Trump coup attempt highlights official promotion of far-right in Australia

Oscar Grenfell

The fascistic coup attempt in the US on January 6, orchestrated by President Donald Trump and aimed at overturning the result of last November’s presidential election, has highlighted the cultivation of extreme right-wing forces by sections of the ruling elite internationally.

This development is directed against mounting social and political opposition from the working class, aimed at shifting official politics even further to the right and bound up with a turn to authoritarian forms of rule. It has been on display, in the response to the storming of the US Capitol, by elements of the Australian political and media establishment.

Liberal-National Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his deputy Michael McCormack have repeatedly refused to condemn Trump’s incitement of the coup attempt. Senior government ministers have said nothing about the fascistic attempt to overturn an election result. Instead, they have spoken out against the shutdown of Trump’s Twitter account, presenting it as a grave assault on democratic rights.

This stance is an unmistakable appeal to an extreme right-wing milieu that has been increasingly integrated into official politics over the past decade.

This is demonstrated by the positions of government backbenchers Craig Kelly and George Christensen. For months, both have repeated Trump’s false claims about a stolen election, bolstering the lies used to justify the coup attempt. Since January 6, neither has disavowed Trump. Rather, without censure or condemnation from Morrison, they have promoted the absurd conspiracy theory that the assault on the Capitol was carried out by “Marxists” and anti-fascist activists in disguise.

Christensen, a National Party representative from northern Queensland, has longstanding ties to extreme right-wing organisations. He once appeared on the “Convict Report,” a podcast hosted by Clifford Jennings, a young Liberal later exposed as a fascist. In 2017, Christensen posed for a photograph with Kane Miller, then leader of the “True Blue Crew,” a racist street gang that has attacked left-wing activists and immigrants, at a function hosted by the anti-Muslim “Q Society.”

Kelly has spent much of the past year promoting misinformation on the COVID-19 pandemic. Orienting to a right-wing anti-lockdown movement, he has described mandatory mask-wearing for children as abuse and has falsely claimed that various existing medicines, including antiseptics, can treat the coronavirus.

Christensen and Kelly are frequently presented in the media as eccentric individuals, whose right-wing positions have no broader significance. That they are appealing to a definite constituency, however, is demonstrated by the promotion of Trump by other political and media figures.

Alan Jones, a prominent right-wing radio broadcaster, approvingly declared in November, after Trump’s election defeat, that it would be a “brave person to bet against Donald Trump.” Jones backed Trump’s attempt to overturn the result, declaring without substantiation that the election had been a “manual in the art of voter fraud.”

Miranda Devine, a right-wing commentator for Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, bemoaned the attack on the Capitol. But she nevertheless presented those who participated in the coup as victims, and contrasted them favourably with millions who participated in anti-police violence protests last year.

Those who besieged the Capitol, Devine wrote, “didn’t throw bricks at police or burn police buildings to the ground or beat innocent passers-by senseless. But they will have the book thrown at them, because it’s not the crime you commit that matters any more, it’s who you are.”

For their part, representatives of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, a right-wing outfit with representatives in state and federal parliaments, have all but endorsed the coup attempt.

Mark Latham, One Nation’s leader in the state of New South Wales, tweeted on January 9: “Amusing to read media elites, none of whom saw Trump coming, on what it means now. These conceited spoilt children of the Left are blind to how their own arrogance and manic need to control other people embeds the Resistance to them. Among outsiders, stronger day-by-day.”

Latham was leader of the federal Labor Party from 2003 to 2005. He has since shifted seamlessly from Labor’s nationalist and anti-immigrant positions to open support for the extreme-right, centred on feverish denunciations of “the left.”

This broader right-wing milieu has spawned explicitly fascist and neo-Nazi organisations. The National Socialist Network (NSN), for instance, states that its goal is a “white revolution.” On social media, the NSN hailed the “brave white men in Washington D.C.,” who stormed the Capitol, declaring they had “lit a flame that will never go out” and “broken the enemy’s spell forever.”

To the extent that the NSN has been mentioned by the corporate press, it has largely been presented as a fringe aberration. Yet it arose directly out of the stepped-up promotion of extreme right-wing forces by the political and media establishment.

In 2015, a small group of right-wing activists began holding protests under the banner of “Reclaim Australia.” Despite being attended only by a few dozen, or at most a few hundred people, these events were given inordinate media coverage.

George Christensen speaking at a 2015 Reclaim Australia rally (Credit: ABC)

Christensen and other Liberal-National politicians addressed some of the gatherings. These events were based on anti-Islam xenophobia, which has been peddled by successive Labor and Liberal-National governments since 2001, under the rubric of the fraudulent “war on terror.”

Other strands of Reclaim Australia’s fascistic perspective were also taken directly from the official parties. These included support for a racist campaign targeting supposed “African gangs” in Melbourne, spearheaded by Liberal-National and Labor politicians, along with the press, and the glorification of Australian militarism, amid a massive official “celebration” of the centenary of World War I.

The United Patriots Front (UPF), a prominent organisation in Reclaim Australia, and its leaders Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell, have been given media interviews by the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other outlets. The two men, who have both expressed admiration for Hitler, were widely presented in the press as giving expression to “community concerns” over Muslim immigrants and “African gangs.” Sewell has since come out openly as a Nazi, establishing the NSN.

Reclaim Australia and its offshoots developed ties with right-wing populist outfits, such as Hanson’s One Nation Party and the Katter Australia Party. The UPF hailed Fraser Anning, who represented both those parties in federal parliament, before declaring himself an independent. In his maiden parliamentary speech, Anning called for a “final solution” to the “immigration problem”—a direct reference to the Nazi holocaust.

The far-right groups also cultivated ties within the Liberal and National parties. In 2019, it was revealed that a group of fascists had successfully “infiltrated” the New South Wales state executive of the Young Nationals. They included Clifford Jennings, who had previously interviewed Christensen, and had been nominated to executive positions by a senior Nationals’ staffer. When the group, which included avowed Nazis, was uncovered, former National leader Barnaby Joyce initially decried their exposure as a “McCarthyist witch-hunt,” before retracting the comment.

