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Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary: Russia's Bipolar Economy Opening Door to Disaster Ahead
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Oct. 13, 2026, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor:
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Russia's Bipolar Economy Opening Door to Disaster Ahead
Paul Goble
Executive Summary:
* President Vladimir Putin's Russia has two economies. The burgeoning military-industrial one continues to support his invasion of Ukraine despite sanctions, and the troubled civilian sector is at best stagnating and near free fall.
* Analyses that lump the two together obscure this divide and allow the Kremlin to present a positive picture while Russia's critics
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Oct. 13, 2026, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor:
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Russia's Bipolar Economy Opening Door to Disaster Ahead
Paul Goble
Executive Summary:
* President Vladimir Putin's Russia has two economies. The burgeoning military-industrial one continues to support his invasion of Ukraine despite sanctions, and the troubled civilian sector is at best stagnating and near free fall.
* Analyses that lump the two together obscure this divide and allow the Kremlin to present a positive picture while Russia's criticspresent one overstating how close its economy is to collapse.
* More seriously, this divide points to disaster ahead for Russia because, in most other countries, innovation now comes from the civilian sector rather than the state. This pattern will leave Russia behind, and Putin is trying to compensate for it through espionage and sabotage.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin's Russia has two economies. The burgeoning military-industrial complex continues to support his invasion of Ukraine despite sanctions, and the troubled civilian sector is at best stagnating and at worst is near free fall (Ekho Rossii, April 6, 2012; Window on Eurasia, December 20, 2025; Defense News, September 28; Svobodnaya Pressa, October 9). Emigre Russian analyst Sergey Rogov has introduced the term "bipolar" to describe the Russian economy (Ekho Rossii, October 7; Re: Russia, October 8). With only a few notable exceptions, efforts to describe the two together obscure this divide and let the Kremlin present a positive picture while Russia's critics overstate how close its civilian economy is to collapse (Window on Eurasia, June 13, August 29). More seriously, however, this divide points to disaster ahead for Russia. In most other countries, over the last several decades, innovation has moved from the civilian sector into the military rather than the other way around, as it did earlier during the Cold War. This pattern will leave Russia ever further behind in the military sector. Putin is already seeking to compensate for this mistake--not by liberalizing, but rather by espionage and sabotage against the West (see EDM, March 16, September 15; Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, April 17; Novaya Gazeta, October 7; Defense Express, October 10).
Many in Moscow have grown alarmed that Russian economic growth has declined in recent months to near zero. Even more in the West have viewed this as evidence that sanctions alone can restrain Russia. They are wrong to think this means that the Russian economy is stagnating, Rogov says. He argues what is really going on is "the simultaneous coexistence of growth and recession." Military spending is rising to levels not seen since Soviet times, while spending in the civilian sector is declining across the board. The number of firms operating in the red or even being forced to close is increasing, and in many cases human suffering is rising as Russians no longer have access to many of the things they had grown accustomed to earlier in the Putin years (Re: Russia, October 8). The Kremlin leader has kept dissent in check both by suggesting that Russia is marching toward victory over the West in Ukraine and by adopting ever more repressive measures. It is unclear, however, whether either method is as effective as it was earlier (Window on Eurasia, June 13).
Moscow's rapid expansion of military spending has allowed the Kremlin, after some initial difficulties, to grow its military and keep replenishing the weapons and ammunition it has expended in Ukraine. The Russian defense industry has been less able to come up quickly with new weapons to respond to Ukraine's challenges, however, as the case of drones highlighted. On the one hand, this undoubtedly reflects the effect of sanctions, which have deprived Moscow of much of the advanced electronics it had imported in the past and did not produce itself. On the other hand, it reflects a shift in where innovation comes from. Moscow, by various means, has worked around much of the former problem. It has yet to figure out how to address the latter. The Russian military has been very good at ramping up production of existing weapons systems, manufacturing more guns and ammunition. It has had less success, however, in developing and introducing innovations, a weakness Ukraine has exploited and will no doubt continue to exploit.
