BY Jeffrey Sachs

 

Belém, Brazil – I inaugurate this new series of columns in a New Year and a new beginning for Brazil with the inauguration of President Lula da Silva. His well-wishers poured out across the country in a revival of hope for Brazil after four years of disastrous rule under his right-wing predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who had fled Brazil for Florida on the eve of Lula’s inauguration. Bolsonaro left behind a mob that rampaged government office buildings before being arrested in large numbers by the police.

The mob tactics will not stop Lula, nor will they have a long-term effect in the US, where Donald Trump’s similar maneuvers on January 6, 2021, were also shut down. In both cases, demagogic politicians used social media to rile up a mob; in both cases, the mob was put down within the day.

The real issue, in my mind, is not the mob, but the deeper changes in the world that are generating growing tensions in world politics and economy. The deep changes can’t and won’t be stopped by mobs. Our real challenge is to understand the deeper changes at play so that we can manage them for the common good. Such an understanding is the aim of my future columns.

The biggest turmoil is geopolitical. We are no longer in a US-led world, nor even a world divided between the US and its rival China. We have already entered a multipolar world, in which each region has its own issues and role in global politics. No country and no single region can any longer determine the fate of others. This is a complex and noisy environment – with no country, region, or alliance in charge of the rest.

One reason why Lula’s return to the presidency is so consequential is that Brazil will be a key regional and global actor in the years ahead. Lula will work closely with like-minded progressive presidents in Chile, Columbia, Argentina, and elsewhere in South America. Brazil will also hold the Presidency of the G20 in 2024, part of a four-year run in which major emerging economies hold the G20 presidency (Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023, and South Africa in 2025).

The management of a multipolar world is fraught with difficulties. We urgently need more dialogue with other countries, and to move beyond the simplistic propaganda of our own governments. Here in the West, we are bombarded daily with ridiculous official narratives, most originating from Washington: Russia is pure evil, China is the greatest threat to the world, and only NATO can save us.

These naïve stories, spun out endlessly by the US State Department, are a great hindrance to global problem solving. They trap us in false mindsets, and even in wars that should never have accured and which must be stopped by negotiation rather than escalation.

When we accept the reality of a multipolar world, we will finally be able to solve problems that have so far eluded us. First, we will understand that military alliances such as NATO offer no answers to the real challenges that we confront. Military alliances are in fact a dangerous anachronism, not a true source of national or regional security. It was, after all, the US attempt to expand NATO to Georgia and Ukraine that triggered the wars in Georgia (in 2010) and in Ukraine (2014 until today). Nor did the NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999, or fifteen year failed mission in Afghanistan, or bombing Libya in 2011, accomplish any real objectives.

Neither is China the grave threat that is portrayed today in the West. The US tries to pretend that we still live in a US-led world, and that China is a dangerous pretender that must be stopped. But reality is different. China is an ancient civilisation of 1.4 billion people (almost one in five in the world) that also aims for high living standards and technological excellence. We will solve our global problems not by vainly trying to “contain” China, but by trading, cooperating, and yes, also competing economically with China.

Other great global challenges lie elsewhere: the deep dangers of environmental catastrophe; the rising inequalities in our own societies; and the onrush of new technologies that can disrupt the world if these technologies are not properly harnessed and controlled.

Brazil is the epicenter of the environmental challenge. Can the Amazon, constituting half of the world’s rainforests, be saved? Lula came to power promising to do just this. He won the vote of the Amazon states of Brazil. Globally, Europe is in the environmental lead with the European Green Deal. Europe’s main geopolitical opportunity is to encourage other regions, including the African Union, China, India, the Americas and others, to adopt their own bold green deals. That’s a far better task for Europe than expanding NATO, fighting an endless war in Ukraine, or confronting China.

Brazil is also an epicenter of inequality, with one of the highest degrees of inequality in the world. That inequality was originally created by European imperialism that suppressed indigenous peoples and enslaved millions of Africans. Their descendants continue to pay the price. Social justice is Lula’s calling, and our global calling, after centuries of racial and social injustice.