The growing political weight of far-right elements in the Liberal-National party was a factor in Scott Morrison’s installation as prime minister in a party-room coup in August, 2018. Morrison immediately sought to identify himself with Trump, and has tolerated without criticism the activities of Christensen and other backbenchers seeking to transform the Liberal-National Coalition into an alt-right style movement.

The dangers of the official promotion of the far-right were underscored by the 2019 fascist terrorist attack by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people and maimed 40 at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Tarrant was born and raised in Australia. He had communicated online with Sewell and other representatives of the UPF, who sought to recruit him prior to the Christchurch attack.

This connection was confirmed in an official New Zealand report into the massacre, released this month. The political and media establishment, however, has maintained a deafening silence over Tarrant’s Australian links and their political implications, as have the Australian intelligence agencies.

Blair Cottrell speaking at a UPF rally (Credit: ABC, Jo Lauder)

The threat of right-wing violence was further underscored by the conviction late last year of Philip Galea, a former prominent figure in Reclaim Australia, on terrorism charges. Evidence showed that Galea had plotted to bomb the offices of left-wing organisations in Melbourne, as well as the city’s Trades Hall.

The extreme right-wing organisations have very limited support. They are only able to make an appeal as a result of the widespread political discontent with all the official parties. Labor and the trade unions bear the central responsibility. Their smashing up of the workers’ movement that existed up until the 1980s, and enforcement of a decades-long assault on jobs, wages and conditions has created a social crisis and a toxic political environment, upon which the fascists prey.

The record in the US and Australia, moreover, demonstrates that the traction of the extreme-right is the product of their promotion by the official parties and the establishment media, which are seeking to divert social anger in a reactionary direction, bolster moves toward authoritarian rule and cultivate a base that can be mobilised against the emerging struggles of the working class.

What workers need to know about the Fiat Chrysler-PSA merger

Marcus Day

On Saturday, the merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group, the France-based maker of Peugeot, Opel and other major European vehicle brands, went into effect, establishing the new global automotive giant Stellantis.

The €43 billion ($53 billion) merger, first announced in 2019, will have far-reaching consequences throughout the auto industry and heralds an intensified assault on workers’ jobs internationally.

Stellantis becomes the fourth-largest automaker by sales volume, overtaking General Motors and Ford and trailing only Volkswagen, Toyota and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance. By operating profits, it is ranked third. Stellantis employs some 410,000, with operations in dozens of countries on virtually every continent.

Mike Manley, then-CEO of FCA, and Carlos Tavares, then-chairman of the board of Group PSA, signing the combination agreement in December 2019 (Credit: Stellantis)

Former PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares will take the helm as Stellantis’ chief executive. Tavares has earned a reputation as a ruthless cost cutter and “turnaround” specialist, slashing jobs first at PSA brands such as Peugeot, then at Opel and Vauxhall, which the group purchased from GM in 2017.

John Elkann, heir to the billionaire Agnelli dynasty that founded Fiat, will serve as chairman, and former Fiat Chrysler (FCA) CEO Mike Manley will lead the firm’s North American operations.

The formation of Stellantis marks new milestones in both the global integration of production and the protracted decline of America’s industrial dominance, with major geopolitical implications.

The finance ministers of France and Italy, Bruno Le Maire and Stefano Patuanelli, released a joint statement to welcome the merger, writing that it would create a “new European champion” and “strengthen Europe’s industrial leadership.” The three largest owners of Stellantis will be Exor, the holding company of Italy’s Agnelli family (14.4 percent); France’s Peugeot family (7.2 percent); and the French state (6.2 percent).

Both Ford and GM, for their parts, have been compelled to retreat and downsize their global footprints in recent years, shedding thousands of jobs at their overseas operations. Ford announced just this month that it would pull the plug on its Brazilian plants, and there is speculation that it could be on the verge of leaving India. GM announced last year that it was exiting Australia, New Zealand and Thailand, and had threatened to leave South Korea in the midst of its efforts to force concessions on workers there.

The merger of FCA and PSA has been driven by the ferocious struggle among the auto giants to dominate both new technologies, including electric and autonomous vehicles, and markets. The tie-up will itself push other companies to seek out further consolidation and cost savings. The major banks and investors have exerted relentless pressure on automakers in recent years to accelerate cuts and restructuring plans, with the aim of squeezing out every drop of profits possible from the working class.

FCA had previously announced a merger with France’s Renault in 2019 at the same time as it was exploring its deal with PSA, but the plan subsequently collapsed. Earlier, FCA had made overtures to General Motors under then-CEO Sergio Marchionne. According to a lawsuit filed by GM last year, FCA funneled tens of millions of dollars to United Auto Workers executives with the aim of winning their support in forcing a merger between the two companies.

Stellantis executives are touting projected annual savings of €5 billion ($6.1 billion), promising that these will be achieved without factory closures, but instead through economies of scale in purchasing and consolidation of operations in sales, marketing, engineering, and research and development.

Promises to spare factories and jobs are worthless, however, as decades of shuttered plants and mass layoffs have shown. Industry analysts are already pointing to Stellantis’ excess production capacity, particularly at its Italian plants, and the large number of brands (14), several of which perform poorly, in the new firm’s portfolio.

“For any company, it doesn’t matter if you are the new Stellantis or FCA or PSA, you have to look at those plants that are underutilized to see if you can put new product here, cancel the product, or entirely close the plant,” Katelyn Drake, an analyst with LMC Automotive Ltd., told the Detroit News. FCA’s plants in Europe were recently running at only 55 percent capacity, compared to PSA’s at 68 percent, according to LMC.

“You can’t be cost-efficient if you keep the entire scale of both companies,” Karl Brauer, another auto industry analyst, told the Associated Press. “We’ve seen this show before, and we’re going to see it again where they economize these platforms across continents, across multiple markets.”

Even if plant closings do not come immediately, thousands of white-collar workers could be soon facing the axe. Stellantis inherits engineering centers in Paris; Rodelsheim, Germany; Turin, Italy; and Auburn Hills, Michigan, in the US.