Beyond what appears to be the innate conservatism of the Russian Defense Ministry, this shortcoming stems from a shift in military innovation from Cold War times to now. In a recent Novaya Gazeta article, Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev compares how innovation happened in Western militaries during much of the Cold War with how it has happened more recently. This comparison is suggestive as far as what has happened more recently in the Russian Federation (Novaya Gazeta, October 7). In the first decades of the Cold War, he writes, the U.S. government spent enormous sums on research and development in its own labs, coming up with inventions that spread from the military to the private sector, a process whose transfers came to be known as "spin-offs." By the 1970s and 1980s, however, Washington reduced such in-house spending and began to draw more heavily on private sector research institutions for innovations in the military, a process that has been called by some "spin-ons." (On that shift, Inozemtsev cites the work of John Alic et al., Beyond Spinoff (Cambridge, 1992).)
The Soviet Union did not have an analogous situation regarding innovation. The Russian Federation had begun to develop one, with university and institute laboratories generating ideas that flowed into the Defense Ministry and which, more than a decade ago, Moscow sought to organize to accelerate innovation (Chatham House, September 23, 2021). Moscow's desire to expand such relationships increased with the Russian military's experience in Ukraine and the impact of sanctions. Because of Putin's crackdown on higher education and the exodus of many scholars working in such fields, however, Moscow has no longer been able to count on that small but important private sector to help power military innovation (CSIS, February 2026). That helps to explain why Ukraine, which has been more open, has proved nimbler and why Russia is struggling to catch up (Chatham House, July 1, 2025).
Unsurprisingly, given Putin's background and proclivities, the Russian government has responded, at least initially, by increasing industrial espionage and even sabotage against Western firms that had been suppliers, rather than by loosening controls over private institutions in Russia (see EDM, September 15; Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, April 17). As long as Putin is in power and Western sanctions are in place, such Russian actions are likely to continue or even expand. It is unclear whether Russia can match the ways its military can use products from civilian research institutions, which are currently achieving far fewer breakthroughs than they were (Window on Eurasia, February 3). If Moscow cannot compensate for its losses in this sector, Inozemtsev suggests, it will fall further and further behind the West in such technologies, highlighting the importance of a strong private sector for modern militaries and the problems any country without one must try to compensate for if it does not allow one to flourish.
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Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/russias-bipolar-economy-opening-door-to-disaster-ahead/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Institute: Material Shortages in German Manufacturing Rise Again
MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 14 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
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12 October 2026
Material Shortages in German Manufacturing Rise Again
Material shortages in German manufacturing increased somewhat again in September. A total of 14.6% of companies reported shortages of intermediate products, up from 13.3% in August. "There is still no sign of a broad-based rise in supply bottlenecks in manufacturing. In individual industries, however, shortages of intermediate products are once again becoming a bigger problem," says Klaus Wohlrabe, Head of Surveys at ifo.
Supply remains especially
... Show Full Article
MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 14 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
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12 October 2026
Material Shortages in German Manufacturing Rise Again
Material shortages in German manufacturing increased somewhat again in September. A total of 14.6% of companies reported shortages of intermediate products, up from 13.3% in August. "There is still no sign of a broad-based rise in supply bottlenecks in manufacturing. In individual industries, however, shortages of intermediate products are once again becoming a bigger problem," says Klaus Wohlrabe, Head of Surveys at ifo.
Supply remains especiallystrained among manufacturers of data processing equipment and electronic and optical products, where the share of companies with material shortages rose from 33.2 to 37.8%. "In parts of the electronics industry in particular, strong demand is running up against tight material supplies. Shortages of intermediate products could increasingly become a bottleneck there," says Wohlrabe.
The situation also worsened again in the chemical industry, where 18.0% of companies reported material shortages, up from 12.5% in August. In mechanical engineering, the share edged up from 14.9 to 16.3%.
