Former CIA Director and retired Army Gen. David Petraeus (R) participates in a discussion with former Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (L) February 3, 2017 at American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster

The main message of the neocons is that the US must predominate in military power in every region of the world, and must confront rising regional powers that could someday challenge US global or regional dominance, most important Russia and China.

JEFFREY D. SACHS

The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement.  The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons. As a result, Biden is steering Ukraine, the US, and the European Union towards yet another geopolitical debacle. If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these US foreign policy debacles.

The neocon outlook is based on an overriding false premise: that the US military, financial, technological, and economic superiority enables it to dictate terms in all regions of the world.

The neocon movement emerged in the 1970s around a group of public intellectuals, several of whom were influenced by University of Chicago political scientist Leo Strauss and Yale University classicist Donald Kagan. Neocon leaders included Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Kagan (son of Donald), Frederick Kagan (son of Donald), Victoria Nuland (wife of Robert), Elliott Cohen, Elliott Abrams, and Kimberley Allen Kagan (wife of Frederick).

The main message of the neocons is that the US must predominate in military power in every region of the world, and must confront rising regional powers that could someday challenge US global or regional dominance, most important Russia and China.  For this purpose, US military force should be pre-positioned in hundreds of military bases around the world and the US should be prepared to lead wars of choice as necessary. The United Nations is to be used by the US only when useful for US purposes.

This approach was spelled out first by Paul Wolfowitz in his draft Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) written for the Department of Defense in 2002. The draft called for extending the US-led security network to the Central and Eastern Europe despite the explicit promise by German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in 1990 that German unification would not be followed by NATO's eastward enlargement.  Wolfowitz also made the case for American wars of choice, defending America's right to act independently, even alone, in response to crises of concern to the US.  According to General Wesley Clark, Wolfowitz already made clear to Clark in May 1991 that the US would lead regime-change operations in Iraq, Syria, and other former Soviet allies.

The neocons championed NATO enlargement to Ukraine even before that became official US policy under George W. Bush, Jr. in 2008. They viewed Ukraine's NATO membership as key to US regional and global dominance. Robert Kagan spelled out the neocon case for NATO enlargement in April 2006:

[T]he Russians and Chinese see nothing natural in [the "color revolutions" of the former Soviet Union], only Western-backed coups designed to advance Western influence in strategically vital parts of the world.  Are they so wrong? Might not the successful liberalization of Ukraine, urged and supported by the Western democracies, be but the prelude to the incorporation of that nation into NATO and the European Union—in short, the expansion of Western liberal hegemony?

Kagan acknowledged the dire implication of NATO enlargement. He quotes one expert as saying, "the Kremlin is getting ready for the 'battle for Ukraine' in all seriousness." The neocons sought this battle. After the fall of the Soviet Union, both the US and Russia should have sought a neutral Ukraine, as a prudent buffer and safety valve.  Instead, the neocons wanted US "hegemony" while the Russians took up the battle partly in defense and partly out of their own imperial pretentions as well.  Shades of the Crimean War (1853-6), when Britain and France sought to weaken Russia in the Black Sea following Russian pressures on the Ottoman empire.

Kagan penned the article as a private citizen while his wife Victoria Nuland was the US Ambassador to NATO under George W. Bush, Jr.  Nuland has been the neocon operative par excellence.  In addition to serving as Bush's Ambassador to NATO, Nuland was Barack Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs during 2013-17, where she participated in the overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, and now serves as Biden's Undersecretary of State guiding US policy vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine.

In the "battle for Ukraine," the neocons were ready to provoke a military confrontation with Russia by expanding NATO over Russia's vehement objections because they fervently believe that Russia will be defeated by US financial sanctions and NATO weaponry.

The neocon outlook is based on an overriding false premise: that the US military, financial, technological, and economic superiority enables it to dictate terms in all regions of the world.  It is a position of both remarkable hubris and remarkable disdain of evidence. Since the 1950s, the US has been stymied or defeated in nearly every regional conflict in which it has participated. Yet in the "battle for Ukraine," the neocons were ready to provoke a military confrontation with Russia by expanding NATO over Russia's vehement objections because they fervently believe that Russia will be defeated by US financial sanctions and NATO weaponry.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a neocon think-tank led by Kimberley Allen Kagan (and backed by a who's who of defense contractors such as General Dynamics and Raytheon), continues to promise a Ukrainian victory.  Regarding Russia's advances, the ISW offered a typical comment: "[R]egardless of which side holds the city [of Sievierodonetsk], the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will probably have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back."

