society that does not benefit from it nor from preserving the status quo. Sustained calls by the public to stop specific rent-seeking practices will put pressure on the FIGs and their enablers in government and parliament. An alliance of reformist politicians, business figures and civil society has the potential to play an important role in this process, but only if backed with appropriate support by Ukraine’s international partners. Dismantling systema and replacing it with robust, competent institutions will be a long-term process that is unlikely to be linear because of the political battles that will need to be fought along the way, and because of the need to co-opt the progressive-minded part of the elite that sees the need to look beyond maintaining the status quo. To drive this effort, civil society will need to broaden its capabilities and expand beyond the biggest cities, while the public must have better access to balanced reporting via independent media. + +Finally, Western countries must show much greater resolve to investigate suspected money laundering by the beneficiaries of rent seeking and corruption in Ukraine. There is abundant evidence of the latter’s ability to use banks in EU countries and in the UK to buy real estate, educate their children and protect their assets in rule-of-law jurisdictions. Some of these individuals bear heavy responsibility for Ukraine’s weak institutions and the national security problem that they have created. Continued failure to deter these practices will not only sustain systema. It will also increasingly lead to accusations of Western double standards and tarnish the EU’s image in Ukraine as a community of law-governed states that is genuinely committed to upholding democratic values and supporting reform in the country. + +--- + +__John Lough__ is an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He began his career as an analyst at the Soviet Studies (later Conflict Studies) Research Centre, focusing on Soviet/Russian security policy. He spent six years with NATO, and was the first Alliance representative to be based in Moscow (1995–98). He gained direct experience of the Russian oil and gas industry at TNK-BP as a manager in the company’s international affairs team (2003–08). From 2008 to 2016, he ran the Russia & CIS practice at BGR Gabara, a public affairs and strategy consulting company. Alongside his work with Chatham House, John is a consultant with Highgate, a strategic advisory firm. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-16-russian-volunteer-battalions.md b/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-16-russian-volunteer-battalions.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2eedde8a --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2022-07-16-russian-volunteer-battalions.md @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Russian Volunteer Battalions +author: Kateryna Stepanenko, et al. +date : 2022-07-16 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/53RuHp8.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_The Russian Federation has launched a large-scale drive to form volunteer battalions in the 85 “federal subjects” (or regions) that comprise the federation._ + + + +Recruiting for some volunteer battalions began in June but has intensified in July, with new volunteer units being reported daily. The battalions apparently will consist of roughly 400 men each aged between 18 and 60. They will belong to various branches of service including motorized rifle, tank, and naval infantry, but also signals and logistics. Recruits are not required to have prior military service and will undergo only 30 days of training before deployment to Ukraine. + +__This recruitment effort will likely be expensive if it comes close to meeting its targets.__ It appears that the Russian Ministry of Defense will pay the volunteers’ salaries while the “federal subjects” will pay their enlistment bonuses. Salaries generally start at roughly $3,000 per month per soldier or about $1.2 million per month per 400-man unit. Enlistment bonuses offered by at least some units appear to be roughly a month’s salary. If the effort generates 85 battalions each of 400 men it would bring an additional 34,000 volunteers into the fight at the cost of about $102 million per month in salary alone. Considering that the 30 days of training the volunteers will receive before entering combat will not produce combat-ready soldiers, that price is very high. The volunteers will receive veteran status and benefits if they serve in Ukraine, moreover, in addition to their salaries and bonuses, a commitment that will add to the Russian Federation budget for decades. + +__This drive will likely produce “soldiers” of lower quality than the normal conscripts in the Russian army at close to professional-soldier prices.