By contrast, the situation eased significantly in metal production and processing, where the share fell from 21.1 to 14.2%. Among manufacturers of electrical equipment, it declined slightly from 29.5 to 27.4%, but remained high. In the automotive industry, the supply situation was virtually unchanged at 8.9%.
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More Information
Survey (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-10-12/material-shortages-german-manufacturing-rise-again)
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Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-10-12/material-shortages-german-manufacturing-rise-again
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary: When the Nobel Peace Prize Rewards Ideology Over Courage
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary to Washington Times:
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Oct 12, 2026
Washington Times
When the Nobel Peace Prize Rewards Ideology over Courage
Miles Yu
The Nobel Peace Prize has a serious problem.
Beyond occasional questionable choices, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has become increasingly ideological, rewarding fashionable political causes and the international establishment's preferred personalities while overlooking those who have sacrificed their
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary to Washington Times:
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Oct 12, 2026
Washington Times
When the Nobel Peace Prize Rewards Ideology over Courage
Miles Yu
The Nobel Peace Prize has a serious problem.
Beyond occasional questionable choices, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has become increasingly ideological, rewarding fashionable political causes and the international establishment's preferred personalities while overlooking those who have sacrificed theirfreedom -- and sometimes their lives -- fighting tyranny.
This is particularly evident in the struggles against European colonialism, communist totalitarianism and genocidal Islamist extremism.\
The committee has made admirable choices. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and Liu Xiaobo deserved recognition. These exceptions make the committee's conspicuous omissions harder to explain.
None is more glaring than Mahatma Gandhi. The man whose nonviolent resistance helped bring the British Empire to its knees was nominated five times from 1937 to 1948. He never won.
When Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948, the committee withheld the prize, declaring that there was no suitable living candidate that year.
Yet posthumous Nobel Prizes were not formally prohibited until 1974. Indeed, in 1961, the committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously to Dag Hammarskjold, the Swedish diplomat and United Nations secretary-general.
So a deceased European international civil servant could receive the prize, but the greatest champion of nonviolent resistance to European imperialism could not.
The rules did not prevent the committee from honoring Gandhi; the committee itself did.
Now consider former President Obama.
In 2009, Mr. Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months after taking office. He had delivered impressive speeches and promised international cooperation, but what had he accomplished?
The committee rewarded him for what it hoped he would do rather than what he had done.
Gandhi spent decades challenging an empire and received nothing. Mr. Obama had barely begun his presidency when he received the prize.
One was judged after a lifetime of sacrifice. The other was rewarded based on expectations.
That contrast speaks volumes.
The committee's discomfort with European colonialism deserves scrutiny. Yes, it honored anti-apartheid leaders Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, but it has rarely confronted European imperial domination with comparable moral clarity.
In 1996, it honored Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta for their efforts toward peace in East Timor. Yet its citation spoke of a conflict rather than confronting Portuguese colonialism and Indonesia's subsequent occupation.
Notice the language. Colonial domination becomes a conflict. Fighting for national independence becomes a peace process. Historical responsibility disappears into diplomatic euphemism.
The same selective moral vision appears in its treatment of communist totalitarianism.
The committee deserves credit for honoring the Dalai Lama in 1989 and Liu Xiaobo in 2010, despite Beijing's fury.
Why stop there?
What about the Tiananmen Mothers, the anonymous Tank Man, numerous brave Chinese dissidents of unfathomable courage facing the brutal Beijing regime, China's many prisoners of conscience and Hong Kong's democracy protesters?
What about Taiwan's transformative leaders, who fought authoritarianism and brought democracy to their country?
These are not people making fashionable speeches at international conferences. Many have paid for their convictions with imprisonment, persecution, exile or death.
Yet their recognition remains limited.
The 2026 award to former U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay brings these contradictions into focus. Ms. Pillay has a distinguished record in international criminal justice and the struggle against apartheid, but her selection raises questions about the Nobel establishment's political priorities.
She chaired a U.N. commission that accused Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip, a conclusion that Israel strongly rejects.
