What Does Giorgia Meloni’s Win Mean for Italy?

Italians have gone to the polls again, with a coalition of right-far right parties winning the most votes. This makes the leader of the largest party of the coalition, the Fratelli d’Italia (or Brothers of Italy), the likely next Prime Minister of Italy. That would be Giorgia Meloni, who in recent months has been labelled a neo-fascist. 

Visceral political reactions normally illicit eyerolls, but Meloni’s well-documented comments on immigration and belief in a coordinated racial replacement theory do little to dissuade the appellation. So too has her staunch insistence on including visual iconography of Italy’s fascist party under Mussolini as part of Fratelli d’Italia’s campaign logos–even when encouraged by many members of her party not to do so (including one of former Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s granddaughters).

Eye raising? Certainly. Concerning? Yes, but this is Italy…

Meloni will be tasked with forming Italy’s 70th or so government since WWII. Italian parliamentary politics are fractious and unforgiving, and Meloni has little real experience serving within a government. Her coalition members also include former prime minster Silvio Berlusconi, about as wily and effective (and corrupt) a politician as post-War Italy has ever seen. Time will tell if she can bring her own coalition, let alone the Italian parliament, to heel long enough to enact whatever social policies she might desire. 

Then there is the bigger issue of Italy’s dependence on the broader EU. A series of fractious and ineffective governments have left Italy less independent of EU management, and in recent years a series of cheap loans and financial help with Italy’s growing debt. Meloni will have to walk a fine line between political ambition and reality, lest EU displeasure leaves her joining the long list of former Italian prime ministers who failed to serve out the entirety of their first term.

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Something Fishy in the Baltic Sea…

Something’s damaged the Nord Stream supply lines that transit through the Baltic Sea. Inconvenient in the best of times, sure, but in the current geopolitical climate there are tons of theories and fingers being pointed all around. 

Was it the Americans, wanting to prevent the Europeans from crawling back to an abusive natural gas supplier? The Russians themselves (despite already electing to voluntarily halt gas supplies?) Tough love from Baltic Euro states? Ukrainian Saboteurs? A freak accident? 

Frankly, none of the these theories hold up. This is one of those moments where as much as we’d like some immediate clarity, we’re simply going to have to wait and see…

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Where In The World: Fernandez Lake and Cotton

Every agricultural, industrial and energy commodity has its own story as regards its geography of production, supply chains and use. I try to get to as many of them as possible in the new book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization. Change one thing about the global system and the way we source and use each product evolves. Rice is ridiculously vulnerable to changes in rainfall patterns. Work from home (or stop working from home) and oil markets lose their minds. 

But the commodity I’ve always personally found the most fascinating is the saga of cotton. There is far more to cotton than “merely” being the “fabric of our lives”.

Cotton was the original industrial commodity, putting it at the heart of everything from urbanization to mercantilism to the women’s rights movement. Everything about cotton sits at the intersection of human rights, trade wars, climate change, technology, and economic development patterns. Cotton’s story is nowhere near over. In fact, its near-term future will be among the most storied…stories of the deglobalization era.

NB: The following video is one I recorded while on my annual backpacking trip in August; please excuse any potential anachronisms. I did not mention India as a cotton producer because they’re bit of a separate case from the rest of the world’s main producers, despite their size. Monsoon rather than river or aquifer irrigation is the norm, and they have a host of production challenges (and low production yields) and processing limitations that set them apart not just from China, but smaller countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh and Turkey as well.

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Alberta’s Energy Future

A decade ago, Alberta’s oil sands were the home of the most expensive to produce crude oil on the planet. Not only that, but Canada’s mix of intra-provincial competition and weak federal control left the landlocked province with few options to send its oil outside of the US–a country experiencing a rising boom of natural gas and light, sweet shale crude oil. 

The outlook for the oil sands was…not good.

Now? Alberta’s oil producers have gotten leaner, and while not meaner (they’re still Canadians, after all) they have slowly-but-steadily become more efficient and cost effective in terms of production. While certain challenges remain (Alberta cannot change its landlocked geography), Canada’s largest oil producing province has suddenly found itself cost competitive with Russian oil, and the world’s energy markets are on the cusp of upheaval. 

Suddenly the future of Canada’s oil sands doesn’t seem so bleak after all.

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Russia Calls Up More Troops

Russian president Vladimir Putin has called up some 300,000 Russian troops in a “partial mobilization” to assist Russian forces in Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have had some recent successes on the battlefield against Russian troops in the roughly 7-month-old conflict. Putin’s move reflects a classic Russian tactic (throwing more bodies at a problem), but is as likely a move to refresh troops on the ground as it is in reaction to recent losses. 

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Europe Reconsiders Russian Tourism

European nations are debating a potential Russian tourist ban, with the general theme being “you shouldn’t be able to visit our beaches and luxury shops while simultaneously supporting a regime declaring war against Ukraine (and potentially the West).”

Europe being Europe, there are a range of attitudes expressed. The Scandinavians, Polish and Baltic states on the frontline with Russia are the most vociferously opposed to allowing any Russian tourism into their respective countries and the EU. France and Germany have been more circumspect.

Given the number of Russian elite who vacation, send their children to live in, and shop in European cities, there are those that argue that such a ban will help further cleave Vladimir Putin from the small but crucial cadre atop Russia society.

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The Matter of Nukes and Ukraine

“What about Russian nukes?”