__ It is a remarkable expedient that suggests that Russian President Vladimir Putin remains unwilling to compel his people to fight and unable to attract them to fight voluntarily without considerable incentives. + + +### Primorsky Krai + +__“Tigr” Battalion__ (Naval Infantry, part of 155th Separate Naval Infantry Brigade): Russian outlets reported that “Tigr” is recruiting volunteers with or without military experience ages 18 to 60, on July 9, but it is unclear when the recruitment drive begun in Primorsky Krai. The governor of Primorsky Krai reported that the battalion is enrolling only residents of the krai and has the highest number of registered volunteers of any federal subject in Russia. “Tigr“ will undergo a 30-day, two-stage training period with officers of the 155th Separate Naval Infantry Brigade at the Bamburovo and Gornostay Training Grounds and will replenish the naval infantry brigade. Social media videos show that some servicemen are already exercising at an unspecified training ground, but it is unclear if ”Tigr” has formally deployed for its 30-day training period. Distinguished servicemen in the unit will receive a 50,000-ruble bonus ($860) after two weeks of training, and all servicemen will receive a 150,000-ruble payment ($2,575) after completing the training. Funds will be drawn from the Primorsky Krai budget. “Tigr” servicemen will receive a monthly salary of 200,000 rubles ($3,430) and veteran status. Social media users noted that footage of the “Tigr” battalion shows that the recruits are older than traditional military age and are likely in their 50s to 60s. + + +### Kursk Oblast + +__“Seym” Battalion__ (logistics): The “Seym” Battalion is a volunteer logistical support battalion that began recruiting volunteers on July 11. The Kursk Oblast Administration announced that the battalion will focus on transporting fuel, food, ammunition, with servicemen up to 60 years of age receiving monthly salaries of 200,000 to 500,000 rubles ($3,430 to $8,580) depending on the time spent at the frontlines. + + +### Moscow City + +__“Sobyanskiy Polk” Regiment__: Moscow officials began recruitment for the newly-established “Sobyanskiy Polk” regiment on July 1 and are offering over 200,000 rubles per month (approximately $3,400) to volunteers drawn from the Moscow City budget. Russian opposition outlet Meduza noted that most of the volunteers came from regions other than Moscow City as of July 13. Meduza stated that former commander of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Militia Roman Vysotsky is one of the recruiters for “Sobyanskiy Polk,” but it is unclear if the regiment will merge with DNR forces. The “Sobyanskiy Polk” volunteers (up to 60 years of age) will undergo training at the Mulino Training Ground in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast before deploying to Ukraine. + + +### Republic of Tatarstan + +__“Alga” Battalion__: The Republic of Tatarstan created a joint Telegram channel to recruit for the “Alga” and “Timer” Battalions on June 23, but had likely already begun the recruitment drive as the unit reportedly had 300 registered volunteers on June 24. The official recruitment channel claimed that the republic had recruited over 500 volunteers for the “Alga” Battalion on July 1even though the original recruitment target had been 400. The Republic of Tatarstan dispatched the “Alga” volunteer battalion for a month-long training program in Orenburg Oblast on July 8. The battalion will then deploy to Nizhny Novgorod Oblast where they will receive their combat assignments before entering Ukraine. The Republic of Tatarstan will pay servicemen 3,000 rubles (approximately $53) per day in addition to a one-time 260,000 ruble payment (approximately $4,450) for enlisting drawn from the republic’s budget. Republic of Tatarstan also offered an additional 8,000 rubles (approximately $140) per day spent in combat, but it is unclear if the Republic or Russian Defense Ministry will sponsor the payment. The Russian Defense Ministry will reportedly pay servicemen a starting monthly salary of 150,000 rubles (approximately $2,600). + +__“Timer” Battalion__: The Republic of Tatarstan is forming the “Timer” Battalion as of July 1, and 300 to 350 men had already passed the selection process by that date. The battalion will reportedly have over 400 volunteers. + + +### Orenburg + +__“Yaik” Battalion__ (motorized rifle battalion): Orenburg City officials announced the establishment of the “Yaik” volunteer motorized rifle battalion on July 8. Any Orenburg Oblast men ages 18 to 50 can enlist, and a military commission will certify the health and clean criminal record of volunteers. Servicemen will receive a salary of 200,000 rubles ($3,430) for serving in Donbas. + + +### Nizhny Novgorod Oblast + +__“Kuzma Minin” Tank Battalion__: Nizhny Novgorod Oblast announced the formation of the “Kuzma Minin” Tank Battalion on July 1 via the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast Russian Union of Afghan Veterans. The battalion is recruiting men ages 20 to 50 for a six-month contract. Nizhny Novgorod Oblast offers 200,000 ruble ($3,430) one-time payment upon signing the contract and a 220,000 to 350,000 ruble monthly salary ($3,775 to $6,000). Nizhny Novgorod Oblast offers volunteers veteran status, unspecified military training, and a full social package for the serviceman and his family. + + +### Krasnoyarsk Krai + +__Unknown__ - Ukraine’s Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) obtained a document stating that Krasnoyarsk Krai allocated 120 million rubles (approximately two million dollars) to recruit 400 servicemen from the region. + + +### Republic of Chechnya + +__“Vostok Akhmat” Battalion__: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov announced on June 29 that Chechen officials successfully formed the “Vostok Akhmat” Battalion that will shortly move to a permanent