Brazil can also be an epicenter of the new technologies, for example a leader in the new bioeconomy in which the wonders of the Amazon’s and Brazil’s biodiversity are not destroyed for more cattle ranches but instead to produce new life-saving medicines, nutritious foodstuffs (such as the açai now booming worldwide), or advanced biofuels for green aviation.

Technological change is perhaps the deepest driver of global change. We need the new technologies to confront the crises of climate change, hunger, education and health. Yet we also suffer from the new digital technologies when they are misused, such as to mobilise mobs, or weapon killer drones in Ukraine. Advanced biotechnology may well have created the virus that causes Covid-19 (we still don’t know). Every day we confront the disruptions and inequalities caused by artificial intelligence, robotics, and the rapid overturning of jobs.

The confluence of global change, disruption, and danger is astounding. Solutions lie in understanding, cooperation, and problem solving. A better understanding of the New World Economy will be the aim of this column in the months ahead.

 

First published in La Repubblica January 9, 2023

 

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A MARINE CHARGED with taking part in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was transferred into a highly sensitive intelligence assignment at the headquarters of the National Security Agency after the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, Marine Corps officials have acknowledged. The Marine confessed to his role in the Capitol riot last summer during a security clearance interview, but was not charged until last month.

Following his alleged participation in the 2021 insurrection, Sgt. Joshua Abate, a special communication signals analyst, was assigned to the Marine Cryptologic Support Battalion, which acts as a liaison between the Marines and the NSA at Fort Meade. The transfer into the liaison unit after the Capitol riot placed Abate inside one of the most sensitive facilities in the entire U.S. government.

Two other Marines charged with entering the Capitol alongside Abate on January 6 were also given sensitive new intelligence assignments within the Marine Corps after the insurrection, according to statements from the Corps. Sgt. Dodge Dale Hellonen was assigned to the 3rd Marine Raider Support Battalion, which provides intelligence support to the Marine Forces Special Operations Command at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. And Cpl. Micah Coomer was assigned to the Marines 1st Radio Battalion, which provides signals intelligence and electronic warfare support for the Marine Expeditionary Force based in Camp Pendleton, California. Like Abate, Hellonen and Coomer are highly trained in communications and signals intelligence.

 

The three Marines’ assignment to highly sensitive intelligence jobs after they allegedly joined in the January 6 riot has not been previously reported. All three were charged last month in connection with their roles as part of the violent mob that forced members of Congress to flee for their lives and delay certification of the 2020 election results. Abate, Hellonen, and Coomer are accused of offenses including trespassing, disorderly conduct, and illegal parading or picketing in a restricted building.

The Marine Corps initially released little information about the three men; the service provided only brief descriptions of their current assignments and did not publicly acknowledge that all were given new assignments after January 6. “We are aware of an investigation and the allegations,” the Corps wrote in its initial terse statement after the charges against the three Marines were made public. “The Marine Corps is fully cooperating with the appropriate authorities in support of the investigation.”

But after The Intercept independently discovered that all three Marines had been given new intelligence assignments following the insurrection, the Corps confirmed that they were all transferred to new roles after January 6, 2021, and provided information about their assignments at the time of the insurrection. Abate and Hellonen also received promotions in rank following the Capitol riot, according to the Corps.

The reassignments raise serious new questions about the ability of both the military and the U.S. intelligence community to identify right-wing extremists in their midst. Since the Capitol riot, the Pentagon has claimed that it has been trying to root out extremists, but there have been few signs that the problem has yet been reduced or even that the scale of the threat has been adequately measured. What’s more, the Pentagon’s efforts are now being impeded by congressional Republicans, who are seeking to block initiatives to oust right-wing radicals from the military. An early warning of Republican opposition came last summer, when the Senate Armed Services Committee voted in favor of legislative language designed to halt Pentagon attempts to counter extremist influence in the military’s ranks. Every Republican senator on the panel voted to block the anti-extremist training, and they succeeded when Maine independent Sen. Angus King joined them.