The facts on the ground, however, suggest otherwise. The West's economic sanctions have had little adverse impact on Russia, while their "boomerang" effect on the rest of the world has been large.  Moreover, the US capacity to resupply Ukraine with ammunition and weaponry is seriously hamstrung by America's limited production capacity and broken supply chains. Russia's industrial capacity of course dwarfs that of Ukraine's.  Russia's GDP was roughly 10X that of Ukraine before war, and Ukraine has now lost much of its industrial capacity in the war.

The most likely outcome of the current fighting is that Russia will conquer a large swath of Ukraine, perhaps leaving Ukraine landlocked or nearly so. Frustration will rise in Europe and the US with the military losses and the stagflationary consequences of war and sanctions. The knock-on effects could be devastating, if a right-wing demagogue in the US rises to power (or in the case of Trump, returns to power) promising to restore America's faded military glory through dangerous escalation.

Instead of risking this disaster, the real solution is to end the neocon fantasies of the past 30 years and for Ukraine and Russia to return to the negotiating table, with NATO committing to end its commitment to the eastward enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia in return for a viable peace that respects and protects Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

JEFFREY D. SACHS

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of "A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism" (2020). Other books include: "Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable" (2017) and “The Age of Sustainable Development," (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.

Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster

News & Views

CommonDreams

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Originally published at: Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster 7

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Terry49

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Jeffrey Sachs ends his article by stating that:

“… the real solution is to end the neocon fantasies of the past 30 years and for Ukraine and Russia to return to the negotiating table, with NATO committing to end its commitment to the eastward enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia in return for a viable peace that respects and protects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The problem is that the Democrats, led by Joe Biden, may be even more hawkish than the Republicans and have very little desire to engage in diplomacy talks. Count upon the Democrats to keep this war going as their goal is to have Russia destroyed and seize as much of Russia’s natural resources as they can. Endless war will prevail since there will be no third-party candidates in 2024 who will call for peace in Ukraine.

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speechless

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the real solution is to end the neocon fantasies of the past 30 years and for Ukraine and Russia to return to the negotiating table,

No, the real solution is that every Neocon (and their supporters in the media) involved with the destruction of so many countries in the past 30 years should be tried and convicted; and thrown in jail for the rest of their miserable lives.

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lo.que.hacemos.sera

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The fantasy here is that Putin will stop at anything short of destroying Ukraine, and that negotiation with Putin is anything but a ruse, giving him more time and rewarding his scorched-earth genocide response to Ukraine’s rightful self-determination to gain protection through NATO. Russia overall is not the enemy here; like the U.S. they suffer from rabid power-hungry autocrat-wanabees who will use any means of propaganda, division, and power to subjugate the county to their will. The enemy is Putin, his oligarch enablers, and any political group that sees self-determination as a threat, whether in eastern Europe, or here. Ukraine deserves the full support of the U.S. through this crisis, including our direct militarily intervention. This is not the time for pull-back or half-measures; we have made commitments to eastern Europe over the last few decades, that we must honor. Those commitments reflect the rightful efforts by Ukraine and others to protect themselves against the threat posed by Putin’s rise in Russia. That Putin may see NATO’s defensive alliance as a threat is his problem. NATO members should not let such self-interested propagandistic illogic cause them to accept blame for the current crisis.

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gcw919

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Perhaps the larger question is, Why do these warmongers continue to be recycled, one administration after another, despite their dismal record of leaving death and destruction with every new effort to control the world?

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lo.que.hacemos.sera

gcw919

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It depends on what behaviors you refer to as warmongering. Aggressive expansionism, or enabling corporate control of foreign resources/markets through regime change, are some reasons for warmongering. Growth in true defensive alliances is not warmongering, any more than standing up to a schoolyard bully is threatening behavior. The warmongers keep coming back (it’s really just peaks in a steady-state) because their self-interest tells them to. Corporations are power-hungry, and insatiable if unrestrained, just like their oligarch leaders. They and their minions in the govt are good at propagandizing a public too focused on traditionalist dogma or the small daily distractions of life, so their power never wanes much.