It’s a question I hear in some form or another almost daily while I’m traveling to speak and meet with clients, or in response to my newsletters. My attitude most days is “well, what about them?”

Let’s consider Russia’s strategic aims in Ukraine. Ukraine, as a buffer state, only continues to perform as such if it’s under Russian control. If not, well… your enemies, perceived or in reality, can flood the space with arms and combatants and use it as a launching pad to strike at the heart of the Russian state. More important, Russia needs to regain control of Ukraine so that if (read: when) it’s deemed necessary, Russian forces can move into places like Poland and Romania and occupy the critical geographies used to move troops and materiel overland to invade Russia.

So called “tactical,” or small-scale nuclear weapons aren’t great for holding territory. Nuked territory isn’t great for stationing troops. And long-range ICBMs lobbed at the US or London or Paris are even worse for holding territory, or keeping Russian Presidents and a socio-politico-economic mafia elite alive. This is especially true if we consider the state of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. There are some arguments that even if Russian troops and armored transports and planes and tanks and fuel trucks and MREs and intelligence and cyber and logistical capabilities are at levels far below what the world was expecting, they’re still keeping the crown jewels of Russian defense–the nuclear arsenal–is top operating condition.

I’m less than convinced. The only thing more foolhardy and full of risk than a cornered, losing Russian president trying to fire nukes willy-nilly? The same-such president pushing the red button and having the world witness a failure to launch.

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China: Balancing a Floundering Russia and Angry Americans

Things aren’t looking great for Beijing. 

Weeks of military posturing and a range of indirect-to-direct military threats against Taiwan following United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei were meant to remind the world who’s boss. It would seem…not China. 

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced yesterday (the video below was recorded yesterday, so please forgive any anachronous turns of phrases) that the US government would be halting sales of airframes and related technology to Beijing for the foreseeable future, as a direct response to Chinese agitation. While the Chinese have responded with some economic measures of their own, it is worth noting that there is precious little in the way of meaningful replacements for what they were seeking to buy from Boeing. This follows previous US de facto bans on high-end silicon chip technology (including manufacturing tech and equipment) making their way to China. (Two points to mention during upcoming holidays if there’s a lull in conversation: for all the folks in your life who are committed to a view that China is poised to take over the world–they are utterly dependent on the US for a whole host of critical technologies and inputs into their supply chains, not to mention the facilitation of their global trade networks. And that the Biden administration has struggled to put as much effort into anything as it has into making Donald Trump’s dream of using US trade policy to cudgel China into reality, tweets and all.)

Expect the Europeans to follow the Americans’ lead. 

It’s not entirely doom and gloom for the Chinese, though. At a summit earlier this week Russian president Vladimir Putin signaled he was ready to cave to a number of long-standing Chinese demands as the Ukraine war continues to go oh so very badly for Moscow. With little end in sight for European and American sanctions against the Russian economy, China is in the catbird seat with regard to Russia. We’ll see how long they’ll be able to use that to their advantage, however, and their broader strategic position continues to look grim…

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Germany and Russia Start Dancing…Again

Americans woke up to news today that Germany has nationalized assets–primarily refineries–owned by Russian oil giant Rosneft. Assets worth billions of dollars.

Though this is not surprising or unexpected, it’s something we should take seriously. Germany and Russia have a famously difficult relationship going back centuries, and when the going gets rough their disputes get ugly (ask just about anyone in Poland or Ukraine). The more armed conflicts between Russia and Germany, the greater the incentive for them to avoid conflicts all together. 

The default approach since the end of the Cold War was to entwine their two economies to such an extent that it would not make sense for either of them to destabilize or threaten the other. We’re seeing now how much Russian leadership values economic stability over its perception of national security. Unlike previous bouts of Russo-European conflict, however, the current demographic situation on both sides of the conflict is atrocious. Whatever the final result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, what we should not expect is an easy or quick return to economic stability, let alone growth, for either side.

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The Collapse of Empires

The success of Ukrainian forces against Russian troops over the last week is forcing a series of reevaluations of Russian capabilities–especially in the places most of us might not yet be thinking about. There’s been a lot of focus on whether or not Russian threats have teeth. But what of Russian promises of support? 

For a certain swathe of the world, particularly those countries hostile or indifferent to the US-led Order, Russia was about as good or proximate a neighbor as they could hope for. With Russian capabilities under serious scrutiny, countries from Armenia to Belarus to Syria to Mongolia and Moldova are going to see their strategic environments change rapidly. 

There is an elephant in the room in many of these scenarios… and that’s Turkey. Whatever their current economic headaches, the Turkish state under Erdogan has maintained a constant march toward realizing a populist, Islamist-tinged, pan-Turkic nationalism that has played out in several ways. One of the most recent has been Turkey’s arming and not-so-tacit support of Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia. Even with Turkey’s erstwhile EU aspirations and current NATO membership, Ankara has been equally at ease in pursuing its own priorities during the bloc’s conflict with the Russians over Ukraine.

But perhaps nowhere will see the full unfurling of Turkish geopolitical ambition in the wake of Russian strategic senescence more than Syria. The Alawite regime in Damascus relies (relied?) heavily on its Russian and Iranian backers, and with Moscow out of the way Ankara faces little opposition. Squashing Kurdish ambitions, redrawing borders, setting up a puppet state, coordinating with Israel to counter Iran–all are on the table for a would be neo-Ottoman Turkey without strong pushback from Russia and Iran.

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