A number of industry analysts have also pointed to the group’s weak position in China, now the world’s largest market for automobiles, and the possibility for a reconfiguration of the companies’ current partnerships in that country. According to Chinese media reports, Stellantis is already in talks with the country’s GAC (Chery Automobile and Guangzhou Automobile Group) about creating a new joint venture, although the company has denied this. PSA’s then-CFO said in November that he expects the company’s operations in China to be streamlined.

The catastrophic impact of COVID-19 in the Americas and Europe and the resulting economic crisis has only intensified the scramble to dominate China’s giant auto market. Even there, however, car sales had begun to stall beginning in 2017. Global sales dropped from 94 million units in 2017 to 90 million in 2019, then plummeting 15 percent in 2020, to 76.5 million, according to IHS Markit.

While autoworkers across the world have been forced to labor in filthy and dangerous conditions and have been told there is not enough money to temporarily shut factories and pay them while the COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control, executives at Stellantis will be looking forward to a monumental payday.

Former FCA CEO Mike Manley could receive up to $62.7 million (€51.4 million) in a cash retention award, according to calculations by Automotive News Europe. The payout for former FCA Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer could total $20.3 million (€16.6 million), and other former FCA executives could see their own multimillion bonuses.

The windfall for John Elkann (estimated net worth of $1 billion) and other members of the Agnelli and Peugeot families who own substantial portions of Stellantis’ stock will no doubt be even greater, with the company’s shares rising 6.94 percent on Paris’ exchange and 7.57 percent on Milan’s in the first day of its trading Monday.

The corporatist trade unions in Italy, France, and the US have largely given their blessing to the consolidation, predictably toeing the line of company management, while occasionally mouthing hollow concerns about the potential threat to jobs. At a PSA works council meeting in 2019, all trade union officials voted in favor of the merger, with a representative of the CFTC union saying, “[T]he project in the form it’s been presented makes sense because the two groups complement each other, are in good financial health, and thanks to the new format will attain a critical size which is vital in the auto business today.”

The UAW, for its part, has remained largely silent on the merger, issuing a perfunctory statement endorsing it in December 2019. UAW-FCA Vice President Cindy Estrada—whose charity was previously under investigation by federal officials as part of the years-long corruption case—simply regurgitated management’s talking points about maintaining jobs in the US when asked about the merger by the Detroit News recently, saying, “At this time FCA North America management has consistently communicated that we will see no change to our UAW-represented facilities or impact to our membership due to the merger with PSA.”

For decades, the UAW has worked hand in hand with their management “partners,” facilitating the nonstop assault on jobs, wages and working conditions. For their efforts in suppressing opposition, isolating workers’ struggles and enforcing pro-company contracts, union officials were rewarded with millions in bribes, as the federal corruption investigation revealed, along with countless other “legal” payoffs and privileges.

Throughout, the UAW, like its counterparts in other countries, has incessantly promoted nationalism and the lie that workers in the US share the same interests as their corporate exploiters. Such nationalist programs have long since proven not only their bankruptcy, but also their reactionary character.

The merger of FCA and PSA and the creation of the transnational giant Stellantis is the latest demonstration of the global economy becoming ever more integrated, tying workers together in a vast, interconnected system across national boundaries. While the globalization of production under capitalism is coupled with endless assaults on workers’ conditions, it produces at the same time the objective grounds for the growth of global opposition and the unification of workers’ struggles across national borders.

To wage a successful fight against the transnational corporations, workers need new organizations of struggle, independent of the nationalist unions, and an internationalist strategy to unify their struggles, uniting every nationality, ethnicity and race. The already far-advanced globalization of the auto industry poses the necessity of it being placed under workers’ democratic control, to be run to meet the needs of society, not the profit interests of the financial aristocracy. Such an outcome can only be achieved as part of the fight for socialism and the construction of a revolutionary leadership in the working class.

Navalny arrested in Russia as Biden nominates Victoria Nuland for top State Department position

Clara Weiss

On Sunday, the US- and European Union (EU)-backed opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, was arrested at a Moscow airport upon his return from Berlin. On Monday, it was announced that he would have to serve a 30-day jail sentence.

Navalny had spent the previous five months in Germany, where he was flown after he had fallen ill on a plane. The flight had been arranged with the direct involvement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Western media, with the German press taking the lead, launched a massive propaganda campaign, claiming that Navalny had been poisoned with Novichok, a deadly nerve agent. The poisoning of Navalny with Novichok was, however, never proven, and the charge was based primarily on the claims of a laboratory affiliated with the German army (Bundeswehr).

Alexei Navalny

Indeed, the media narrative of Navalny’s poisoning includes so many contradictions and bizarre episodes—from Novichok traces that were found first on a water bottle and then turned out to have been planted on Navalny’s underpants, to the discovery of an elite team of assassins from the Russian secret service FSB through “creative googling”—that it stands out, above all, for its brazen disregard for basic common sense. In the latest installment of the story, Navalny was shown as he was presumably calling one of the FSB agents who was allegedly involved in this plot and immediately admitted everything over the phone.

Like most episodes in this absurd story, it has since largely disappeared from the media coverage, which just speaks of Navalny’s “Novichok poisoning” as an established fact.

Navalny’s return, which was sure to prompt his arrest, was no doubt a calculated move. After Navalny had announced last week that he would return, Russian authorities promptly declared that he would be arrested as soon as he landed, based on charges of embezzlement dating from 2014. He could now face up to three and a half years in prison. A large team of journalists accompanied Navalny on his flight to cover the story. Navalny has since called on his supporters to take to the streets and protest his arrest.

The New York Times editorial board issued a statement Sunday night praising the “extraordinary courage of Alexey Navalny,” declaring that he was now an “international hero” and “celebrated political prisoner.” The US has since also announced that it will impose further sanctions on the Russian–German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, a move that enjoys bipartisan support.

The timing of Navalny’s return to Russia and his arrest must be seen within the context of growing geopolitical tensions and above all the staggering political crisis in the United States. It comes just days before the inauguration of Joseph Biden on January 20, which has been accompanied by an unprecedented military lockdown of the American capital in anticipation of armed protests. On January 6, a fascist crowd, instigated by the sitting president Donald Trump and backed by powerful sections within the American state and military, stormed the Capitol in an attempt to kill and kidnap members of Congress to bring about the nullification of the election.