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countryrds

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Moreover, the US capacity to resupply Ukraine with ammunition and weaponry is seriously hamstrung by America’s limited production capacity and broken supply chains.

The above quote summarizes why NATO and this country are simply to weak too directly engage Russia and China in a head to head conflict. Right now we are stressed with all of our technological advantages being almost exhausted by the lack of our manufacturing capacity while the Russians, aided by these insane sanctions, keep pumping out equipment at a amazing rate. However this ends it will be our next failure and this time it will impact all of us and not just the poor unfortunate victims of our bombs and murderous actions.

Check out Gonzalo Lira and Scott Ritter on You-Tube for a more detailed explanation of this. This is no longer a uni-poplar world and that must be accepted or the consequences of will be nothing short of catastrophic even short of a nuclear exchange which is beyond horrible.

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Co2ton

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The Neocons have worked hard to bring about this poxy US-Russia war in Ukraine.

In the last decade their belligerence and influence has grown as the US became energy independent due to Filthy Fracking. This war is fueled by Methane. Cheney as CEO of Halliburton was a pioneer and promoter of fracking.

The noticeable acceleration in global heating and climate chaos that we are witnessing is due to fracked methane, not melting Permafrost. No one is monitoring how much methane is escaping from fracking operations and estimates are grossly under-counting the real amounts. Fracking and the production and transport of LNG is likely dirtier than coal and oil.

There is nothing natural about climate destroying LNG. That is another “fossil-fooled ya” myth.

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Jeffrey Sachs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jeffrey Sachs

FMSTAN & SPIDER Global meeting in Austrian Foreign Ministries in Vienna (49120446508) (cropped).jpg

Sachs in 2019

Born

November 5, 1954 (age 67)

Detroit, Michigan, U.S.

Institution

Columbia University

Field

Political economics

International Development

School or

tradition

Keynesian economics[1]

Alma mater

Harvard University (BA, MA, PhD)

Doctoral

advisor

Martin Feldstein[2]

Doctoral

students

- Alberto Alesina

- Michael C. Burda[3]

- Nouriel Roubini

Contributions

Millennium Villages Project

Website

jeffsachs

Jeffrey David Sachs (/sæks/; Born November 5, 1954) is an American economist, academic, public policy analyst and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he holds the title of University Professor.[4][5] He is known as an expert on sustainable development, economic development, and the fight against poverty.[6][7]

Sachs is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.[8] He is an SDG Advocate for United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 global goals adopted at a UN summit meeting in September 2015. From 2001 to 2018, Sachs served as Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, and held the same position under the previous UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and prior to 2016 a similar advisory position related to the earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),[9] eight internationally sanctioned objectives to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and disease by 2015. In connection with the MDGs, he had first been appointed special adviser to the UN Secretary-General in 2002 during the term of Kofi Annan.[9][10]

Sachs is co-founder and chief strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger that has come under scrutiny from critics[11] and was the subject of a book by the journalist Nina Munk. From 2002 to 2006, he was director of the United Nations Millennium Project's work on the MDGs. He is co-editor of the World Happiness Report with John F. Helliwell and Richard Layard. In 2010, he became a commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, whose stated aim is to boost the importance of broadband in international policy.[12] Sachs has written several books and received several awards. He has been criticized for his views on economics and China.[13][14][15][16]

Contents

- 1Early life and education

- 2Academic career

- 2.1Harvard University

- 2.2Columbia University

- 3Scholarship and commentary

- 3.1Bolivia

- 3.2Advising in post-communist economies

- 3.3Work on global economic development

- 3.4Syria

- 3.5Venezuela

- 4Critical reception

- 4.1Economics

- 4.2China

- 5Personal life

- 6Awards and honors

- 6.1Honorary degrees

- 7Publications

- 7.1Selected works

- 8See also

- 9Notes

- 10References

- 11External links

Early life and education[edit]

Sachs was raised in Oak Park, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, the son of Joan (née Abrams) and Theodore Sachs, a labor lawyer.[17] His family is Jewish. He graduated from Oak Park High School and attended Harvard College, where he received his Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in 1976.[18] He went on to receive his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard with his thesis titled Factor Costs and Macroeconomic Adjustment in the Open Economy: Theory and Evidence[19] and was invited to join the Harvard Society of Fellows while still a Harvard graduate student.