What about the murderous antisemitism of Hamas and other Islamist extremist movements? The Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities demonstrated that genocidal antisemitism remains a deadly threat.
Why should criticism of Israel receive greater prominence than confronting those advocating its destruction?
These abuses all demand scrutiny. One does not excuse another.
Ms. Pillay's record toward communist China also deserves examination. As the top U.N. human rights official, she was conspicuously absent from Liu Xiaobo's 2010 Nobel ceremony, citing a scheduling technicality as her cowardly excuse.
More recently, allegations have surfaced that her office gave Chinese authorities the names of dissidents. These allegations require careful examination, but they underscore long-standing concerns about the international human rights establishment's dealings with Beijing.
The Nobel Committee risks acquiring and inheriting the credibility problems of the U.N. Human Rights Council, where authoritarian governments such as China, North Korea, Iran and Cuba have held seats despite their records and ferocious defense of their own egregious human rights violations.
What does it say about international human rights governance when governments accused of crushing fundamental freedoms participate in judging others? The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to reward the top U.N. human rights official with its prestigious prize.
Human rights cannot be universal when their application depends on the perpetrator's political identity.
Here lies the Nobel Peace Prize's fundamental problem. Diplomatic engagement becomes an achievement in itself. Institutional prestige substitutes for personal courage. Political aspirations are rewarded as accomplished facts.
Meanwhile, those confronting oppression remain in the shadows.
The result is an empire-shaped blind spot, compounded by inconsistent recognition of struggles against communist dictatorship and antisemitic extremism.
The Nobel Peace Prize was never intended as a certificate of ideological approval from Europe's political establishment. It was meant to recognize extraordinary contributions to peace.
Still, peace cannot be separated from freedom. There is no lasting peace in a prison state, no genuine reconciliation under totalitarian coercion and no moral equivalence between those peacefully demanding liberty and those imprisoning them.
Gandhi never needed the Nobel Prize to secure his place in history. Neither do Chinese dissidents resisting communist tyranny nor Israeli citizens defending themselves against terrorism.
Their moral stature tells us more about the committee's limitations than the committee's decisions tell us about them.
The Nobel Peace Prize should honor those who risk their freedom to bring peace to the oppressed, not merely those who enjoy the privilege of selectively defining peace for everyone else.
Read in The Washington Times (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/oct/12/nobel-peace-prize-rewards-ideology-courage/).
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Miles Yu is a senior fellow and director of the China Center at Hudson Institute. He is also a professor of East Asia and military and naval history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/when-nobel-peace-prize-rewards-ideology-over-courage-miles-yu
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues Commentary: 'Green' Group Money Opposing Permitting Reform
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary:
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The "green" group money opposing permitting reform
The environmental NGOs that oppose permitting reform have combined annual revenue of more than $430 million.
by Robert Stilson
October 14, 2026
More than 200 environmental activist groups have written a letter in opposition to a major bipartisan permitting reform bill that was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate. The largest and most important environmental groups in the country, however, were conspicuously absent among the signatories. Even so, the
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary:
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The "green" group money opposing permitting reform
The environmental NGOs that oppose permitting reform have combined annual revenue of more than $430 million.
by Robert Stilson
October 14, 2026
More than 200 environmental activist groups have written a letter in opposition to a major bipartisan permitting reform bill that was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate. The largest and most important environmental groups in the country, however, were conspicuously absent among the signatories. Even so, thecombined 2024 revenues of the co-signers exceeded $430 million--highlighting the depth of resources available to the American environmental movement even without its biggest names.
Permitting reform
A bipartisan group of Senators recently introduced a major bill aimed at streamlining burdensome federal permitting and environmental review requirements, known as the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA). The goal of the legislation is "accelerating the permitting and construction of critical energy and infrastructure projects while maintaining key environmental and historic preservation safeguards."