The Democratic Party has responded to these developments by trying to cover up the extent of the coup, appealing to Republicans for “unity,” and by stepping up the anti-Russia campaign and preparations for military interventions abroad.

President-elect Joseph Biden has since nominated several figures to key positions in the American foreign policy and national security apparatus who are associated with an aggressive stance toward Russia. Last week, Biden nominated William Burns, a former ambassador to Russia, to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Burns was heavily involved in, among other things, the war on Libya and the US intervention in Syria, both of which were aimed, to a large extent, at undermining Russian influence in the Middle East and North Africa.

In an even more provocative move, Biden has nominated Victoria Nuland to become Under Secretary for Political Affairs, which would make her the third-ranking US diplomat. More than any other figure in the US foreign policy establishment, Nuland’s name is associated with the brazen gangsterism of the 2014 coup in Ukraine, in which the US and Germany funded and backed fascist forces to overthrow the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovich and install a pro-Western regime.

Nuland admitted in 2013 that the US had “invested over $5 billion” in the Ukrainian opposition. In 2014, a recorded phone call with the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was leaked, in which she stated “F** the EU” and casually discussed the US strategy of working with neo-fascist forces like the Svoboda party. In 2019, Nuland was barred from entering Russia.

The promotion of Alexei Navalny is of a piece with this type of criminal intervention by US imperialism in the former Soviet Union over the past three decades. This policy has led to an ever-growing social and political disaster for the working class.

The media narrative about Navalny as a popular figure, “democratic” politician and even “international hero” (New York Times) is utterly false. Groomed by US imperialism for well over a decade now, Navalny has never managed to garner any significant support beyond the narrow layers of Russia’s upper middle class and has consistently performed poorly in popularity rankings.

A product of the Stalinist destruction of the Soviet Union and capitalist restoration, Navalny speaks for a faction of the Russian oligarchy that finds itself in a bitter conflict with the Putin regime over the control of material resources and the country’s foreign policy. Throughout his political career in the US-backed “liberal” opposition, he has stood out primarily for his insistence on the need to collaborate with the far-right in opposing the Putin regime. He has admitted to being a Russian nationalist, participated in several “Russian Marches” by the Russian neo-fascists and has denounced people from the Caucasus as “cockroaches.”

Navalny’s protest against Trump’s Twitter ban as an “unacceptable act of censorship” last week was not only in line with the position of the German government, but no doubt also expressed real political sympathies with the fascist rantings of the US president. The open support of the Democratic Party and the New York Times for such extreme right-wing forces in Russia is a clear warning to all workers, especially in the United States, as to where the Democrats’ political and class allegiance lies in the fight against fascism.

Driven by growing class tensions and torn by political crises, the US is now doubling down on its efforts to destabilize the Putin regime, well aware that the global crisis of capitalism has dramatically exacerbated the economic crisis in Russia and conflicts within its ruling class. The Putin regime, for its part, has no response to the growing pressure from imperialism except from austerity and the promotion of nationalism and militarism at home, and pathetic maneuvers between the very imperialist powers that are openly preparing for war.

The objective logic of this dynamic, absent an independent intervention of the working class, is pointing inexorably toward war between nuclear-armed powers. The response to the breakdown of world capitalism, the growing danger of war, and the growth of the far right must be a united movement by workers, including in Russia, Europe and the United States, to overthrow this outmoded social system.

Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh Remains Fragile, With Key Issues Unresolved

Hannah McCarthy

As Armenia ends its annual two-week holiday period, the mood in the country is sombre. The former Soviet state is continuing to reckon with its losses from the six-week war it waged last year with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region, or Artsakh to Armenians, lies within Azerbaijan’s international border. However, up until last year, when Azerbaijan took control of most of the region by force, Nagorno-Karabakh had been ruled by an ethnic Armenian government.

Last year’s fighting was the most recent outbreak of violence in a conflict that has simmered for decades between Armenia and neighbouring Azerbaijan. The six weeks of fighting between the two countries largely ended in November 2020 with a peace deal brokered by Moscow that resulted in 2,000 Russian troops being deployed to the region as peacekeepers.

Azerbaijan, equipped with sophisticated arms and drones from Turkey, succeeded in taking control of the majority of Nagorno-Karabakh. In total, almost 6,000 people died in the conflict, with thousands of ethnic Armenians displaced from their homes.

The Aftermath

On the road from the Armenian border to Stepanakert, the de facto capital of Karabakh, signs of the war that had been waged only two months before remain. There are bombed-out cars, a bridge with a crater where a bomb fell and several road checks manned by young Russian troops quizzing drivers on their plans.

As you drive into Stepanakert a sign for the historic town of Shusha has been conspicuously installed on a hill on the Azeri side of the border. The letters of Shusha are displayed in the bright blue, green and red of Azerbaijan’s national flag. The sign seems designed to taunt the Armenians who previously controlled the town before it was seized by Azerbaijan during the fighting.

The military cemetery on the outskirts of the city has a new section for the mostly young soldiers who died in the conflict. The youngest who died in the fighting were eighteen, with 2002-2020 engraved on their tombstones.

By the main government building in Stepanakert is a mural for of the Armenian soldiers who are still being held by Azerbaijan as prisoners of war. On top of faces of the soldiers, the mural says: “Russia help us bring back our soldiers”.

The city’s hospital, police station and food market, as well as many homes, were damaged in airstrikes from Azerbaijan.

Sarskin Samrel (60) recounts how on the 6th October at 10 pm, his house on Martuni Street, one of the oldest streets in Stepanakert, was destroyed by heavy shelling from Azeri forces.

The house had been built in 1889 by Sarskin’s great grandfather. Nine generations had lived in the house and a new extension had just been built for Sarskin’s son before the war broke out in September.

When I spoke with the family, they were clearing out what remained of the contents of their home. The badly damaged house is to be demolished and a new one erected in its place.