Academic career[edit]

Harvard University[edit]

In 1980, Sachs joined the Harvard faculty as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 1982. A year later at the age of 28, he became a professor of economics with tenure at Harvard.[20]

During the next 19 years at Harvard, Sachs became the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade,[21] director of the Harvard Institute for International Development at Harvard Kennedy School (1995–1999) and director of the Center for International Development (1999–2002).[22]

Columbia University[edit]

Professor Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is University Professor at Columbia University. From 2002 to 2016, Sachs served as director of the Earth Institute of Columbia University,[9][18] a university-wide organization of more than 850 professionals from natural science and social science disciplines with a common mission to address complex issues facing the Earth, in support of sustainable development. Sachs's classes are taught at the School of International and Public Affairs and the Mailman School of Public Health, and his course "Challenges of Sustainable Development" is taught at the undergraduate level.[23]

Sachs has consistently advocated for the expansion of university education on sustainable development. He helped to introduce the PhD in sustainable development at Columbia University, one of the first PhD programs of its kind in the United States and championed the new[when?] Masters of Development Practice (MDP) which led to a consortium of major universities around the world offering the new degree. The Earth Institute also guided the adoption of sustainable development as a new major at Columbia College.[citation needed]

Scholarship and commentary[edit]

Bolivia[edit]

When Bolivia was shifting from a dictatorship to a democracy through national elections in 1985, Sachs was invited by the party of Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer to advise him on an anti-inflation economic plan to implement once he was voted to office. This stabilization plan centered around price deregulation, particularly for oil, along with cuts to the national budget. Sachs stated that his plan could end Bolivian hyperinflation which had reached up to 14,000% in a single day.[24][non-primary source needed] Although Banzer ultimately lost the race to the party of former elected president and traditionally developmentalist Víctor Paz Estenssoro, Sachs's plan was still implemented through plans that excluded most of Paz's cabinet. Inflation quickly stabilized in Bolivia.[25][26]

When Sachs began advising Bolivia, it was the poorest country in South America and had an annual inflation rate of 24,000 percent. His suggestion for reducing inflation was to apply fiscal and monetary discipline and end economic regulation that protected the elites and blocked the free market. Hyperinflation reduced within weeks of the Bolivian government instituting his suggestions and the government settled its large debt to international lenders for about 11 cents on the dollar.[27]

Advising in post-communist economies[edit]

Sachs has worked as an economic adviser to governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. A practice trained macroeconomist, he advised a number of national governments in the transition from Marxism–Leninism or developmentalism to market economies.[citation needed]

In 1989, Sachs advised Poland's anticommunist Solidarity movement and the government of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. He wrote a comprehensive plan for the transition from central planning to a market economy which became incorporated into Poland's reform program led by Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz. Sachs was the main architect of Poland's debt reduction operation. Sachs and IMF economist David Lipton advised the rapid conversion of all property and assets from public to private ownership. Closure of many uncompetitive factories ensued.[28] In Poland, Sachs was firmly on the side of rapid transition to capitalism. At first, he proposed American-style corporate structures, with professional managers answering to many shareholders and a large economic role for stock markets. That did not bode well with the Polish authorities, but he then proposed that large blocks of the shares of privatized companies be placed in the hands of private banks.[29] As a result, there were some economic shortages and inflation, but prices in Poland eventually stabilized.[30][third-party source needed] The government of Poland awarded Sachs with one of its highest honors in 1999, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit.[31] He also received an honorary doctorate from the Cracow University of Economics.[21]

Sachs's ideas and methods of transition from central planning were adopted throughout the transition economies. He advised Slovenia (1991) and Estonia (1992) in the introduction of new stable and convertible currencies. Based on Poland's success, he was invited first by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and then by Russian President Boris Yeltsin on the transition to a market economy. He served as adviser to Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar and Finance Minister Boris Federov during 1991–1993 on macroeconomic policies.[citation needed] Sachs' methods for stabilising economies became known as shock therapy and were similar to successful approaches used in Germany after the two world wars.[27] When Russia fell into poverty after adopting his market-based shock therapy in the early 1990's,[32] some Western media called him a cold-hearted neo-liberal.[33][34]