Such reforms are widely understood to be necessary. The Bipartisan Policy Center, which supports the legislation, noted that "a permitting system created to protect the environment against industrial pollution more than 50 years ago has morphed into a system that is bad for both the economy and the environment." For instance, a new mine reportedly takes an average of 29 years to successfully navigate the American permitting process--the second-longest timeline in the world, behind Zambia. The biggest regulatory contributors to this delay involve some of the same laws which BAAJA now aims to address, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.
BAAJA is a compromise bill, and in addition to attracting political backing from both Republicans and Democrats, it is supported by a remarkably diverse range of interest groups. These include environmental organizations such as Citizens Climate Lobby and Ceres, free-market and limited government advocates such as the Pacific Legal Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, labor unions such as LIUNA and the United Association, business associations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, industry groups such as the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Solar Energy Industries Association, and left-leaning think tanks such as the Searchlight Institute and the Progressive Policy Institute.
Environmentalist Opposition
Support, of course, has been far from universal. In one letter obtained by Punchbowl News, more than 200 (mostly) environmental activist groups asked members of Congress to oppose BAAJA, arguing "the environmental damage that will occur due to the rollbacks and weakening of the nation's environmental laws outweigh the potential emissions reductions that would occur in the future." The letter's signatories speculated that if Democrats were to gain control of one or both chambers in the midterm elections, "a better package" might be secured.
Supporters of permitting reform have optimistically noted that the biggest names in the American environmental/conservation movement were conspicuously absent from the letter. This included groups such as the League of Conservation Voters, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, the National Wildlife Federation, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the World Wildlife Fund, and others. These are enormously rich NGOs: all had nine-figure revenues in 2024, with the Nature Conservancy alone bringing in more than $1.4 billion that year.
The American environmental movement, however, is remarkable not only for how wealthy its top groups are, but also for the sheer number of well-funded groups that exist. Even without its organizational behemoths, the combined 2024 revenues of the letter's signatories exceeded $430 million.
And this is a conservative undercount for several reasons.
The letter had 222 organizational signatories, but financial data is unavailable for many of these groups. This could be because the group in question does not have its own IRS-recognized tax-exempt status--for example, because it operates under a fiscal sponsorship arrangement--or because it is a tax-exempt group which is small enough to file the minimalist Form 990-N, which does not require precise revenue disclosure.
At least 125 of the signatories (56 percent) are distinct tax-exempt nonprofits whose identities could be ascertained to a reasonable certainty, and for which detailed Form 990 financials are available. Their combined annual revenue was $431.2 million, which in nearly all cases reflects 2024 filings. For the half-dozen groups where no 2024 filing was available, 990s from either 2023 or 2025 were used instead. Affiliated nonprofits and fiscal sponsors were excluded from this total.
The top fifteen largest signatories (by 2024 revenue) of the anti-permitting reform letter were as follows:
* Center for Biological Diversity ($45.7 million)
* Greenpeace USA ($38.5 million)
* Defenders of Wildlife ($36 million)
* American Bird Conservancy ($26.9 million)
* Food & Water Watch ($22.2 million)
* Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance ($12.6 million)
* Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation ($11.8 million)
* Oil Change International ($11.4 million)
* Environmental Law & Policy Center ($10.9 million)
* EarthRights International ($10.8 million)
* Climate Justice Alliance ($10.3 million)
* WE ACT for Environmental Justice ($10.3 million)
* Earthworks ($9.6 million)
* GreenLatinos ($8.6 million)
* Green America ($8.2 million)
It remains to be seen how the permitting reform bill will fare in Congress, and how the country's biggest environmental groups will ultimately come down on it. Some have been equivocal in their public statements. Even at this stage, however, the bill's avowed opponents have no shortage of resources.
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Robert Stilson
Robert runs several of CRC's specialized projects. Originally from Indiana, he has a B.A. from Hanover College and a J.D. from University of Richmond School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude.
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-green-group-money-opposing-permitting-reform/
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary Entitled 'Diplomacy or Coercion?'
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary:
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Diplomacy or Coercion?