On the other side of Stepanakert, Yura Verdyan (63) was cutting plywood to cover up the broken windows in the apartment building his family lives in. This is Yura’s second time repairing the building which was also badly damaged during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Russia’s diplomatic coup

Among locals, there are varying views of Russia and its involvement in the region.

Some are happy and speak of Armenia as “Russia’s little brother”; they have even suggested that Nagorno-Karabakh might become part of Russia in the future. Others are indifferent: whether the peacekeepers came from Russia, Europe or America, it didn’t matter, so long as the fighting stopped.

Sevana (30), a musician who ran workshops for children during the fighting, fears that Nagorno-Karabakh will lose its Armenian heritage and become a colony of Russia, if the Russian troops remain long term.

Samrel, whose house was destroyed by Azeri shelling is pragmatic: “it’s neither good nor bad that Russia is here, but Russia is here for Russia, not for us.”

Russian success

And Russia is widely seen as a winner in the conflict. The former Soviet power has established a military presence in Azerbaijan, increased its control of the Southern Caucasus and prevented Turkey, who backed Azerbaijan in the conflict, from gaining a foothold in the area.

Edmon Marukian, the leader of the Bright Armenian opposition party in Armenia’s parliament, has even suggested that Russia should establish a second military base in Armenia. Such a move would represent a shift in foreign policy for Armenia, which had been seen as more closely aligned with the West than Russia in recent years.

Last Monday in Moscow, President Putin continued in his new role as peacemaker by hosting peace talks between Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.

The talks were frosty and highlighted the many unresolved issues that remain between the two former Soviet states including the return of refugees and prisoners of war, humanitarian issues, the preservation of cultural sites, and the final border of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Anna Ohanyan, a scholar at the Carnegie Centre has highlighted concerns that President Aliyev lacks a strong incentive to agree to a lasting peace deal with Armenia. The conflict has allowed Aliyev to further consolidate his power within Azerbaijan, while the country’s military success provided a convenient distraction to other domestic problems.

Human rights NGO, Amnesty International, has also documented war crimes committed by both Armenian and Azeri forces during the conflict. Amnesty International’s Research Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Denis Krivosheev has said that “during the recent Nagorno-Karabakh fighting, members of the military on both sides have behaved horrendously, displaying a complete disregard for the rules of war.”

So far, these abuses remain largely unaddressed, although Azerbaijan has charged some of its soldiers with desecration of dead bodies and vandalism.

Until these issues are resolved and a genuine agreement is negotiated in good faith between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the peace between the two neighbouring countries will remain fragile for the foreseeable future.

Understanding the Chinese foreign policy

Nadeem Khan

China has been the hot topic of discussion in the foreign policy corridors of most of the countries. Some have termed its policies as expansionist some are critical of its trade policies and human rights. At the same time, to some, it is an all-weather ally. China recently thrashed nearly all countries that have criticized its handling of Covid19, sending warplanes in Taiwan strait, clashes with India, problems with Canada regarding Huawei, and heavy handling of protesters in Hong Kong. With these events, China has been a source of anxiety and cause of exhaustive strategic thinking for the diplomatic community worldwide. It has been an often-deliberated topic as to what precisely guides the Chinese foreign policy. It also allows us to examine Chinese foreign policy from a historical as well as present perspective.

Historical perspective

In 1949, the Chinese communists won a nation-wide civil war, which ultimately changed the Republic of China (ROC) to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The nationalist government had to find a place in Taiwan. With Mao being in charge next ten years saw close cooperation, in fact, an alliance with the Soviet Union in International affairs. Their cooperation was visible in a formidable way during the Korean war. Beijing’s hostility toward the U.S. and Washington’s reciprocation intensified the Cold War in the region.

Later Deng Xiaoping took an unprecedented course where successful reforms were done to provide openness for a capitalistic international economy along with the continued one-party rule of the Communist party. The new thought process, namely “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedongism,” was still the foundation of new China. Later the relations between China and USSR deteriorated soon after when Khruschev was in power in USSR, who, according to Chinese leadership, had adopted a policy of “blow hot blow cold’ towards the west. Later on, with President Nixon’s visit to Beijing, ties between the U.S. and China went for betterment.

It is essential to understand the foreign policy objectives as per the Chinese communist party (CCP) to accurately gauge China’s relation with the outside world.CCP foreign policy edifice rest on adhering to ideological principles while being flexible. After 1980 it drifted in being more ideologically flexible while opening internationally in a robust manner. As per Evan Medeiros, China’s foreign policy objectives primarily are economic development, access to natural resources, and reducing Taiwan’s acceptability.

Current Scenario

China has started to open to the outside world in all directions and at all levels.  Many new methods were employed to exercise its influence on other nations. The primary aim being of robust economic development and sustainable growth. Challenged security would require China to divert resources away from economic reform, resulting in reduced growth in the long run. Hence, unlike other nations who got independence around the same time, China has succeeded in developing its military muscle along with the economy. Foreign policy initiatives supported by military muscle has stabilized its regional security to address both old and emerging threats.

An essential pillar for today’s foreign policy of China is to expand access to trade, aid, investment, resources, and technology. This may require the creation of blocs, infrastructure development, and maintenance of bilateral political relationships. One of the many examples is OBOR (One belt, One Road) initiative. In 2013, President Xi Jinping introduced the ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) initiative, which focuses on bringing together China, Asia, Russia, and Europe. It will also link China with the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea through Central Asia and West Asia.

Another important aspect is the “feel-good factor,” incorporated by the Chinese leadership in the late ’90s. They realized that their Asian neighbors had become apprehensive of their intention. It started when China expressed willingness to pursue disputed territorial claims such as those in the South China Sea and Taiwan. Rising Chinese economic and military power created anxieties for neighbors and around the world as well. This prompted the Chinese establishment to portray itself as a responsible regional power that would contribute to its neighbor’s growth and prosperity. This prompted many countries to avail Chinese help in terms of finance and expertise. This made many more countries join OBOR(“One belt and One Road”) initiative.