Work on global economic development[edit]

Since his work in post-communist countries, Sachs has turned to global issues of economic development, poverty alleviation, health and aid policy and environmental sustainability. He has written extensively on climate change, disease control and globalization. Since 1995, he has been engaged in efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa.[citation needed]

Sachs at a UN meeting in 2009

In his 2005 work The End of Poverty, Sachs wrote that "Africa's governance is poor because Africa is poor". According to Sachs, with the right policies and key interventions, extreme poverty—defined as living on less than $1 a day—can be eradicated within 20 years. India and China serve as examples, with the latter lifting 300 million people out of extreme poverty during the last two decades. Sachs has said that a key element to accomplishing this is raising aid from $65 billion in 2002 to $195 billion a year by 2015. He emphasizes the role of geography and climate as much of Africa is landlocked and disease-prone. However, he stresses that these problems can be overcome.[35][third-party source needed]

Sachs suggests that with improved seeds, irrigation and fertilizer, the crop yields in Africa and other places with subsistence farming can be increased from 1 ton per hectare to 3 to 5 tons per hectare. He reasons that increased harvests would significantly increase the income of subsistence farmers, thereby reducing poverty. Sachs does not believe that increased aid is the only solution. He also supports establishing credit and microloan programs which are often lacking in impoverished areas.[36] Sachs advocates the distribution of free insecticide-treated bed nets to combat malaria. The economic impact of malaria has been estimated to cost Africa $12 billion per year. Sachs estimates that malaria can be controlled for $3 billion per year, therefore suggesting that anti-malaria projects would be an economically justified investment.[37]

The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) which he directs operates in more than a dozen African countries and covers more than 500,000 people. The MVP has created controversy because critics have questioned both the design of the project and claims made for its success. In 2012, The Economist reviewed the project and concluded "the evidence does not yet support the claim that the millennium villages project is making a decisive impact".[38] Critics have pointed to the failure to include suitable controls that would allow an accurate determination of whether the MVP methods were responsible for any observed gains in economic development. A 2012 Lancet paper claiming a three-fold increase in the rate of decline in childhood mortality was criticized for flawed methodology and the authors later admitted that the claim was "unwarranted and misleading".[39] In her 2013 book, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, journalist Nina Munk concluded that the MVP was a failure.[40]

Sachs works closely with the Islamic Development Bank to scale up programs of integrated rural development and sustainable agriculture among the bank's member countries. One such project supports pastoralist communities in Eastern Africa, with six participating nations, namely Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan.[citation needed]

Following the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, Sachs chaired the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (2000–2001) which played a pivotal role in scaling up the financing of health care and disease control in the low-income countries to support MDGs 4, 5 and 6. He worked with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2000–2001 to design and launch The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.[41] He also worked with senior officials of the George W. Bush administration to develop the PEPFAR program to fight HIV/AIDS and the PMI to fight malaria. On behalf of Annan, from 2002 to 2006 he chaired the UN Millennium Project which was tasked with developing a concrete action plan to achieve the MDGs. The UN General Assembly adopted the key recommendations of the UN Millennium Project at a special session in September 2005. The recommendations for rural Africa are currently[when?] being implemented and documented in the MVP and in several national scale-up efforts such as in Nigeria.[citation needed]

Previously a special adviser to secretary-general António Guterres,[9][10] Sachs is an advocate for the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals which build upon and supersede the MDGs.

Sachs in 2015

In his capacity as a special adviser at the UN, Sachs has frequently met with foreign dignitaries and heads of state. He developed a friendship with international celebrities Bono and Angelina Jolie, who traveled to Africa with Sachs to witness the progress of the Millennium Villages.[42]

Sachs has consistently criticised the International Monetary Fund and its policies around the world and blamed international bankers for what he says is a pattern of ineffective investment strategies.[43]

During the Greek government-debt crisis in July 2015, Sachs, Heiner Flassbeck, Thomas Piketty, Dani Rodrik and Simon Wren-Lewis, published an open letter to the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, regarding Greek debt.[44]

Sachs is one of the founders of the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project.[45]

Syria[edit]

