Is it about oil or geopolitics? Or is the US intervention in Venezuela about migration, the Hispanic vote in the US, drugs, or another “flood the zone” effort by US President Donald Trump to keep his political and media adversaries scrambling to respond to narratives he is stage-managing?
More interestingly, the military operation in Venezuela is inconsistent with Trump’s preference for avoiding foreign entanglements. However, it does reflect his primary foreign focus being China and, by association, its partners Russia, Iran and Cuba.
Subscribers to business publications want to make better-informed decisions. But since the internet upended traditional media, most voters have morphed towards digesting news and voting not as managers would; rather, they have come to see themselves as serving on a jury. As unbiased news reporting became commercially non-viable, news outlets stayed afloat by assembling audiences with identifiable biases.
Headlines today often amount to invitations to judge. Audience loyalty is then purchased by packaging news events in ways that first trigger known audience biases and second validate them. This resembles the jury selection process being rigged and the court allowing a prosecutor’s case to be highlighted while the key parts of the defence are suppressed. Voters then become indoctrinated in echo chambers, which leads to voting being highly polarised.
Adding social justice advocacy alongside identity politics amplifies such effects. This is particularly true here, as such effects were simultaneously amplified by the end of the Cold War and then the international adulation for South Africa’s apartheid-to-Mandela transition.
Information being curated to validate biases has a tremendous dumbing-down effect. Consider that ANC policies have entrenched the world’s most severe youth unemployment crisis, amid 70% poverty — notwithstanding 28-million grant recipients. Yet the party still seeks to persuade voters that their economic plight is about inequality, not jobs or economic growth.
Liberal illusions vs realist interests
Viewed through a more realistic lens, it is clear that the ANC’s economic stewardship has been a disaster. Global events are now demonstrating that the party’s international relations expertise is equally awful, and that the combination of the two means the twin unemployment and poverty crisis won’t meaningfully improve for many decades.
International relations can be viewed through various prisms, but liberalism and realism stand out. The liberal view emphasises institutions and co-operation, whereas realism prioritises the importance of nations seeking security and advancing their interests. Realism has stood the test of time, as its core principles trace to ancient Greece and the aphorism, “the strong do as they will and the weak suffer as they must”.
President Cyril Ramaphosa insists all nations are equal, and he has aligned South Africa with China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other anti-Western states. This reflects an exceptionally idealised indulgence of the liberal theory of international relations. Conversely, our top national interest — large-scale job creation — requires far greater integration with the West, particularly the US.
Why the US still anchors global prosperity
Discretionary income is as central to job creation and broad economic development as free cash flow is to commerce and capital markets. It is difficult for a country or region to develop a discretionary income surplus.
No country begins to compare to the US in this regard. Even China, despite its extraordinary manufacturing capabilities, lacks sufficient discretionary income to achieve full employment. By contrast, the US must attract millions of immigrants or export as many jobs to supply its many affluent consumers.
The historical record makes clear that all of today’s large and high-growth countries have benefited tremendously from the Western-led global order, specifically by trading with the US. The ANC ignores this, as it isn’t focused on advancing South Africa’s national interests.
The ancient Greek pundits, in particular Thucydides, would have perfectly understood China seeking to displace the US as the global hegemon. What no-one saw coming even as recently as 20 years ago is the extent to which China threatens manufacturers in Europe, South Africa and beyond. Those who relish global institutions must research the extent to which China has systematically overwhelmed World Trade Organisation rules, thus greatly undermining the win-win benefits of free trade.
The historical record makes clear that all of today’s large and high-growth countries have benefited tremendously from the Western-led global order, specifically by trading with the US. The ANC ignores this, as it isn’t focused on advancing South Africa’s national interests.
International law only loosely resembles domestic laws, as the enforcement mechanisms are largely voluntary. Sometimes corrective actions can only be initiated by the global hegemon. The ancient Greeks understood this, and they understood that if the global hegemon undermined the interests of smaller nations, they would unite to topple the hegemon.
The ruling elites of Venezuela, Cuba and Iran have mismanaged their economies so extremely that they could all be deposed this year. The ANC’s track record is similar.
We the people, along with our elected leaders, must access varied news sources to assess events, like managers seeking solutions, not as jurors seeking to judge a defendant guilty or not guilty.
This must be accompanied by a decisive pivot in South Africa’s international relations to advance our national interests.
• Hagedorn (@shawnhagedorn) is an independent strategy adviser.
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