In this episode, we interview Sir Mark Lowcock, the former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, about the possibility of the world’s second famine in the 21st century. We discuss the factors driving the current food crisis and what steps nations can take now to avoid millions of people starving by next year. Lowcock is currently a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. He is the author of Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times.
We then discuss all the developments from the last week with China: the Biden-Xi call, Pelosi’s potential trip to Taiwan, and the passage of the CHIPs Act in Congress. We discuss the significance of these events and what they mean for US relations with China.
Also, on the show, we talk about Europe’s energy crisis and the latest developments as the continent struggles to prepare for winter.
Topics Discussed in this Episode
Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode
US-China Relations
European Energy Crisis: Winter is Coming Part Deux
Interview with Sir Mark Lowcock
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Show Website: www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com
Follow Us
In this episode, we interview Sir Mark Lowcock, the former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, about the possibility of the world’s second famine in the 21st century. We discuss the factors driving the current food crisis and what steps nations can take now to avoid millions of people starving by next year. Lowcock is currently a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. He is the author of Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times.
We then discuss all the developments from the last week with China: the Biden-Xi call, Pelosi’s potential trip to Taiwan, and the passage of the CHIPs Act in Congress. We discuss the significance of these events and what they mean for US relations with China.
Also, on the show, we talk about Europe’s energy crisis and the latest developments as the continent struggles to prepare for winter.
Topics Discussed in this Episode
Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode
US-China Relations
European Energy Crisis: Winter is Coming Part Deux
Interview with Sir Mark Lowcock
Follow Us
Show Website: www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com
Follow Us
Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics, a podcast on current events in US foreign policy and international affairs. My name is Dr. Anita Kellogg, an international relations scholar specializing in the relationship between economics and national security. I'm here with my co-host, Ryan Kellogg, an expert in energy investment and policy. I'm glad to be back. So this is episode 16 and we're recording this on July 30, 2022. Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sir Mark Lowcock, the former Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, about the possibility of the world's second famine in the 21st century. We discussed what are the factors driving the current food crisis and what steps nations can take now to avoid millions of people starving by next year. This week has seen a lot of energy over China, with the Biden-Xi call, Pelosi's potential trip to Taiwan, and the passage of the CHIPS Act in the Congress. We discussed the significance of these events and what they mean for US relations with China. Also on the show, we talked about Europe's energy crisis and how it would weather a winter without Russian natural gas. So our time is consumed with you having COVID this past week. Yeah, finally caught the runoff. It was funny because the weekend before had lunch with a former colleague from California. We both kind of asked whether we had had corona yet and we both hadn't. And sure enough, within a couple of days, I got first positive test. Fortunately, I had very mild symptoms, vaccinated, boosted, and then actually went on the antiviral, Paxlovid, within the first couple of days after testing positive. But it wasn't fun. You had to stay isolated. See, I think that was harder on me than it was you. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, because you were out here. We're not in a big condo. So it's hard to isolate. So fortunately, you gave up the bedroom, which I appreciate. Slipped well. You were out here in the living room on the mattress with two crazy cats running around keeping you up half the night. So I do appreciate your sacrifice to my health. I'm glad. It was a sacrifice for sure. I kept praying every time you took a test, please be negative. Please be negative. I need my bed back. Yeah, but you know, fortunately, I mean, it's a miracle of modern science. I mean, these vaccines, the booster, I think even the Paxlovid, I mean, the mild symptoms they had in the first place, which were like low fever and general achiness and fatigue, all the things that you hear about, you know, more or less went away by the third day, I think due to the antiviral and, you know, knocking wood, everything's been good. Had the Paxlovid rebound. It's good. I know. President Biden just reported that he had it. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that. You guys had it at the same time. We did. Yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of jokes from my colleagues that we're hanging out with. We're hanging out with Biden. It's like, not that I didn't go, but, you know, Washington's a small town. You never know. That's too funny. I didn't know that. No, now I'm just worried. We have some upcoming travel in August. And so now I'm worried that Becca and I will get it while traveling or because of traveling. So that's what I'm nervous about. Yeah. Yeah. That wouldn't be great. We should probably think about, yeah, the contingency planes around if that does happen. What fun is thinking about contingency planes? Yeah. So I wanted to start with the China issues that came up this week. It was really busy. I wanted to begin with the event that generated the most press coverage, which is Pelosi's potential trip to Taiwan, because everything in Taiwan is controversial. So basically, there are a couple of questions related to this. Why does she want to go to Taiwan? And why do we have the China reaction? Why is China so upset about this? And it goes back to the one China policy, which I think is not well understood. In fact, there was a Senator, Democrat Senator, I believe I'm seeing in, saying that we recognize Taiwan as a sovereign and independent country, which we actually do not. And that would probably lead to war with Beijing. So it's really important, I think, to understand what the one China policy is. And it specifically says the US recognizes the PRC as the sole legal government of China, but only acknowledges the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China. So the United States maintains formal relations with the PRC and has unofficial relations with Taiwan. And so that's sort of what Pelosi's visit upsets, because it looks like formal relations instead of unofficial relations. So basically, the US doesn't agree with Beijing's claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, but it won't agree with Taipei that the ROC is an independent sovereign state. So I mean, it's a really tight rope. Yeah, at the same time, this isn't unprecedented, right? So even at this level, because there's obviously members of Congress visit Taiwan on an almost continuous basis. But back in 1997, Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, made a visit to Taiwan. What makes this more significant than that, or more of a provocation than that? Right before I get to that question, I want to talk about the other relevant provision and help explain things. So in 1979, under the Carter administration, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which how do we continue relations in the absence of diplomatic ties? And basically, it says that the US would only accept reunification on peaceful means, but also talks about these unofficial communications are in the realm of economics and trade and security. So the United States is allowed to have, give Taiwan weapons and counsel them with military means. So basically, when congressmen go to Taiwan, usually it's related to trade deals. And thus, China doesn't get upset about that. In terms of what's different between this and Newt Greenbridge, I think they were pretty upset in 1997 about Newt Gingrich. As you say, I suppose the only difference is they have more power now. But tensions are really high between the US and China in 1997. I mean, I would say the only time that they've been similar to this. So I don't know if I would call it precedented because one other house speaker went and it was controversial. Because this is right after, was that 96 when you had the kind of the response? I don't remember all the details of it. This is when Clinton kind of established and sent an aircraft carrier group. Right. So the Chinese military began pushing further into Taiwanese space, naval space, particularly at the time. And so the US hadn't made a firm commitment, whether they would defend Taiwan militarily. So there was a lot of speculation about what the US would do. And then, yeah, towards the, I believe end of 96 is when Bill Clinton redirected one of the naval fleets to monitor that area. Right. So then that later year, yeah, you had the visit from Yeah, I remember this