In April 2018, he supported President Donald Trump's view that the United States should come out of Syria "very soon", adding: "It's long past time for the United States to end its destructive military engagement in Syria and across the Middle East, though the security state seems unlikely to let this happen".[46][47]

Venezuela[edit]

A 2019 report authored by Sachs and Mark Weisbrot[a] claimed that a 31% rise in the number of deaths between 2017 and 2018 was due to the sanctions imposed on Venezuela in 2017 and that 40,000 people in Venezuela may have died as a result.[52] The report states: "The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food, and other essential imports."[52] Weisbrot stated that he "could not prove those excess deaths were the result of sanctions, but said the increase ran parallel to the imposition of the measures and an attendant fall in oil production."[52]

A United States Department of State spokesperson commented that "as the writers themselves concede, the report is based on speculation and conjecture."[52] Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann, Juan Guaidó's representative to the Inter-American Development Bank,[53] asserts that the analysis is flawed because it makes invalid assumptions about Venezuela based on a different country like Colombia, saying that "taking what happened in Colombia since 2017 as a counterfactual for what would have happened in Venezuela if there had been no financial sanctions makes no sense." Calling it "sloppy reasoning", the authors also state that the analysis failed to rule out other explanations and failed to correctly account for PDVSA finances.[54]

Critical reception[edit]

Economics[edit]

Sachs's economic philosophies have been the subject of both praise and criticism. Nina Munk, author of the 2013 book The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, says that, although well intended, poverty eradication projects endorsed by Sachs have years later "left people even worse off than before".[55][56]

William Easterly, a professor of economics at New York University, reviewed The End of Poverty for The Washington Post, calling Sachs' poverty eradication plan "a sort of Great Leap Forward".[57] According to Easterly's cross-country statistical analysis in his book The White Man's Burden, from 1985 to 2006, "When we control both for initial poverty and for bad government, it is bad government that explains the slower growth. We cannot statistically discern any effect of initial poverty on subsequent growth once we control for bad government. This is still true if we limit the definition of bad government to corruption alone." Easterly deems the massive aid as proposed by Sachs to be ineffective, as its effect will be hampered by bad governance and/or corruption.[13]

Commenting on Sachs' $120 million effort to aid Africa, American travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux says these temporary measures failed to create sustained improvements. Theroux focuses on a project in a sparsely populated community of nomadic camel herders in Dertu, Kenya, funded by Sachs' Millennium Villages Project, which cost US$2.5 million over a three-year period. Theroux says that the project's latrines were clogged and overflowing, the dormitories it built quickly became dilapidated, and the livestock market it established ignored local customs and was shut down within a few months. He says that an angry Dertu citizen filed a 15-point written complaint against Sachs' operation, claiming it "created dependence" and that "the project is supposed to be bottom top approached but it is visa [sic] versa."[14]

According to the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, Jeffrey Sachs is one of the architects of "disaster capitalism" after his recommendations in Bolivia, Poland and Russia led to millions of people ending up in the streets.[58]

China[edit]

In December 2018, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada at the request of the U.S., which was seeking her extradition to face charges of allegedly violating sanctions against Iran. Soon after Meng's arrest, Sachs wrote an article in which he said her arrest was part of efforts to contain China and accused the U.S. of hypocrisy for seeking her extradition. He wrote that none of the executives of several U.S. companies which had been fined for sanctions violations were arrested. After he was criticised for the article, Sachs closed his Twitter account, which had 260,000 followers.[15] Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at Asia Society, noted that Sachs had written a foreword to a Huawei position paper, and questioned whether Sachs had been paid by Huawei. Sachs said he had not been paid for the work.[15][59]

In June 2020, Sachs said the targeting of Huawei by the US was not solely about security.[60] In their 2020 book Hidden Hand, Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg comment on one of Sachs' articles in which he accuses the U.S. government of maligning Huawei under hypocritical pretenses. Hamilton and Ohlberg write that Sachs' article would be more meaningful and influential if he did not have a close relationship with Huawei, including his previous endorsement of the company's "vision of our shared digital future". The authors also allege that Sachs has ties to a number of Chinese state bodies and the private energy corporation CEFC China Energy for which he has spoken.[16]

