The Brief – Single-handed manmade disasters

Climate change is a manmade disaster caused by mankind as a whole, but history remembers disasters of dramatic proportions caused by a single man. We are currently paying the price of at least two such disasters.

Captain Edward Smith’s crashing of the Titanic is a classic example of a man-made disaster—or blunder. It is believed that the ship sank because the officers on duty did not have the key to the ship’s binoculars, which was in the captain’s pocket.

Russia’s emperor Alexandr II’s decision to sell Alaska to the United States (for $7.2 million) led to regrets as gold mines and oil fields were soon discovered under the melting ice (not to mention that it gave the US a direct maritime border with Russia, with two mainlands less than three miles apart).

We can also speculate what would have happened if Hitler had not attacked the Soviet Union, his ally at the time, in June 1941 and had instead concentrated on invading further Western Europe, including the British Isles. The attack on the USSR was probably his biggest mistake. Happily enough, Nazism was defeated four long years later.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full-size invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 is probably his biggest mistake, as the consequences of this man-made disaster could go very far – and not in his favour.

A Russian woman recently had the courage to go on social media and list the consequences of “Volodya’s” big mistake. It deserves to be carried almost in full here:

“He substituted truth and reality with crazy propaganda, extended the borders with NATO by more than 1,500 km, pushed Russia into full dependence on China, lost over $500 billion in frozen assets, lost the European market — the largest and most profitable for Russian oil and gas, lost a large part of exports of timber, metal and coal, lost a huge number of experts — active and able-bodied population, colossally increased capital outflow from the country, lost the market for space launches and scientific space, destroyed the air transportation market, put a cross on Russia in world sports, raised the retirement age while there is no money for pensions, turned Russia into a terrorist state, made Russia the world’s leader in terms of sanctions imposed, made Russia’s friends all renegades: North Korea, Iran, Taliban, Hamas and other scum, organised genocide and repression, increased the growth of crime in the country, disgraced the army, united all Ukrainians and the entire civilised world, disgraced Russia to the entire world. And the list could be continued.”

Similarly, French President Emmanuel Macron has been repeatedly criticised for having dissolved parliament and called a snap election just 20 days after the European elections.

Macron is accused, including by former closest allies, of taking an unnecessary gamble he cannot win, for opening a highway for the far-right Rassemblement national, for having created chaos in the worst possible moment ahead of the Paris Olympics, for destroying his centre-left coalition mostly to the profit of the leftists, for throwing the entire EU into uncertainty at a time of crucial political decisions, for getting personally involved in the election campaign, for indirectly making a present to Putin as Europe’s fate is being decided on the battlefields of Ukraine.

The list goes on.

Most importantly, Macron is accused of not having consulted with his closest allies, including Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who was reportedly informed by one of the president’s secretaries a couple of hours before his TV appearance on 9 June.

There is an obvious semblance between Putin’s mistake of starting an unnecessary war and Macron’s decision to abruptly call elections, seen as unnecessary and dangerous by an obvious majority of French politicians and commentators.

The semblance is in the fact the president of Russia and the president of France decided alone – or took the decision among a very closed circle of counsellors who wouldn’t dare contradict their boss.

Russia’s constitution, with its 2020 amendments that made Putin a de-facto life-long president, offers unrestricted centralisation of authority in the hands of the president.

As researcher Mikhail Polyanskii wrote back in 2020, “the unrestricted centralisation of authority and resources is particularly dangerous, due to the fact that the ultimate decision-maker seems to have genuinely become entrenched in a “besieged fortress mentality”, which, in his opinion, must be defended by all means possible, including by undermining the legal fundaments of the state.”

Even in the USSR, the de-facto head of state, the secretary general of the Communist party, could not decide alone. There were bodies such as the Politburo and the Central Committee of the Communist Party that were involved in decision-making.

The French constitution also gives huge prerogatives to the president, inconceivable in other countries – for example, the French president chairs the government, called the Council of Ministers,

“French presidents have more power than the leaders of most other advanced democracies including Germany, the United Kingdom and, arguably, the United States,” the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations explained in 2017.

“They not only command the executive apparatus, including the armed forces, but tend to drive the national policymaking agenda with little parliamentary oversight,” it added.

We are learning the hard way that too much power in the hands of a single leader, even if it is enshrined in the constitution of a democratic country, is a recipe for disaster.  More power-sharing and more checks and balances are obviously needed.

But today’s agenda is to deal with the fallout of single-handed manmade disasters. How to avoid them from now on will be an issue for another time.

The Roundup

EU member states approved on Monday a decision to use €1.4 billion in revenue from frozen Russian assets to send military support to Ukraine, after finding a legal way to circumvent a Hungarian veto.

Polish President Andrzej Duda voiced hope during a visit to Beijing on Monday his country could boost its exports to China, just as the EU is set to begin talks with Bejing on tariffs it threatened to impose on Chinese electric vehicles.

Incumbent Renew Europe group President Valérie Hayer has a high chance of being reappointed on Tuesday as the opposing ALDE party is failing to align its members behind their nominee.

Ahead of the legislative elections on 30 June and 7 July, French trade unions are divided over what strategy to adopt in the face of the rise of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), while major employers seem wary of the promises made by the left and the right.

EU leaders are set to call on the new European Commission to present in-depth policy reviews by mid-2025 for reforms needed to fulfil the bloc’s long-term ambitions, according to draft summit conclusions seen by Euractiv.

The European Commission said Apple’s App Store is in breach of the bloc’s digital competition rules in preliminary findings announced in a press release, on Monday.

Look out for…

• General Affairs Council on Tuesday.
• Commissioner Iliana Ivanova meets with Nadia Calviño, president of European Investment Bank, on Tuesday.
• Accession conference with Ukraine, and with Moldova, on Tuesday.

Views are the author’s

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]