well, because that was the topic upon which I won Arkansas State Debate Championship. So you're laughing at me, but that's, that's how I remember that issue really well. It's very impressive. We're very impressed. Yeah, you should be up there with like Elizabeth Warren, you know, she won her, she won Oklahoma State. Oh, I see. Okay. I didn't know that connection there. Oh, yeah, of course. So the date was, I believe, supposed to be in February, but got postponed because policy had COVID. So there's also the problem of the timing in August. August first is the anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the Communist Party. And this means that China to say face has to have some sort of response, maybe a stronger response than would be typical. And you also have Xi, who is seeking his third and expected to have his third five year term in office at the party Congress later at the year. So the timing is particularly problematic. And a lot of analysts I read thought that this trip should be moved to January, where it'd be after she's party Congress, and things would be a lot more quiet. So it's notable that Taiwan has been silent. They have not endorsed the visit because they don't want to aggravate tensions. But they also don't want it seemed like China's intimidation tactics worked, which is in some ways the position the US is in, because it's not a good idea to go. The military is very against it. But no one wants to look like we back down to China. So how would China, how could China react? Well, there's a good chance that they will look for a military response that could be seen as strong, but not so aggressive that it would provoke a larger conflict. China has threatened actually to not allow Pelosi's plane to land in Taiwan, but no one thinks they will go that far. The more controversial idea that has been thrown around is that they could shadow Ms. Pelosi's plane and cross into Taiwan controlled airspace. In a less provocative move, it would be sending aircraft down the median line in the middle of the straight separating China and Taiwan. And this did happen before in 2020 when there was a cabinet secretary who visited Taiwan. So it's important Pelosi has a long history of supporting Taiwan, which of course, the United States is interested in continuing doing, but there are much better ways to just sending a top military officer or extending a bilateral trade agreement. All these things that follow into the cooperation of the US has a long history with Taiwan. I mean, what are the odds that she'll actually go through with this visit? And I know I read some discussion that Biden actually hasn't directly spoken with her because he's real conscious of the separation of power, which Beijing doesn't really kind of buy into that they think that this is a purposely provocative act and that, you know, the whole faint of saying, well, the White House is against this, is advised against this. So apparently, I mean, Pelosi's team has met with the officials from Pentagon and others who have kind of dissuaded them or tried to dissuade them from making the trip. But what do you think ultimately she'll decide? Do you think this trip will actually happen or is it too late to back down? Will that back down look like weakness? I think there's a 40% chance that she will go through with it. Okay, 40% how you come up with that? That's very exact. Yes. So I think the military, her meeting with the Pentagon will have a big influence on that decision. And, you know, reading about her history too, although she's made some provocative acts in supporting Taiwan before, she also is pretty savvy and sophisticated. And I just don't see her necessarily going against military, the Pentagon's advice. But there's still a chance she might. So that's the 40%. Yeah. Okay. No, that sounds reasonable. So there's also the Biden-Xi call on Thursday. It was two hours, which in itself is pretty notable. And as I said, in a piece for the voice of America, one of the disappointments of the call, I think is that it did not actually change anything. And one thing that surprised me, and even more so, I think long-term China analyst, is that Biden is essentially continuing Trump's policy on China. There's been no shift or alteration in that in that course. And so relationships, our relationship intentions remain as high as I think that they have been at least in our lifetime. Yeah. No, I don't think there's been a real fundamental shift. And it seems like we've kind of struggled, although, honestly, it's not that surprising because I think this and our policy around Ukraine are the only unifying elements, either on domestic policy or foreign policy that both sides of the aisle within the United States seem to agree upon. So taking an aggressive stance towards China and generally continuing to see most of the Trump administration policy, I mean, I'm not surprised just because the alternative is politically unpalatable currently. That being said, it doesn't seem like the dome elements, because there are plenty of dome elements to the Trump policy towards China that those haven't been reversed. I know you're particularly passionate around the sanction elements, particularly in a time of inflation. And that doesn't seem to have come up a lot in the conversation. And they're supposed to tear us. Yeah. That was one of the disappointing. A lot of people thought that there would be an agreement this week of an agreement over lowering tariffs. So just as a refresher, even though I mentioned it many times on the episode, just general across the board, tariffs on Chinese imports went from like 3% to I don't know, I can't remember exact number like 27. And while lowering those back to normal levels would not have a significant effect on inflation, it would have like a one or 2.8%. And that's still significant. Plus, there's no good reason to have those tariffs. We didn't gain anything from them. There's no political wins in there for us or for China. And so it's disappointing that they still have not come to an agreement with that. And kind of just inexplicable to me. And I think a lot of people that was Trump's quote, trade war, that eventually he decided was too much effort to win and moved on to other focuses. And so we got nothing for it. And the Biden administration has said before, we want something from China if we relieve these tariffs. But the whole point is that these don't work. Trade wars don't work. And the continuation is frustrating from an economic perspective. Right. Right. Yeah. So I think, I mean, the piece that I read, and we'll link to in the show notes, quite lengthy, but I was impressed with it was written by analysts at the Atlantic Council and really laid out clearly all the reasons why the relationship is kind of at a low point and all the things that honestly that prevent because of just these natural differences in world views and national goals between the two superpowers, there's going to be points of disagreement. There's a points where the US and the West are going to have to push back. But at the same time, it outlined good 10 items around where cooperation is absolutely necessary. And in the interest of both nations, I don't get a good feel for how much around those areas of cooperation and that that two and a half hour call is really focused on. I'm thinking the chief things that are always brought up and are clear items around climate change and around global health and around kind of managing pandemics going forward. But I was really impressed with the level of detail and the nuance with some of the suggestions, particularly around health and reestablishing that relationship that existed prior to 2020. It's a good, it's a positive sign that the United States has reengaged or rejoined organizations like the World Health Organization, but obviously there were flaws in it. And the China, because of the lack of US engagement within organizations like the UN have co-opted and gained power within these international institutions. But for the US, a lot of it, and we've talked about this before, is they just haven't engaged when you back away from these institutions. Naturally, China is going to attempt to fill that void. And it's that lack of engagement with these institutions. So a lot of, I think, smart ingestions around, one of it was around essentially creating the health equivalent of the international nuclear inspection agency to have that that works with the WHO, but separate from it, but essentially goes in and audits the health maintenance, where there are pandemics. But I thought, it was basically having an independent agency that goes in, make sure that everybody is in compliance with these global health standards to help prevent pandemics from breaking out in the future. It's still crazy to me that the US had a presence as part of the World Health Organization in the same lab that discovered coronavirus up to six months before. But Trump, as he was withdrawing from the WHO, had withdrew that observing team. And it did get mentioned, but I don't think it got emphasized enough, because if that team had been there, we would have known about coronavirus from the very beginning. And so our lack of participation and the decisions to withdraw and not engage internationally have huge consequences. Yeah, so for sure. So the article is Cooperation with China Challenges and Opportunities by Michael Schumann and David