It was important for China to maintain easy access to natural resources worldwide to fuel its continued economic growth. It included not only hydrocarbon but also copper, wood, and cement. According to projections, China’s demand for most of these resources is expected to grow significantly in the next 20 years. It has also prompted new warmth in China’s relationship with the middle east and many mineral-rich African and Latin American countries. This increased vigor in the relationship, which ultimately resulted in blocs, is the cause of worry for other countries with whom China often has trade disputes and competition.

Internationally China often puts “dollar diplomacy “ to work to bring about desired foreign policy results. Many experts have quoted that aid packages have often been used to deny Taiwan any international space or standing to make it inclined towards Beijing. It worked well with many African and Latin American countries. The best examples can be Costa Rica and Paraguay.

As per press reports, China has built Iran’s port at Chabahar, which is critical for a pipeline project that can challenge the efforts to ban Iran exports. China has also made $400 billion in investments to upgrade Iran’s oil sector, which would significantly boost its economy. As per reports, the Chinese presence also keeps an eye on strategic movements around the middle east. It now also has control of Hambantota port in Sri Lanka for the next 99 years, putting it at a strategic advantage in the Indian Ocean.

As per the New York Times report, around 35 ports worldwide have been financed by China. They are in Africa, many in Asia, Europe, and even in Australia. Chinese investments often come on easier terms compared to western donors.

With so much influence of China worldwide, it will be worthwhile to deal with China only after taking allies and creating a united front. U.S. administration had been trying to do it by taking Japan, Australia, and even India (to some extent) together. China is expected to be more friendly and reasonable once it has to deal with a combined front that makes more than half of the world’s economy.

Although it will be difficult to find allies as there are vested interests involved in Western countries considering China’s massive role in global manufacturing and international affairs. Without a coherent approach, western democracies will be finding it extremely difficult to get the desired results with China.

Spanish hospitals on brink of collapse as COVID-19 cases explode

Alice Summers

Coronavirus cases in Spain have continued to rocket upwards, as the country registered its highest-ever number of daily cases on Friday: 40,197 infections in a single day.

This exceeded a record set only two days earlier, on Wednesday, of 38,869 new cases. Thursday also saw exceptionally high figures, with 35,878 infections recorded in the official government count. Prior to the explosion of cases last week, the highest-ever number of daily infections had been recorded on October 30, with 25,592 new positive tests. As of Friday, a total of 2,252,164 coronavirus infections had been detected in Spain and 53,314 deaths.

This is despite a significant drop in the number of tests being conducted. In the week ending January 8, only 804,158 coronavirus tests were carried out, compared to well over a million tests (1,205,303) in the week ending November 5—at the height of infections in the autumn.

A funeral at Seville's Cathedral, Spain, Thursday, Jun. 4, 2020 (AP Photo/Miguel Morenatti)

Amid this surge in the pandemic doctors and other medical professionals are warning that hospitals are on the brink of collapse as admissions to intensive care units rise rapidly. Within a couple of days, hospital occupancy will exceed the worst figures recorded during the height of the pandemic in November last year, if the current trend continues.

Since Christmas, hospitalisations for COVID-19 have increased by around 70 percent and intensive care unit (ICU) occupation rates have gone up by nearly 50 percent.

Medical facilities are being forced to ration care and postpone routine activities to cope with the demands placed on them by the surge in coronavirus cases. “Many hospitals are delaying part of their non-covid activity, especially surgery that requires an ICU in the postoperative period,” explained Ricard Ferrer, president of the Spanish Society of Intensive, Critical and Coronary Unit Medical Care.

Hospitals in the region of Valencia have been forced to suspend routine operations and non-urgent diagnostic tests in order to respond to the new surge in coronavirus admissions. The regional government has also called for 280 more beds to be made available in field hospitals. In Catalonia and Galicia, hospitals are also warning that they may soon be overwhelmed and are beginning to cancel scheduled operations.

“The forecasts are very bad and the gradient of the epidemiological curve is becoming almost vertical. If we continue this way,” warned Javier García Fernández, president of the Spanish Anaesthesiology Society, “hospitals will start to collapse within two weeks.”

Spanish hospitals now have around 800 more patients in critical condition than a month ago. In many regions, over 40 percent of all patients in ICUs had been admitted for COVID-19: the Balearic Islands (41.04 percent), Catalonia (42.38), La Rioja (45 percent) and Valencia (48.09 percent).

There are currently nearly 20,000 patients hospitalised with COVID-19 in Spain, with around 3,000 in intensive care. This is approaching the highest hospital admission figures of the second wave, which peaked at 21,051 hospitalised patients on November 11 and 3,156 intensive care patients on November 16.

Madrid’s Society of Intensive Medicine stated that the occupancy of its ICU beds was standing at 90 percent, if taking the number of available beds prior to the onset of the pandemic as a reference point. The Society pleaded for “urgent and drastic measures” to control the spread of the contagion and “dampen the rising curve of admissions.”

The accumulated incidence rate has also exploded over the last week, having risen by over 200 points in only seven days. As of last Friday, the incidence per 100,000 people stood at 575.1 across Spain, compared to 350.48 only a week before.

The region of Extremadura continues to be the worst affected, with the incidence rate rising from 803 per 100,000 to a staggering 1,090.30 in a week. Five other regions are reporting rates of over 600 per 100,000: Murcia (739.40), Valencia (727.80), Castilla-La Mancha (725.00), the Balearic Islands (644.60) and Madrid (632.70).

Even this is a significant underestimate. Many cases are still going undetected, as indicated by the rising positive test rate across the whole country. Across Spain, around 17 percent of tests are returning a positive result, well above the threshold of 5 percent that the World Health Organisation considers to be a sign that the pandemic is under control. In Castilla-La Mancha and Valencia, a massive 30 percent of tests are coming back positive.

This explosion of cases is devastating health care workers, who report intolerable stress and anxiety. According to two studies by the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, nearly half (45 percent) of medical workers are at high risk of suffering a mental health disorder as a result of their work in the first wave of the pandemic. Around 14 percent were suffering from a debilitating mental health condition, with clear negative consequences on their professional and personal lives, and 3.5 percent had had suicidal thoughts—more than double the rate in the population as a whole.