Commentary by William Alan Reinsch
October 13, 2026
I've waited to write about the G20 trade ministers' meeting in Milwaukee two weeks ago so the dust could settle. It turns out there was not much dust to settle. While the meeting, like many of its kind, was no doubt useful for the many bilateral meetings and informal sidebars that were held as ministers gathered in the Pfister Hotel, formal results were meager. There were four official items on the agenda:
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary:
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Diplomacy or Coercion?
Commentary by William Alan Reinsch
October 13, 2026
I've waited to write about the G20 trade ministers' meeting in Milwaukee two weeks ago so the dust could settle. It turns out there was not much dust to settle. While the meeting, like many of its kind, was no doubt useful for the many bilateral meetings and informal sidebars that were held as ministers gathered in the Pfister Hotel, formal results were meager. There were four official items on the agenda:food security and the weaponization of food, structural overcapacity, most-favored nation (MFN) tariffs, and forced labor. Ministers reached agreement only on the first item and issued a statement on it. There was also a statement on forced labor, but in the end, it was signed only by the United States, Mexico, and Argentina. There was no consensus on the other two topics, although on the margins of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development meeting the following week, 14 countries released a statement on overcapacity, pledging "whenever possible, complementary actions to defend our economies from the negative impact on trade and workers created by structural excess capacity and production." Seven G20 members (Brazil, China, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the African Union) did not sign.
Trump's tariffs were not officially on the agenda, although the MFN issue implicated them indirectly since they have effectively demolished MFN in favor of a reciprocity based system, but I suspect they were a significant topic of conversation among the participants in the many private meetings that occurred. Those discussions, I also suspect, contributed to ministers' reluctance to support the U.S. positions. The G20 members were targets of the forced labor tariffs, and some are also targets of the overcapacity investigation. Ministers had little enthusiasm for supporting U.S. actions that are widely regarded as bullying, particularly when it is their countries that are being bullied.
This was a small episode, but it illustrates the dilemma of Trump's trade policy. He sees himself as a change agent for U.S. trade policy and for the trading system as a whole but is confronted with the reality that most other nations are not interested in climbing aboard his train. It is not unusual for presidents to encounter resistance to their plans, and they have a number of tools to deal with it, including diplomacy and a variety of sticks and carrots. Most presidents begin with diplomacy and then move on to other tactics if it is not successful. Trump, in contrast, usually starts with sticks and then adds more sticks if the first ones don't work. Sometimes that works in the short term, but it leaves resentment in its wake which can come back to bite him later on. In the case of the G20 ministers' meeting, other countries resisted joining the United States in declarations on some issues, including overcapacity and forced labor, because of the way they had been treated, even if the U.S. proposals were reasonable.
Another recent example is the G7 countries' agreement to release 100 million barrels of diesel fuel from their reserves in response to Trump's threat to impose a ban on U.S. diesel exports. One anonymous European official referred to this as "blackmail," which was probably an accurate description. The fact that the United States did not work through the International Energy Agency, which normally coordinates fossil fuel releases, and instead went directly to the G7 nations added insult to injury.
In this case, the tactic worked--sort of. The United States got the commitment to release 100 million barrels, although it is not entirely clear whether those barrels are in addition to the 400 million Europe previously agreed to release or part of it. If it turns out to be the latter, then Trump was outwitted by the wily Europeans, but that may not matter to him because he has already taken credit for the win. In fairness, either way it was also a win for better policy, as the alternative--a ban on U.S. diesel exports--would have been far more disruptive to the global economy, so Trump deserves credit for not doing the stupidest thing others had recommended. Whether the action ultimately lowers diesel prices remains to be seen.
The lesson from these episodes is that tearing down the old system and simultaneously building a new one is complicated. Countries, like people, generally resist change, but unlike people, who are subject to their own government, countries are sovereign entities that do not have to do what someone else tells them. They can be bullied--Trump has proved that--but that often leads to concessions that are more on paper than real and resentment that bubbles up later on.