Schellman. So we'll provide a link to that. But I liked it. It was balanced, it did it. It laid out in very clear detail all the challenges to the liberal world order that China poses and all of the aggressive actions that she has taken since 2014 to subvert that world order. But at the same time, acknowledging in a pragmatic way, hey, these are these areas we incorporate. This is how we can still stay engaged with China. And I think it goes back to, which I do like as a kind of founding focus in essentially what Blinken said around our policy. But I'm just not seeing the evidence of it. But back in May, he said, our relationship with China will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be. And I think that's the balance we're clearly struggling to see now. Well, because we're making everything adversarial. Yeah, everything I think is adversarial right now. And that's what's disappointing, right? It's not that there's not a lot of competition and that there are strategic challenges and that China is making all these aggressive actions. But we can't we can't address these challenges through the mostly adversarial attitude. I mean, for one, because you can't get the other country to work with you when you're like that, right? You can't find ways to even get better ability to have better trade deals with more accountable, you know, where you can check or have stronger enforcement mechanisms when everything is just seen as us versus them so much. And I think that's what's important to want cooperation or to see anything better. It doesn't mean that you are glossing over all this, you know, bad things China is doing. Right, exactly. We deal with a lot of countries that do terrible things. And normally we look at while we're dealing with them because it's in our strategic interests. And so yeah, because there's plenty of things in this cooperation. This is still in the United States best interest around these issues of cooperation around health and climate change, obviously. Yeah, I mean, I think in general, these just being purely adversarial is not in a nation's best interest in general. So anyway, yes, I agree that unfortunately, it's a balance we haven't really gotten correctly. So the other big news regarding China, although maybe a little bit more indirectly, was the passage of the CHIPS Act in Congress. And basically, this is an industrial policy to bring back semiconductor manufacturing of microchips to the country. And $52 billion was allotted in subsidies and incentives to do this. Now, economists and political economists are always a little bit skeptical of industrial policies, because there is a reason that manufacturing has moved to other countries over the years, primarily higher labor costs in America, which means that our comparative advantage lies in more sophisticated parts of the supply chain, such as the design software and fundamental research, which we overwhelmingly dominate right now. Plus, I think it should be noted that the majority of CHIPS are not manufactured in China, but they're manufactured in Taiwan. So Taiwan is also not thrilled about this bill, because basically, we're competing with Taiwan. The interesting part of it, and the more positive part, is $200 billion goes to broader scientific research with a focus on cutting edge fields, such as artificial intelligence and fusion energy. So even before the Trump administration, but accelerating during it, there has been a lot of withdrawing funding from basic science and science research. And so this helps correct the balance, because if you want to be competitive, you have to do what you're good at. I mean, I think so much of our adversarial trade attitudes are because we're not confident at what we can do, what we have an comparative advantage of, and one of it is funding the sort of education. So that's definitely a good part of the bill. The controversial part is that one provision of it prevents recipients of the funding from expanding advanced CHIP capacity in China in the next 10 years. So this is kind of a deliberate provocative action towards China. You normally would not see any provision like this. And it's just notable that companies like Intel, which is American, I think in Samsung, are part of the manufacturing process in CHIPs in China. And so that's the kind of companies that would be most effective by such a measure. And it's kind of, again, inefficient economics, and it's not really clear how that will be enforced. Right. Yeah. Now, I think what stood out to me is one, you know, this does represent a pretty significant step. It's been a long time since the U.S. has had a significant industrial policy, a national industrial policy, and putting this amount of money to it. And I think the other thing that stood out is between this and the infrastructure bill, which also had very large provisions for kind of core research and development, particularly around energy, is the amount of funding going to the National Science Foundation, to the Department of Energy, around these very core levels of research, which are critical. I mean, every single breakthrough technology that has kind of transformed the United States over the last 50 years has usually had its root in government-funded research. That's true for the Internet. That's true for hydraulic frackering. Just so many elements, you know, go back to that, that basic core research. And I think that you mentioned only the provision around anybody that takes this money essentially is prevented from investing in China over a 10-year period. But the entire act itself is a counter to China's Made in 2025 plan announced by Xi, probably four or five years ago, which focused on one, you know, establishing advanced semiconductor manufacturing capability, as well as the very same things that were spending this $200 billion in terms of core research around artificial intelligence and cutting edge, because we're seeing as falling behind in certain elements on artificial intelligence. I think the whole bill itself is a counter to China. I have a couple of thoughts on that, though. So I think it's important to note that China's Made in 2025 does not have any provisions about you cannot also invest in manufacturing plants in the United States. So there's no mention of another specific... Yeah, hell, I was thinking you had technology transfer. I mean, we're the ones who had the advanced technologies. Actually, we want... I mean, we want the better technology for the manufacturing process. So we're looking for better technology also, and that's part of the research development. But here's the thing about our confidence. It's not in China's economic interest either to be building manufacturing plants, and they have not necessarily made a lot of gains in that. You should do what your comparative interest is. Now, China does have lower labor costs, so they might be able to find an advantage in that. But the real issue in terms of national security is that most of it's in Taiwan. And so the fear is that if there was a war, China tried to take back Taiwan, then we would lose the major source. But the answer to that is almost never reshoring production, which is economically inefficient. Basically, we should balance this with investing in plants with our allies. And so we should be diversifying the supply, not trying to bring... Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think as long as it's secure within trusted allies' nations, it should be in those areas that have the most competitive advantage. But yeah, diversifying outside of Taiwan, I fully support because that's just so vulnerable to... But you want to have a diverse supply for everything. You don't want to have to rely on one country for any good or any material. So you should encourage investments and diversification of supplies. And that's really the main takeaway has been shown for studies on national security. The problem is in popular culture and the popular sentiment is, well, we need to bring those things home. Well, the problem is the inefficiency means that you will not manufacture as much as you would as if you were investing in other countries with lower labor costs. Yeah, I fully support. I mean, it's actually the only 20% of the bill. Right. It is. But yeah, it's a giveaway essentially. And I think every article I've read recognized it's got a lot of waste and inefficiency, particularly on that element of it. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So on to our next topic, the European energy crisis. This is something that you definitely have been following a lot more closely than I have. So why don't you start us off? Yeah. So this is, you know, Europe's really racing the clock currently, trying to establish as much storage, gas supply storage as possible before the upcoming winter. And Russia has been using its strategic position. We've talked about this before. So in terms of the importance between oil and gas for Russia, oil is far more important, you know, far more of the revenue for Russia is coming from there. For gas, it's much more strategically valuable for Russia because of European vulnerability. So what we've seen play out over the last month is that Russia has been using the repairs to Nord Stream one. So remember, we talked about once earlier about Nord Stream two and kind of the approval process for that. So stepping back, Europe receives the majority of its gas supplies from Russia via overland pipelines. There were five active pipelines prior to the start of the war. Now Europe is down to just three pipelines. So any single pipeline going down or reducing its capacity has like a massive impact on the markets. So about a month ago, Nord Stream one went down for repairs. The other thing that Russia is doing in this is they're still very conscious of not wanting to actively violate the contracts that gas prom has with European nations. So they make up excuses, they kind of go around trying to blame things either for technical reasons or regulatory reasons, basically put the blame back on Europe that, hey, we're not the bad guys here, we're not restricting gas supply. We're trying to fill this kind of, we want to give you the gas, but we're just not able to. But it's clear that one thing after another is piled up. It's clear that Russia is using this as a weapon against Europe. Unsurprisingly. Also, they don't have to lose much money because the way it's driving up prices, they can sell less and still have revenue. Yeah, they definitely, they're getting because actually Europe negotiated this, which annoyed Russia back in the early 2010s as they went to a more spot market based price instruction instead of a long-term kind of fixed price. When gas was cheap, that was to Europe's advantage. And annoyed Russia, but now spot prices are huge, partially because Russia's restricting supply. So they're making as much money, not that they make a huge amount of revenue off the gas, but they're not losing it. Yeah, so it's great. It's great for them. So Nord Stream 1 came back on, came back on at 40% capacity, which is what it was down to before. But over the last week, they've actually restricted it even further. So it's only 20% capacity. So all of this means that the natural gas coming from Russia, which is once Europe's largest source of the fuel is less than a third of what it was a year ago. So Europe is now struggling in order to reach kind of, they have a continent wide goal of trying to get 80% capacity of their underground gas storage. They really need, because of all the various constraints and pipelines that prevent kind of a efficient way of moving gas around the continent. So everybody is kind of pushing for this. And I'd say Germany is in the one of the worst positions of all, because they were one of the most dependent on Russian gas, Nord Stream 1 directly feeds into Germany. So once this capacity was announced, one of the first things that the EU did led by Germany was to institute a 15% reduction. And they negotiated this with the 27 member countries. Obviously, the people that weren't as dependent on gas were kind of loath to reduce 15%. What do you mean by 15% reduction? So it's, they took an average of the last five years of total gas usage on the continent. And they agreed to a 15% cut of that five year average. Now, it's not spread evenly. So obviously Germany has to take more restrictions than others. And Hungary was the loan holdout for the longest. So they have a complete carve out where they aren't giving up anything. Plus they maintain Russia's favor essentially. So they also get gas at much lower prices. So this is all part of Putin's strategy to divide Europe as much as possible. Another example of where you see this division emerging is the German government has officially petitioned the Dutch government to reverse its position regarding the Groningen natural gas field. I talked about Groningen before. I used to work there in the early 2000s. So largest natural gas field in Western Europe and is in the process of being shut down because of local earthquakes caused an area. So the Dutch government have kind of responded to this and said, no, we're not going to do that. The Dutch and their newspaper, which I went back and kind of read the Nederlands Dagsblad, they basically said, hey, we're good for this winter. We're meeting our gas supply. And anyway, Germany, we don't have the spirit capacity and the pipeline shipping to you to really make that much of a difference. So unless it's a extreme crisis, we're not going to increase production from the Groningen natural gas field, even though where they could go would make up a full 40% of German natural gas needs. So you could add a lot of extra capacity if you were to increase the production at the Groningen field. Now, whether you get it to Germany in the time that needs to refill its underground gas storage before winter, that's an open question. It must also not be beneficial enough economically for the Netherlands to do that. Because if it was, it seems like that's a strategy they would pursue. Yeah, I think it was a little confusing. I think it's definitely that. The one part that they did mention was, as it gets closer to winter, and if Russia were to continue to have the Nord Stream one at a very low capacity or to shut it off completely, then that would further bid up prices and would create inter-country competition around, including between like the Netherlands and Germany around gas supplies. So basically, the analysts that I read was that Europe's actually in an okay shape. So overall, they have 65% of the capacity for the underground gas storage units filled already, but they need everything to go almost perfectly for it to work out. I have a question. So I'm still just trying to get what these details look like. So if you're reducing your gas by 15%, where are you reducing that from? And do you have new energy sources? Yeah. So essentially, what they're doing is they're turning on coal plants. So I think that's the biggest source. You've seen that both in France. The other thing that was interesting with France, France famously reliant on nuclear energy over 50% of its electricity comes down, but a very large portion of those plants are currently down for maintenance. So France itself has had to turn on coal plants. Obviously, Germany has famously got rid of its nuclear plants, so they've been reactivating coal. So everybody is reactivating coal to the point where the IEA has actually come out and the estimate for global demand is back up to its peak in 2013. So the global demand for coal has been huge. The other place was around the time of the high oil prices, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the other place you're seeing is because so much of the LNG volume from the US and the Middle East is being redirected to Europe that Asia also is resorting back to turning on these coal plants to make up for that shortage. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And so yes, that's why everyone is concerned about the effect on climate change from the war, which on one hand you can see how countries have no other choice but to do this. But as we'll talk about later, the effects of climate change seem existential, but they're actually very braille and causing unrest now in the present term. Yeah, it's a very difficult balance. But obviously, Europe is focused on the short-term needs of the next six months. So this austerity measure, which has Germans being asked to take cold showers, I think France is instituted. So it'd be interesting to see if we actually see this, but they're beginning to find businesses on keeping certain commercial lights on in the evening, of leaving the door open, if they have air conditioning running. I laugh because can you imagine if they tried to do this in the US? Oh, yeah. I mean, Carter famously tried that. And if that didn't seal his deal for getting stomped in 1980, I don't know what did. That was this old wear and a sweater and saying, oh, turn, turn, turn down. I think there wasn't actually any enforcement of that. No. And I don't know how France is going to enforce it either or Germany. I mean, even in drought conditions, I remember when California would put these limits on how much water neighborhoods could use, and you would actually see rich neighborhoods like Beverly Hills and other places use more water just as a kind of like FU to the government. Yeah, yeah. That's American. Yeah. So I see, I mean, obviously, in a country like France too, where you had the famous yellow vest protest around fuel prices. The other thing that governments have been doing is trying, especially on the utility side, is to shield consumers from these price increases. But it seems like that is running out. So by this winter, consumers are actually going to feel more of the full brunt of these increases. Because I mean, gas prices, for instance, are seven times higher than they were a year ago in most of Europe. Yeah, for obvious reasons. Right. So I think, you know, Russia is playing its hand very well around this. It'll be interesting to see the things that have to go right, essentially, you know, one, hurricane season needs to be mild in the Gulf of Mexico. So no LNG exports are delayed coming from the US. And then two, you can't have a severe winter in Europe. If that happens, then you do approach kind of crisis levels. Maybe not within the developed countries, which I think will always, you know, have the resources to outbid and get additional gas supplies actually running out of gas. I don't think you're going to see anywhere in Europe. But I know Germany has expressed concerns that you have prices go too hot. I mean, one, you begin to see an impact on their industries that are used to this cheap gas. Right. So they're actually shifting, you know, there was one example around some of their steel manufacturing where other inputs, but basically they're having to shift sort of the intermediary steps of that manufacturing process to Canada, where gas prices are much cheaper and then import in that intermediary product from Canada. So you're seeing kind of these shifts within the supply chain manufacturing process in response already. Kind of interesting too, just again, how climate change is affecting us now, not just something in the future, which growing up, that's, you know, it always seemed like it was so far in the future, but really severe winters and severe hurricanes are effects of climate change. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It definitely doesn't help. And then coal makes it worse. We're just beginning the hurricane. I mean, I think it's been relatively quiet so far, because normally you will get some early storms. That starts in November. No, it ends around November. It usually starts around this time. Yeah. So that'll be, that'll definitely be the thing to watch is, does that either interrupt the shipments or knock, or worse, kind of knock out some of the terminals on the Gulf Coast. Right. So both bad. So onto our final topic, which is my interview with Sir Mark Lowcock. So we talked a bit on the show about the ongoing world food crisis that is particularly been harshly affecting areas of the Middle East and Northern Africa. One thing he points out is the only other famine that's occurred in the 21st century was the Somali famine in 2011. And so we are headed in that direction. And some of those factors have nothing to do with the Russia-Ukraine war. So those are sort of again, climate change resulting in poor harvest, poor in droughts, and unrest in those areas in general. So you already have those conditions, and then they're expedited by the Russia-Ukraine war. So as we mentioned, Russia is a leading exporter of wheat, barley, corn, and sunflower. Its shipments of these things, its harvest of these things have been in warehouses for the last five months or so and unable to get those to market, because Russia has been blocking those ports. So recently, there was a deal between Russia, Turkey, the United Nations and able to get these deliveries out of these ports. And that includes getting Russian exports of many of these same goods out. And when motivation appears to be that the places that are hardest hit are also partners of Moscow, so many of these countries in the Middle East and North Africa, such as Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. And there's a concern that it could destabilize the region as it did during the spring. And like I said, its own exports. So part of the deal or kind of like a side deal that was negotiated with this is that the easing of sanctions on Russian agricultural exports. And so in 2021, Russia earned $11 billion from exporting grain and with prices even higher than they would probably maybe make more money. So it's important because we've talked about sanctions on Russian food exports and fertilizer, something I've been very critical of. And so I think it's significant that this was a side deal and being able to get all that grain out of the Ukrainian warehouses. Is it comes up in the interview too that there's a lot of effort being made to prevent a massive famine? That would be much, much worse than Somalia because it would affect at least a dozen countries and not just one. So did you have any other thoughts, Ryan, before we air the interview? No, looking forward to your conversation. All right. Well, here it is. I'm here with Sir Mark Lowcock, the former Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and now a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development. His memoir, Relief Chief, and manifests so for saving lives and dire times details his time in that role from 2017 to 2021. I found it to be an insightful look into some of the worst humanitarian crises during that time period and a guide to how we can better respond to crises now and lessen their likelihood in the future. If you are interested in learning more about any of the topics we discuss, I recommend that you check it out. You can find a link to the book and the show notes for this episode. Hello, Mark. It is a pleasure to welcome you to the show. Mark Lowcock Hi, Anita. Great to talk to you. Anita So for my first question, I was wondering if you could describe the state of the current food crisis and provide perspective on how it compares to other crises in the past. Mark Lowcock Well, what we have right now is the world's worst global food crisis for many decades. If you go back a very, very long way, you observe historically that famines and mass loss of life through starvation were very common for most of humanity for 99% of the era during which the species has been on the planet for 50,000 years. But something really remarkable has happened over the last 25 years or so, which is that famines, which used to be ubiquitous, have become extremely rare. Now they are back. They are back not just because of Putin, but because of the combination of the effects of Putin's invasion of Ukraine together with the pre-existing crises arising from conflict and climate change and the effect on very poor countries of the pandemic. So we have 830 million people now have a point of starvation around the planet. That's nearly 250 million more than was the case seven years ago in 2015. And we face a recurrence of something that almost disappeared from the world, which is mass loss of life through starvation. There's only been one famine in the world so far this century when a quarter of a million Somalis lost their lives in 2011. But if we're not careful, we are going to see this huge problem, this most extreme form of humanitarian disaster back in multiple places over the next year or so. So before we talk about how to mitigate it, I wanted to talk about some of the contributing causes. In particular, I wanted to bring up sanctions. In your chapter on Syria, and in some of your recent talks, you mentioned the complexity of the issue. And on one hand, you talk about the fact that the very purpose of sanctions is to do harm. You also point out that they can make it more difficult to deliver humanitarian aid to those who need it. On the other hand, at a talk at Oxford last month, you were asked about the consequences of sanctions on Russia, specifically. You emphasize the usefulness of sanctions in the process of post-war negotiations to gain a lasting peace. This is something I completely agree with and is supported by the literature on sanctions. You also said that sanctions are a means to condemn behavior. But to what extent is that useful versus the humanitarian costs of imposing them, especially when those costs are not limited to the countries directly involved in the war? Could you share your thoughts on this? That's a complicated question. And I think it's important to run through a few basic principles about how countries ought to think through their policy formation. The first thing is, when a very bad thing happens like Putin's invasion of Ukraine, it's important not just to let it pass. You do have to find ways of conveying your horror and outrage. And in the case of what Putin's done in Ukraine, you have to resist, because otherwise, all the evidence points to the likelihood that he would continue. So the second thing, though, is you do have to think carefully about who is going to be affected by what you do. So I don't actually have many criticisms of the regime that's been put in place to deal with what Putin has done, particularly now that the countries that have put the sanctions in place are doing a lot to make sure that the countries were affected by the food crisis are able to find a way through. The US government, in particular, in the Congress, has done a lot to try to free up the global food situation to enable the world to extract the 20 million tons of grain that is stuck in Ukraine silos and to make everybody understand that Putin has taken his own measures to prevent the export of fertilizers, which is reducing agricultural productivity. So he's done some things not just indirectly, but directly to make the global food situation worse. And he seems to be resisting negotiations that are maybe making some progress now because the pressure to be brought there on him to allow that 20 million tons of food out of Ukraine. What all this points to is you have to be really careful in the way you design your sanctions regime and try to make sure that you're not harming people who you don't want to harm. And that proves to be sometimes much more difficult than you think as you get into it. And then you have to adjust and respond in a different way. But broadly speaking, I think that the way Western countries have responded has been thoughtful and has been aware of the risks in this case. It's good to hear that you feel like countries, which have lived in the US, have considered this and are doing ways to mitigate it. Do you think that it will be enough to prevent a famine? Well, I think it's in balance, is the short answer to your question. Three months ago, I thought there was a substantial risk, actually, of multiple famines playing out this year because the combination of great existing conditions in places like the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Yemen, Afghanistan, together