The study also showed that nearly one in three health care workers (28.1 percent) were suffering from depression; 22.5 percent from anxiety; around one in four from panic attacks; 22.2 percent from post-traumatic stress and just over 6 percent from substance abuse issues.

In the face of this looming catastrophe the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government is refusing to take any action to bring the contagion under control. Instead, top health officials are blaming the population for the increased spread of the virus, berating them for supposedly having partied or gathered in large groups over the holidays.

“Everyone was aware what was recommended at Christmas, [and] I’m sorry to say, perhaps we had a better time than we should have done,” declared Fernando Simón, director of the Centre for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies. The spread of the pandemic is now “clearly rising and it is a consequence of the behaviour over the last days,” he added.

This is a cynical and politically criminal attempt to divert responsibility for the consequences of the bourgeoisie’s “save Christmas” campaign. Regional and national governments outright refused measures to contain the virus in the weeks before Christmas, encouraging workers to go out shopping to ensure businesses got their profits.

This was made most explicit by right-wing regional premier of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who declared in the middle of December, as cases were already rapidly rising: “We’re not planning on bankrupting businesses, closing hospitality or affecting the economy. We will not be the ones to prevent citizens from going in or out of Madrid to visit their families.”

The behaviour of representatives of the ruling class such as Ayuso is indeed now having its consequences.

Despite the explosion in cases, the PSOE-Podemos government is doubling down on its refusal to act to contain the pandemic. In a press conference on Thursday, Simón declared: “The option of a [stay-at-home] lockdown, as always, is there. But at the moment it does not seem necessary.”

On Saturday, Health Minister Salvador Illa echoed these comments, stating: “We are not contemplating any stay-at-home lockdown. … We have the knowledge and the experience; we know how to bend the curve.”

The working class cannot place any trust in these corrupt representatives of big business, whose sole concern is to keep profits flowing into the coffers of the financial elite—no matter the cost in human lives. Only an independent political struggle of workers in Spain and internationally will provide the means for an effective struggle against the escalating COVID-19 pandemic and to safeguard lives.

Israeli human rights organization declares Israel an apartheid state

Jean Shaoul

B’Tselem, one of Israel’s foremost human rights organisations, has issued a report stating that Israel is not a democracy but an “apartheid regime” that enforces Jewish supremacy over the Palestinians in all the land it controls.

It confirms not only what critics of Israel’s brutal suppression of the Palestinians have long been saying, but also the historic bankruptcy and reactionary culmination of the Zionist project and all such nationalist programs.

In the 1967 War, Israel seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem, previously under Jordanian rule, and Gaza, previously administered by Egypt and under blockade by Israel since 2007. Collectively they are home to more than five million Palestinians.

A Palestinian boy inspects the damage in his family home following Israeli airstrikes in Buriej refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Within Israel, there are approximately 2 million citizens of Palestinian origin, one fifth of the total population, meaning that Palestinians from around half of the population in the lands controlled by Israel. All these four Palestinian groups have different rights from each other that are all inferior to those of Jewish Israelis living in the same areas (except for Gaza where there are no Israeli settlements).

As B’Tselem points out, “the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group—Jews—over another—Palestinians.”

B’Tselem’s report, “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid,” argues, “By geographically, demographically and physically engineering space, the regime enables Jews to live in a contiguous area with full rights, including self-determination, while Palestinians live in separate units and enjoy fewer rights. This qualifies as an apartheid regime, although Israel is commonly viewed as a democracy upholding a temporary occupation.”

Apartheid is deemed a crime under international law. In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly called for the ratification of The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defined as inhumane acts “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Neither Israel nor its chief backer the US signed up to the Rome Statute.

Hagai El-Ad, B’Tselem’s executive director, said, “Israel is not a democracy that has a temporary occupation attached to it. “It is one regime between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and we must look at the full picture and see it for what it is: apartheid.”

B’Tselem is not alone it its view. Israeli human rights groups, leftist groups, the so-called “peace camp”, the Meretz Party and politicians, including President Reuven Rivlin and former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, have for some time been warning that while there was “not yet apartheid” in Israel, it was on a slippery slope. More than a few politicians argued that without a “two state solution,” Israel would become an apartheid state.

Last summer, Yesh Din (There is a Law), another Israeli human rights group, published a legal opinion arguing that Israel operated apartheid in the West Bank.

B’Tselem goes much further and includes Israel itself within the apartheid regime, pointing to two recent developments. The first, Israel’s openly racist Nation State Law enshrines the principle of Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state. It includes Jews not just in Israel but throughout the diaspora who have automatic right to immigration and citizenship, although Israel denies the “right of return” to Palestinians who fled or were driven out of their homes in the 1948-49 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. Furthermore, it proclaims Jerusalem “complete and united” as Israel’s capital.

The Nation State Law actively promotes the Judaicisation of the occupied territories and the expansion of the settlements, stipulating that “the State considers the development of Jewish settlements a national value and will take action to encourage and promote the establishment and reinforcement of such settlements.”

It sanctions the exclusion of Arabs from exclusively Jewish communities, demotes Arabic from its position as an official state language and gives official and exclusive standing to Jewish symbols, including declaring “Hatikva” the national anthem. It prevents Palestinians from getting Israeli citizenship by marrying Israelis and future asylum seekers from entering Israel. The law thus provides the framework for an apartheid state that ends any commitment to equality and openly aligns the state with the brutal oppression of an entire people, the Palestinians.

While there was widespread opposition to the Nation State Law among Jews within Israel and without, it could find no expression in the Knesset due to the cowardice and complicity of the opposition Labour Party.

Secondly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government has repeatedly declared its plans for the annexation of parts of the West Bank. While these plans have been put on hold in the wake of the “normalization” of relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, there is no mistaking the government’s intentions that have the support of the ultra-nationalist and religious parties. Thus, Israel intends to extend its rule over the Palestinians and make a Palestinian state completely impossible.

Israel already controls many aspects of life, including the population registry, land allocation, voter rolls, and the right or denial to travel within, or enter or exit any part of the area.