There is an alternative approach: Develop and strengthen multilateral institutions and rules that enable collective action that is willing rather than forced. That approach is out of favor these days, certainly in the United States but also in other countries. National sovereignty is having a moment. This has happened before, and it does not usually end well. Countries eventually have to relearn lessons they had forgotten and rebuild the institutions they had thrown overboard. It appears we will be going through that cycle again.
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William A. Reinsch is a senior adviser (non-resident) and Scholl Chair emeritus with the Economics Program and Scholl Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at wreinsch7@gmail.com.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/diplomacy-or-coercion
[Category: ThinkTank]
America First Policy Institute Issues Commentary to Wall Street Journal: Health Savings Accounts Can Curb Rising Costs
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on Oct. 12, 2026, to the Wall Street Journal:
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Health Savings Accounts Can Curb Rising Costs
America's employers are bracing for their largest increase in healthcare costs in more than two decades. A new survey from the consulting firm Marsh projects that the average worker's health spending will rise 8.2% next year. That should alarm the roughly 180 million Americans covered by employer-sponsored insurance who will face higher premiums, bigger deductibles and slower wage growth.
Healthcare
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on Oct. 12, 2026, to the Wall Street Journal:
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Health Savings Accounts Can Curb Rising Costs
America's employers are bracing for their largest increase in healthcare costs in more than two decades. A new survey from the consulting firm Marsh projects that the average worker's health spending will rise 8.2% next year. That should alarm the roughly 180 million Americans covered by employer-sponsored insurance who will face higher premiums, bigger deductibles and slower wage growth.
Healthcarecosts have imposed a financial burden on workers and businesses for decades. Between 2001 and 2025, the average cost of medical care for a family of four with employer-based coverage rose 317% from $8,414 to $35,119. A 2024 study estimates that rising premiums cost the average family $125,340 in lost earnings between 1988 and 2019. Meanwhile, the share of workers at small businesses with access to employer-sponsored insurance has fallen from 61.6% to 50.5% since 2008.
To read the full article, click here (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/health-savings-accounts-can-curb-rising-costs-90e537ed).
Originally published by The Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/health-savings-accounts-can-curb-rising-costs-90e537ed)
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The Honorable Bobby Jindal
Chair, Healthy America
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Charlie Katebi
Deputy Director, Veteran Health Policy and Engagement
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Original text here: https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/health-savings-accounts-can-curb-rising-costs/
[Category: ThinkTank]
AFPI Issue Brief Calls for Putting Patients, Not Insurers, in Charge of Health Care Dollars
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (TNSbrep) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release:
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AFPI Issue Brief Calls for Putting Patients, Not Insurers, in Charge of Health Care Dollars
October 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C.-- The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) released a new issue brief, The Patient-First Cure for Lower Costs. This paper examines how outdated federal rules limit Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and how modernizing them, along with sending Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies directly to patients, could lower costs for American families.
The paper finds that
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (TNSbrep) -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release:
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AFPI Issue Brief Calls for Putting Patients, Not Insurers, in Charge of Health Care Dollars
October 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C.-- The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) released a new issue brief, The Patient-First Cure for Lower Costs. This paper examines how outdated federal rules limit Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and how modernizing them, along with sending Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies directly to patients, could lower costs for American families.
The paper finds thatthe cost of health care for the average family with employer coverage has more than tripled since 2001, reaching $35,119 in 2025. It argues that outdated rules keep most workers from using HSAs, and that sending ACA subsidies to insurers rather than patients leaves families with little reason to shop for lower prices.
"Families do better when they control their own health care dollars and keep the savings when they shop wisely," said Gov. Bobby Jindal, Chair, Center for a Healthy America, America First Policy Institute. "Modernizing HSAs would put patients in charge, reward smart choices, and make care more affordable."
The paper calls for opening HSAs to every American and putting subsidy dollars in patients' hands, not insurers'.
To read the full issue brief, click here (https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/the-patient-first-cure-for-lower-costs/).
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Original text here: https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-issue-brief-calls-for-putting-patients-not-insurers-in-charge-of-health-care-dollars/
[Category: ThinkTank]