with the price hike for food and the diversion of eight resources from those very vulnerable countries to deal with Ukraine was adding up to a very toxic combination. What's happened in the last couple of months is there has to be a lot more commitment to providing money and food to the countries closest to famines. So it's possible this year, if that money that's been committed is dispersed quickly enough, that we will avoid the worst. But there will still be very severe medium term problems to deal with, which are not adequately being dealt with yet. In particular, the replacement of Russian-Ukrainian grain production, which I think is not likely in those countries in the short term, the replacement of it in other places is taken too long. And the input costs for the farmer's face, including for fertilizers, I mean, Africa fertilize at prices of travel are posted out of reach for many farmers. That together with the fact that we still have obligations on farmers in some countries to plant food crops rather than for food. In other words, the biofuel mandates probably need to be unwound. That together with the fact that there are some countries, China's a prime example, which ought to be releasing some of their strategic reserves to grain onto the market to help the price come down a bit. So more countries can afford food. That isn't happening. So there's a combination of things which if they were dealt with, would ease the position for 2023 onwards. But I'm not happy at the moment. So even if we survive this year without major families, we're not out of the woods. Right. So how could we possibly speed up the finding ways to have new production of wheat and grain? So you mentioned fertilizer prices. Is there anything else specifically that countries can do to try to have enough production in other countries? Well, enough countries with the potential to produce more food need to make sure that farmers have the right incentives. That applies in North America. So the biofuel issue, the mandate issue I just referred to is over there. It applies also in South America. It applies in European Union countries. And then there will need to be more measures taken to compensate for the likely lack of availability in many countries or fertilizer inputs from Russia for the next year or two. And there are other sources of some of the key ingredients of fertilizer. Canada has lots of the relevant, whether it's phosphates or other ingredients of fertilizer. So more things need to happen on all those fronts. There's also need for a continuation of what has been one of the actually main reasons why we've moved from a position where family was ubiquitous around the world. Most of human history is now being very rare, which is the next phase of the green revolution, where there's a lot, needs to be a lot more research and agriculture technology development, as well as better economic incentives for farmers in countries with deficits, which also don't have diverse economies so that they can't go on to the international grain markets with lots of cash they've raised in other ways to import food. So that combination of agriculture development and faster general economic development in the countries vulnerable to food prices reaching extreme levels, which famines are, there needs to be a bigger effort on that, building on what happened for much of the 50 years from 1960. But what has tailed off in the last 10 years? Yeah. So shifting it just a little bit, again, one of the things that I've really kind of focused on or been interested in is also, especially because this is sort of a geopolitical conflict, it has very broad reaching effects. So as world leaders, such as President Biden have emphasized that the Russia-Ukraine war is not just a European war, but a global one from democracy. And at the same time, the costs go beyond Europe as well. How can we re-conceptualize conflict? So you made the point in your book that at least 30 countries were involved in the Syrian civil war, including boots on the ground by both Russia and the United States. In some sense, we might have a two-near definition of conflict that we just focus on the direct sides that are involved. So do you think we can come up with a better conceptualization to include a broader set of actors or indirect actors? We've seen a number of adverse trends over the last 10 years or so. So we have seen greater willingness of third parties to interfere in the internal affairs of civil wars, basically. We've seen that in Yemen, where there's been regional actors and also the wider international community being involved. We also saw it in Syria, as you say, I talked about in the book. As we saw it in Nagorno-Karabakh, we've seen it in Ethiopia and all the Ethiopia where Turkey's been supplying drones and other equipment to the government of Ethiopia, which have been used to attack Tigrayan minorities there. What we've also seen over the last 10, 15 years or so is more nationally driven factors coming to play in conflict. So across the Sahel, which was unfortunately burst into a series of quite violent and far-reaching conflicts across many countries now, we, I think, have to trace the origins of the problems there to a combination of very low levels of development, extreme poverty, growing pressure on natural resources. So we've seen more variability in the climate, which means that fewer farmers can grow enough food most seasons and fewer pasture lists can access enough pasture. So you get competition over water resources and land and pasture resources. That leads to grievances. That opens the space for conflict. And into that have come increasingly extremist groups and jihadi groups with their ruthless ideology, which has undermined the progress towards development that has happened in the rest of the world. So the thing about conflicts is they're all different. They all have local factors. If they're to be contained, it requires effective action to keep the vast mass of the population on site by their national authorities. But it also requires the wider world, neighbors and the whole international community, to avoid doing things which inflame matters. And we've seen too much of that over the last 10 years or so, particularly in the Middle East, Libya, Yemen, Syria, but also increasingly in the Sahel and Bales across Africa. Yeah, as you were talking, I was thinking about two countries. Look, you talk about the difficulty of humanitarian aid reaching certain countries because of the governments and certainly the risk to humanitarian workers. I was thinking, reminding me of the crisis we hear about emerging in Afghanistan. Do you have any comments or thoughts on that particular crisis? I think the Western countries are being rather slow in coming to terms with the fact that they're going to need to having had this humiliating expulsion from Afghanistan work out a way and reach to engage with what the practical, state-facto authorities in Afghanistan are now. And there's an unpleasant dilemma on the one hand, if the world decides it doesn't want the Afghan people simply to be put in a position where they are likely on mass to starve to death because Afghanistan can't produce enough of its own food and doesn't have access to foreign exchange, either its own or anyone else's to be able to import enough. If you want to do something about that, there's no alternative but to engaging with telephonic authorities. And it is worth people asking what are the consequences of not finding a way to engage? One of them is the position of women and girls who we all say we're particularly concerned about, as I eat to deteriorate because however bad the situation is for people at large in Afghanistan, it's going to be worse of all women and girls. And secondly, run the risk of spillover effects and contagion, potentially large people movements affecting what's already quite an unstable region. So one of the former heads of the British military, the Chief of the Defense staff, I did a show on this with a few months ago said in the same way that Western militaries have always stressed the importance of magnanimity and victory, maybe now with the Taliban, there's a need for magnanimity in fact, in other words, recognizing that the least bad option is to find a way to avoid mass loss of life and mass suffering in Afghanistan by finding a way to engage. Yeah, I agree. And all those are important measures that I definitely do think. I mean, certainly the US engaged with the Taliban before 2001. And I think it is important in general. You know, one of the things I talked to my last interview to is the role of morality and international relations. And to think through our consequences, which is something you've also emphasized here and in previous shows, because I think it's important while we can make these decisions. Countries, I mean, it's natural to base them on their national interests, but we also have to think about who's dying or how many people are going to die for those actions. Anyway, so yeah, I mean, actually, my general observation would be that often there's a very high degree of overlap between things you should do for your long term national interest and things you should do because you have a particular moral outlook. The tensions arise when people are too focused on the short term. And that's where they see a potential dilemma between short term interests and long