Implicit in B’Tselem’s acknowledgement that Israel is an apartheid state is that the two-states solution is dead, following Trump’s farcical “peace plan”, announced in January last year, that supported Netanyahu’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank where nearly 500,000 Israeli settlers live. The Abraham Accords, to which several Arab states—with the nod from Saudi Arabia—have signed up, is the official death certificate for the Arab Initiative. The Arab Initiative was launched by Riyadh in 2002 and endorsed by the Arab League, and made normalization of relations with Israel conditional upon a full withdrawal from the occupied territories, a “just settlement” of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN Resolution 194, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

That an Israeli organization has called Israel an apartheid state and a “regime of Jewish supremacy” exposes the fraudulent claim of the Israel lobby in Europe and the US, based upon the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, that equates criticism of Israeli government policy, including its racist policies towards the Palestinians, with anti-Semitism.

The open turn to apartheid policies is the product of two major factors. First, the acute political and economic crisis of the Zionist state, one of the most unequal in the developed world. Second, the logic of the Zionist project that sought the establishment of a Jewish state as a safe haven for a people who had been cruelly persecuted. Such a state could only be achieved through the violent dispossession of the indigenous Arab population, with the horrors of the Holocaust used to justify the oppression of another people.

The new upsurge of the international working class against social inequality, repression and social injustice points the way forward for the masses of Jewish and Arab workers alike in the form of a united struggle to overthrow and replace the Zionist state and the various Arab bourgeois regimes and forge the United Socialist States of the Middle East.

Massive rise in unemployment in Germany during the pandemic

Elisabeth Zimmermann

On January 5, the German Federal Employment Agency published the official unemployment figures for December 2020, reporting an increase to 2.7 million unemployed, 480,000 more than in the same month last year. This corresponds to an increase of 21.6 percent. The unemployment rate thus increased from 4.9 to 5.9 percent within a single year.

These official figures reflect only part of the reality. For example, 3,543,000 people were “underemployed” in December 2020, 363,000 more than in December 2019. Those considered underemployed are the unemployed and jobseekers who are temporarily participating in Federal Employment Agency measures, are sick, over 58 years old, or are considered difficult to place and are therefore not included in the official statistics by the employment offices. Also included are people who only have a part-time job but would like to work more or full-time hours.

Not included in the statistics is the high number of workers on reduced hours. According to the most recent data available, nearly 2 million people were on reduced hours in October 2020. At the peak of the first lockdown in April, nearly 6 million people had reduced work time. Figures from November and December are not yet available.

Collecting discarded bottles to redeem deposits, a common sight in Germany (Image: Sascha Kohlmann / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Hundreds of thousands who were employed in the low-wage sector, such as mini-jobbers, solo self-employed and temporary workers and those who lost their jobs due to the consequences of the pandemic are not included in the official figures. In the first coronavirus wave in the spring of 2020, 850,000 mini-jobbers lost their jobs without entitlement to reduced hour or unemployment benefits.

The effects of the COVID-19 crisis are particularly evident in Berlin. At the end of 2019, the unemployment rate in the German capital was 7.7 percent; in December 2020, it was 10.1 percent. The number of unemployed has risen by 52,238 to 202,388. This represents an increase of 35 percent. Among young people and people with an immigrant background, unemployment rose by as much as 40 percent, as reported by the Berliner Zeitung January 5.

In the catering industry alone, roughly 7,000 jobs have been lost. Here again, it is impossible to say exactly how many workers are currently on reduced hours. Estimates by labour market researchers suggest that Berlin would register at least 100,000 more unemployed without the reduced-hour work scheme.

In the official unemployment statistics, which are already bad enough, mini-jobbers are not even recorded. Like the underemployed, the 11,000 solo self-employed who lost their jobs in Berlin in recent months and have had to apply for basic social security (Grundsicherung) do not appear in the statistics.

Those with mini-jobs in Berlin numbered 216,000 in 2019, most of them in the retail sector and 34,000 in the catering and service sectors. There are no figures yet on how many have lost their jobs. For many, the mini-job is not a side job to earn some extra money, but their primary employment and main source of income. According to the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), about 5 million people nationwide relied on their mini-job as their primary employment in 2019.

When these people lose their mini-jobs, it immediately results in severe financial problems and existential hardship. More than 40 percent of all employees have suffered massive income losses since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Workers with modest incomes before the pandemic have been disproportionately affected.

At the beginning of December, Creditreform, the credit information agency, pointed out that although the number of corporate insolvencies had fallen by 13 percent to 16,300 despite the pandemic, the number of bankruptcies among large companies with sales of more than €50 million had doubled. At 332,000, a significantly greater number of workers were affected than in the previous year. Overall, 218,000 people had lost their jobs to bankruptcies in 2019.

During the fall, insolvency proceedings were opened for Germany’s largest hair salon chain, Klier. It included 1,350 hair salons and 9,200 employees, many of whom worked in mini-jobs on a €450-per-month basis. Work on a €450 basis is common to many employees at fashion retailers, in catering businesses and other areas that have seen significant job losses.

So far, a series of government measures—extending reduced-hours work to up to two years, temporarily suspending the obligation to file for bankruptcy in the event of payment problems and insolvency of companies—has slowed the official rise in unemployment compared with other countries such as the UK and the US.

But in view of the announcement of mass layoffs in the automotive and supplier industries, at Lufthansa, in the retail sector and in many other areas, this will change in the coming months. The unions and corporate boards are working hand in hand to carry out these attacks, some of which were planned long before the coronavirus crisis began.

Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in mid-December in a government statement on the budget that the billions in gifts to the corporations and banks must be recouped through savings at the expense of the working class. The WSWS commented on this on December 16, 2020:

“The so-called coronavirus bailout packages passed in March, and the 2020 supplementary budget, were always primarily billion-euro gifts for big business and the banks. Now, even the minimal additional spending that had been earmarked for pandemic control is being reversed. In addition, the new budget prepares even more comprehensive social attacks. ‘We must also always remember what public debt means,’ Chancellor Merkel warned in her government statement on the budget. ‘It means, of course, burdening future budgets, it means the need to pay it back, and it means restrictions on future spending and on future generations.’”