Now that Republicans control the House, they are vowing to go after what they call “woke” policies at the Pentagon; efforts to root out right-wing extremists are certain to be among their prime targets.

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While Pentagon officials have talked extensively about the problem of right-wing extremism in the military, the U.S. intelligence community has so far been much more secretive about the issue. Intelligence officials have reported on the rising threat posed by white nationalism and right-wing domestic terrorism, but there is no public data on the extent of the problem within its ranks and little evidence that they are taking significant action to prevent the spread of extremism inside their own agencies.

Intelligence officials declined to discuss whether any investigation is being conducted to determine how Abate, Hellonen, and Coomer could be given such sensitive intelligence positions after allegedly participating in the January 6 mob. An NSA spokesperson declined to comment on Abate’s role at the Marines NSA liaison office and refused to say whether the NSA is conducting a counterintelligence investigation to examine whether Abate compromised any operations. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence also declined to comment.

The three Marines are not the first with intelligence community links to be charged in connection with the January 6 insurrection. Last September, Hatchet Speed, a Navy reservist who had previously worked with the NAVWAR Space Field Activity at the National Reconnaissance Office, which operates the nation’s spy satellites, was charged after telling an undercover FBI agent that he had gone into the U.S. Capitol with members of the Proud Boys, an extremist group that was at the center of the insurrection.

It seems clear from interviews and court documents that investigators were slow to identify Abate, Hellonen, and Coomer. At the time of the insurrection, the three men were friends and were all assigned to the Marine Corps Information Operations Center at Quantico, Virginia, about 30 miles south of Washington. The center is involved in psychological warfare training and development for the Marines, among other functions.

On January 6, 2021, the three went to the U.S. Capitol together, entering the building at 2:20 p.m. through the Senate wing door, according to video footage and photographs taken during the attack. They were inside the Capitol for about an hour in the midst of the insurrection, according to the criminal complaint filed by the government in their case. Hellonen was carrying a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.

The three began roaming the halls with the mob that had flooded into the Capitol. At 2:32 p.m., they entered the Capitol rotunda, placed a red MAGA hat on a statue, and took photos with it, according to the complaint.

They continued to walk through the building, using their cellphones to take photos and videos.

The three got away without being immediately identified. Abate later said that “he heard how the event was being portrayed negatively and decided that he should not tell anybody about going into the U.S. Capitol Building,” according to the complaint.

Coomer was apparently the first to be identified by the FBI. On August 13, 2021, a federal search warrant was served on Facebook authorizing the search of the Instagram account of “mrcoomer08.” Coomer had posted photos from inside the Capitol on January 6 to his personal account, with the caption: “Glad to be apart [sic] of history.” In a separate Instagram conversation on January 31, 2021, Coomer said that “everything in this country is corrupt. We honestly need a fresh restart. I’m waiting for the boogaloo.”

“What’s a boogaloo,” the user he was talking to asked, according to the government’s complaint.

“Civil war 2,” Coomer replied.

In addition to acknowledging his involvement in the insurrection through his social media posts, Coomer was also identified by a witness in the Marines who picked him out of footage taken inside the Capitol, the complaint says.

It took investigators nearly another year to confront Abate about his presence in the Capitol that day. In June 2022, Abate was interviewed as part of his security clearance process, and admitted going into the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection with “two buddies.”

Abate said that as they walked through the rotunda, one of his friends smoked a cigarette and they “tried not to get hit with tear gas,” according to the complaint. Abate also admitted that he had decided to keep his involvement secret. When contacted by phone, relatives of Coomer and Hellonen declined to comment on the case. David Dischley, an attorney for Abate, said the next hearing in the case is scheduled for March 21 in federal court in Washington.

 

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