term considerations or morality. So the more policymakers can think through the consequences, particularly the sometimes unintended but undesirable, certainly consequences of short term actions for the long term, the more likely they are to identify things to do which both comply with their moral outlook and what are actually at the end of the day, the long term interest. Instability, chaos, that ultimately in the long term creates lots of problems, all of which are predictable, which are far reaching and coming by every point. So containing it might in the short term be like an uncomfortable thing to do, but almost always in the long term doing the best interest. Yeah, I completely agree. And it's sort of frustrating that is rare that we see policymakers actually put into policies that think of the long term. And particularly I'm thinking, you know, you mentioned climate change and how fighting over water and land resources that are being affected by droughts and such is in itself an instigator of conflict. And even the US Defense Department has written a report on how climate change is this huge risk exactly because of what you say because of the instability that it creates and the potential spillover of conflicts. And yeah, I just totally agree. And I feel a lot of frustration about that. So I was just going to say, I do agree with you about climate change. For example, I remember reading what was more than 10 years ago, produced by the CIA and other intelligence agencies flagging up this risk. And the only way out is for these very fragile poor countries to develop. The good news is, you know, over the last 50, 60 years, something like 100 countries have been involved and have developed and the lives of their people are better. The dilemma we have is how do we bring that same journey to the 30 or 40 countries who have totally affected fragile, caught up in these humanitarian crises? And we need a different approach. We also need to re-tool and rethink the role of our shared international institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the UN and so on. Those institutions did quite a good job in helping lots of countries develop. But they haven't done such a good job in focusing on the remaining group, the particularly intractable group, which are still at the bottom of the pile. And one of the reasons they haven't done a good enough job for those countries is because they haven't tried hard enough for that group of countries. They need to rethink how best to help them. I'm clearly agree. And I appreciated that emphasis in your book as well. I want to talk about another focus you have, which is sort of on the role of the UN coordinating response efforts. In regard to Ukraine, my colleague at CICE, Stephen Shragi, has been on the ground helping refugees since the war broke out. And in an interview on the show, he spoke about kind of the absolute chaos in Poland and how no one was coordinating the response to all these refugees flowing across the border. And one consequence of this has been a lack of action to protect the refugees who are mostly women and girls from abuse and human trafficking. He also talked about the absence of the UN being involved on on-the-ground operations. And he suggested that a key factor of the problem is that the UN is experienced in handling crisis in poorer, underdeveloped countries and didn't have a plan for addressing the situation in a developed country like Poland. What do you think the UN can do to adapt to another changing aspect of conflict where the battlefield also includes developed countries? So I agree with a lot of his insights there. And one of the features of the situation in Ukraine and the neighboring countries is the governments and institutions of those countries actually have a lot of capabilities. And the best thing to do is to support their efforts to help either Ukrainians in Ukraine or the refugees flowing across the border. And in fairness, there has been some scaling up of activity by the UN agencies to do that. The Red Cross and UN High Commission for refugees have been quite active. But the UN is very overstretched. It wouldn't be a good idea to pull all the capacity out of countries like Yemen or Syria or Lebanon or those other places. And there is no spare capacity. So no one should be very surprised if at short notice asked to help in a completely different environment. It's been a bit of a struggle. But nor should anybody think it's a good thing if the world becomes too reliant on UN agencies in these circumstances. I think the best way with these kinds of issues to support the Ukrainians is by financing and improving the capacity of their own institutions. And it's not a success measure for us to have to rely on UN agencies in these circumstances. We should try to work through Ukrainian institutions. And likewise in Poland, there are things that UN agencies can do. They can provide advice. They can have the registration. They can provide lessons from elsewhere. But to think that it would be a good idea that the world should place a responsibility of looking after those millions of refugees in Poland and neighboring countries in the hands of UN agencies, I think would be the wrong approach to take. I think it's much better to do what's happening, which is to use state institutions of those countries and indeed the generosity of millions of families in those countries who've taken in women and children from Ukraine. That is going to be the most effective way to build a response. UN, the Red Cross, can play a role, but it shouldn't be the main role. So I didn't mean to quite emphasize it on taking care of the refugees. I meant in trying to coordinate a response. So the problem was, you know, as we got there and still to some extent today, there's all these like little local agencies on the ground, but there's nobody coordinating overall a response. And so that was the problem. It wasn't that you didn't have agencies there to try to help. They definitely were. They just couldn't have an overarching. There wasn't any sort of organization. So there wasn't any way for them to coordinate their efforts. And it seems to me that's where UN might have a particular expertise to share. Okay. The UN does have expertise in that area. But the first question is, what does the host country's government want to do to handle the issue? They may well wisely seek advice and help and experience from elsewhere from the UN. In very few cases, are they likely to want to hand over the whole of the coordination effort to the UN? And there are very good reasons for that, because the most important institutions, which will be able to play a meaningful role, will be state institutions, the education system, the health system, local government, who have access to accommodation facilities and so on. No sovereign government, which has a choice in the matter, will want simply to hand over all of that to a supranational body like the UN. The only circumstance where there's a good idea if the UN agencies are international NGOs or the Red Cross, wholesale to take all those responsibilities over is when there is no functioning state. And fortunately, that is not the position in this European country, it's hosting Ukrainians. What we need to do is help those governments, local and national, cope with the challenge they've been faced with and provide them support, but not attempt to supplant them. Right, of course. I wanted to conclude the interview. Your book ends with a call to action. And what would you say to our listeners about what they can do to improve the humanitarian situation across the globe? Well, firstly, humanitarian agencies do a good job. They reach 100 million people a year and they save millions of lives. Secondly, they're overwhelmed and they're overwhelmed because the causes of the problems they're dealing with are not being addressed, conflict, climate change, the pandemic. What's been dealt with is the symptoms. And if you only deal with the symptoms, another cause is don't expect things to get better. Thirdly, humanitarian agencies in this period of being overwhelmed really need to rethink how they go about their work. And I've set out in the book really 100 ideas on how they could do that. One of the most important is that we should get away from this structural feature of the humanitarian system at the moment where all the key decisions are taken either by the humanitarian agencies or by the people who give them money. And what that does is it cuts out from the discussion that people or everyone says they're trying to help. So one of the most important structural reforms we can put in place is to cause there always to be two questions asked and answered. Firstly, what help is it people say they want? And secondly, are we giving them that help? Because if we do those two things, we will get a better response. I think that's so great. And all those are so important. And I really appreciate that you've come on the show and shared your experience on this topic. So thank you. Great. I told you, Nate. Thank you. All right. So do you have any thoughts, Ryan? Yeah. No, I thought it's honestly something I went into not knowing a lot about. So I think I really appreciate the framing around it. The fact that famines overall over the last 20, 25 years have been greatly reduced. But that you've seen this increasing level of vulnerability, especially around