base. Kadyrov also reported that the Chechen Republic is building new bases and military facilities for servicemen. + +__“Zapad Akhmat” Battalion__: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov announced on June 26 that Chechen forces formed a West-Akhmat battalion “in the shortest possible” time and claimed that the unit would deploy to a well-equipped base in Chechnya. The unit is subordinate to the Russian Southern Military District. Its commander is Islaim Aguev. + +__“Yug Akhmat” Battalion__: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov announced the formation of “Yug Akhmat” on June 26, but did not provide any additional details. + +__“Sever Akhmat” Battalion__: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov announced the formation of “Sever Akhmat” on June 26, but did not provide any additional details. + + +### Republic of Bashkortostan + +__“Shaimuratov” Battalion__: The Russian organization “Veterans of the Marine Corps and Special Forces of the Navy” announced the creation of the battalion at the end of May and noted that servicemen will receive a month of training in Orenburg Oblast before deploying to Ukraine. Some pro-Kremlin media outlets announced the deployment of a new volunteer battalion from the Republic of Bashkortostan to Donbas on July 6, while some sources claimed that the battalion arrived in Orenburg for training. The battalion had reportedly arrived in Alkino, Republic of Bashkortostan, on July 2. The Republic of Bashkortostan recruitment Telegram channel reported that the ”Shaimuratov” Battalion had registered 250 volunteers as of June 16 and is seeking to recruit a total of 800 volunteers split between two battalions. The Republic of Bashkortostan and the Russian Defense Ministry financially incentivized servicemen by offering 200,000 rubles ($3,430) for signing the military contract and 2,000 rubles ($34) for every day served, but it is unclear whether this payment refers to service in a combat zone. Volunteers will reportedly receive monthly salaries of 220,000 rubles ($3,775). + +__“Alexander Dostavalov” Battalion__: A local Ural region outlet reported that the “Alexander Dostavalov” Battalion is deploying to a place of unit coordination in Ilishevsky District, Republic of Bashkortostan, on July 14. The battalion began recruitment prior to June 25. + + +### Perm Oblast + +__“Parma” Battalion__: Perm Oblast officials announced a recruitment campaign for the “Parma” battalion on May 25. The recruitment campaign offered volunteers a 300,000-ruble monthly salary ($5,150), federal housing, higher education grants, and social benefits. + +__“Molot” Battalion__: Perm Oblast officials stated that they are continuing recruitment for the “Molot” Battalion as of July 7. + + +### Chelyabinsk Oblast + +__“Uzhnouralets” Battalion__: Governor of Chelyabinsk Oblast Alexei Teksler announced on July 13 that the region has been forming two battalions as part of the Central Military District: “Uzhnouralets” and “Uzhnyi Ural. The region held a departure ceremony for 82 servicemen of the battalion that deployed to the training ground in Nizhny Norgorod on July 15. First Deputy Regional Minister of Public Security Vladimir Gusak said that ”Uzhnouralets” has in total 263 volunteers, including the recently deployed servicemen. Local news reports said that the youngest serviceman is 21 and the oldest 54. + +__“Uzhnyi Ural” Battalion__: First Deputy Regional Minister of Public Security Vladimir Gusak said that “Uzhnyi Ural” had recruited 251 volunteers as of July 15. + + +### Republic of Chuvashia + +__“Atal” Battalion__ (Signals): Republic of Chuvashia Head Oleg Nikolaev said that the Republic is currently forming the “Atal” Battalion as of July 11. Nikolaev said that volunteers will receive a ”lump-sum cash payment” of 200,000 rubles ($3,775) when enlisting into the unit. + + +### Republic of North Ossetia–Alania + +__“Alania” Battalion__: The Alania Battalion is the first Russian volunteer battalion that ISW observed operating in Ukraine in 2022. Alan Valerievich Mamiev – a Russian combatant who fought in the Donetsk People’s Republic’s “Vostok” Battalion in Donbas in 2014 – announced the formation of the Alania Battalion in January 2016. The payment, benefits, and deployment terms promised to Alania Battalion fighters to fight in Ukraine in 2022 are unclear. The Alania Battalion deployed to Ukraine likely around late May or early June 2022 and participated in combat operations on the southern axis in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Head of the Republic of North Ossetia Sergei Menyailo visited the Alania Battalion and reportedly received a concussion near Hulaipole. A unspecified T-62 tank unit (likely a platoon-sized tank unit) reinforced the Alania Battalion on June 20. Combat imagery from early July documented the Alania Battalion’s loss of at least one of the tanks that reinforced the battalion. + +--- + +__Kateryna Stepanenko__ is a Russia Researcher on the Russia and Ukraine portfolio at the Institute for the Study of War. Natively from Kyiv, she focused her academic and professional career on investigating the implications of Russian hybrid and disinformation warfare on Ukraine and conflict resolution in Eurasia. Kateryna received a B.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs where she concentrated in Europe and Eurasian affairs.