countries like Yemen, which we talked about in our last episode, Afghanistan, which I thought was interesting when you're talking about the moral elements of it. And I like the fact that Mark mentioned the... Magnanimity. The magnanimity of defeat. Yeah. And it was something I think the UK government was talking about. But yeah, the fact that if we decide and aligning with our morals, the fact that women and children are probably the most vulnerable members within the Afghan community, the fact that we invested 20 years and trying to advance liberal values within that country, that we have to swallow our pride earlier than we have in the past. Because I heard this conversation I was thinking about, well, when did we really begin to normalize relations with Vietnam? Obviously, we now have a really close and great relationship with Vietnam. It's the same government that we lost to in the war. But I felt like that took decades. So this would be a pretty quick transition. Not them saying it would be as close as a relationship now with Vietnam, but... Also not the same scale as Vietnam. It's not the same scale. It's not the same scale, but it is. It is something that... I mean, naturally, we want to resist because and certainly within... And you hear this on the right, if the Afghans or like the Ukrainians, they should have supported, they should have resisted. They basically gave up arms, they gave up, they didn't fight the Taliban. So the hell with them, the hell with their country. That's the source. So immoral about that argument is because people are starved to death. What argument do you possibly have that rationalizes, okay, we're not going to do anything with this government and we're just going to write off all the people who will die? I mean, it's not the people in power that die. It's that again, like he said, the people that you say you want to protect. The most vulnerable. Yeah. And I think that's the framing. So I thought that was very poignant and well said. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. It's something I'd like to understand more because my understanding is, yeah, I mean, we have very extreme sanctions currently on Afghanistan. I don't know how much the US cooperates specifically around with aid agency. I assume they do even around Afghanistan. So my understanding, and this is sort of tangentially just filtering in the back of my head, is that certain things, of course, like financial sanctions, which we use before Russia were mainly used in sort of terrorism. And so we have strong, nothing would probably change those financial sanctions. From the beginning, it was clear that the economy of Afghanistan was going to collapse in a way that it didn't under the previous Taliban government prior to 9-11. So this crisis has been seen that this was going to happen for some time. And the thought was that the West would use aid agencies that it would have to come in and address some parts of this crisis because otherwise you have millions of people in your conscience. Right. But it does, I mean, based on the conversation, it did sound like the developments over the last couple of months, that the money, as long as it arrives on time, the fact that you had a positive development around this negotiated deal, that maybe we convert like the worst aspects of a potential famine. Yeah, I think so. And I think, I don't think he named the specific amount, but President Biden made a commitment of $10 billion. At first, it was four, is now up to $10 billion. I think we mentioned this in the last episode too, but he pointed to a lot of substantive actions that are being taken now. But one thing that I also liked about the interview is he has very specific recommendations for what countries can do and what they need to be doing now, because, as he said, all this action averts the famine from happening this year, but it's not averting it necessarily from happening next year. And the more long-term we think, the more we take those actions now, the less likely it will be. But if we wait, you can wait too long. You can wait too late. Yeah. Yeah, I thought the thing that stood at the me with my energy bias was this comment on the biofuels around the subsidies around the biofuels creating kind of a perverse incentive around the crops, essentially that you grow and develop markets like the United States. Or I guess how it gets used. I don't know if it changes, do you grow less corn then because of that? Or does just that corn get exported more for food products as opposed to being used for biofuels, which frankly is kind of a government subsidized scam? Yeah, along with that too, is just the way that farmers are paid in advance for specific crops. And that doesn't allow them to switch to crops that are most needed in a food crisis. So right now we need a lot of wheat and barley. And while farmers growing other crops would normally have incentives then to grow those crops, change crops, but if they're being paid for something else. So there's a lot of these logistical things in the system that could be changed to have an immediate effect. And what specifically things could Western government subsidize for these other countries, such as any name fertilizer being so expensive. And so putting money into lowering those costs for these developing countries who are large producers of food. Yeah, and that kind of made me think too. I mean, going back to the semiconductor discussion and just this diversity of supply chains and things. I mean, is there a greater need to diversify? I mean, it kind of goes back to real-earth minerals or it doesn't make economic sense. There's huge potash developments or deposits like in Texas, but does it make sense to do fertilizer manufacturing here in the United States? We're more of fertilizer. So it's not so vulnerable to have any single source that clearly it is between Russia and Ukraine. Right. But it's just not economically. Right. But is that something you subsidize for security purposes? I guess that becomes like how high you weight it. I think if the United States, if there was not a huge producer of food, then maybe the United States would consider it more. Because one thing we feel like is we're not vulnerable to food in any way. Right. Like nothing that's going to happen in the global environment is going to hurt food consumption in the United States. We're always going to have enough food to feed ourselves. Yeah. I mean, the cost. The cost. Because the inputs are vulnerable there. But. To think fertilizer and energy. Right. What we can produce the energy is means it's a cost because we can't export those things. Right. So the cost is like, oh, we make a lot of money exporting agriculture products. It would not be a simple thing. But one thing that's interesting, I mean, if you study World One or World Two, I mean, these are really important factors. Britain was able to starve Germany in World One, and I believe in World Two. And how Britain, which for a long time before World One was preparing for a war with France, just these decisions on how the lengths of the war, or how they would protect themselves for these kind of embargoes. And one thing in World One that I was told is Germany only expected a conflict. They'll last about six months because that's how much food reserves they had. I see. Yeah. So food is an incredible national security risk. The urgency versus economics tends to play a large role in this. So I guess we'll see. I mean, if it went on for a long time, and a product cut out, actually, he was suggesting that the problem was Russian not exporting fertilizer product. But I researched it again, and it really seems the main thing has been the sanctions on the potash being the main. I thought there was this specific carve out that afterwards US quietly negotiated to have, but earlier, like a May. Oh, maybe. But I know that was part of this side deal specifically mentioned in this side deal. Yeah. I think it was the Russians that would only agree to that if there was further relief around. Yeah. I don't want you. Yeah. It was a little. So I'm not sure, but I think that's been an important miscalculation because also, I mean, if anyone had the incentive to not export it, it would be Russia. But because of the money they make from it, that's one of the things they asked from. I mean, these are all not huge amounts compared to the oil revenue, but they still add up. So. Right. Yep. All right. So any other thoughts? No. No, I thought it was real informative. I'm definitely going to check out his book. So yeah, I think for more details, and if you're really interested in this topic, which I think you should be, then he provides a lot of this in his book, Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times. So I think this is an important topic that doesn't get as much coverage as it should. Well, I think that brings us to the end of this episode of Kellogg's Global Politics. You can visit our website at www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com and follow us on Twitter @globalkellogg or myself @arkellogg. So you can reach us by email, anita@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com and myself, ryan@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com. And as always, please see the show notes for the articles we discussed in this episode and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast provider. Thanks. Bye.