During a January 2021 interview, despite the interviewer's repeated prompting, Sachs evaded questions about China's repression of the Uyghurs by alluding to "huge human rights abuses committed by the U.S."[61] Subsequently, 19 advocacy and rights groups jointly wrote a letter to Columbia University questioning Sachs' comments.[61][62] The letter's signatories wrote that Sachs took the same stance as China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a digression to the history of U.S. rights violations as a way to avoid discussions of China's mistreatment of Uyghurs. The rights groups went on to say that Sachs "betrayed his institution's mission" by trivializing the perspective of those who were oppressed by the Chinese government.[61][62] Stephan Richter, editor-in-chief at The Globalist, and J.D. Bindenagel, a writer, wrote that Sachs is actively promoting "a classic Communist propaganda ploy".[63]

Personal life[edit]

Sachs lives in New York City with his wife Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, a pediatrician. They have three children, named Lisa, Adam[64] and Hannah Sachs.[65][66][67] Sachs endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and has provided advice to Sanders.[68]

Awards and honors[edit]

In 2004 and 2005, Sachs was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time. He was also named one of the "500 Most Influential People in the Field of Foreign Policy" by the World Affairs Councils of America.[69]

In 1993, the New York Times called Sachs "probably the most important economist in the world."[27] In 2005, Sachs received the Sargent Shriver Award for Equal Justice. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor bestowed by the government of India.[70] Also in 2007, he received the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution International Advocate for Peace Award and the Centennial Medal from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for his contributions to society.[31]

In 2007, Sachs received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.[71]

From 2000 to 2001, Sachs was chairman of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health[72] of the World Health Organization (WHO) and from 1999 to 2000 he served as a member of the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission established by the United States Congress. Sachs has been an adviser to the WHO, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations Development Program. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Society of Fellows, the Fellows of the World Econometric Society, the Brookings Panel of Economists, the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Board of Advisers of the Chinese Economists Society, among other international organizations.[31] Sachs is also the first holder of the Royal Professor Ungku Aziz Chair in Poverty Studies at the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 2007–2009. He holds an honorary professorship at the Universidad del Pacifico in Peru. He has lectured at the London School of Economics, the University of Oxford and Yale University and in Tel Aviv and Jakarta.[31]

In September 2008, Vanity Fair ranked Sachs 98th on its list of 100 members of the New Establishment. In July 2009, Sachs became a member of the Netherlands Development Organisation's International Advisory Board.[73] In 2009, Princeton University's American Whig-Cliosophic Society awarded Sachs the James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service.[74]

In 2016, Sachs became president of the Eastern Economic Association, succeeding Janet Currie.[75]

In 2017, Sachs and his wife were the joint recipients of the first World Sustainability Award.[76] In 2015, Sachs was awarded the Blue Planet Prize for his contributions to solving global environmental problems.[77]

In May 2017 Sachs was awarded the Boris Mints Institute Prize for Research of Strategic Policy Solutions to Global Challenges.[78]

Honorary degrees[edit]

Sachs has received honorary degrees from Bryant University,[79] the College of the Atlantic, Connecticut College, the Cracow University of Economics in Poland, Iona College, Lehigh University, Lingnan College in Hong Kong, McGill University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Ohio Wesleyan University, Pace University, St. John's University, Simon Fraser University, Southern Methodist University, Southern New Hampshire University, the State University of New York, the University of Brescia in Italy,[80][81] the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, the University of Economics Varna in Bulgaria,[31]Ursinus College, Whitman College, the University of Michigan, the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,[82] and the ADA University.[citation needed]

Publications[edit]

Sachs has written hundreds of academic articles and many books, including three The New York Times bestsellers, namely The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (Penguin, 2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (Penguin, 2008) and The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity (Random House, 2011). More recent books include The Age of Sustainable Development (Columbia University Press, 2015), Building the New American Economy (Columbia University Press, 2017), A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (Columbia University Press, 2018), and The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (Columbia University Press, 2020).

Sachs writes a monthly foreign affairs column for Project Syndicate, a nonprofit association of newspapers around the world that is circulated in 145 countries.[83] He is also a frequent contributor to such major publications as the Financial Times,[84][85] Scientific American, Time and The Huffington Post.

Selected works[edit]

- Sachs, Jeffrey (2020). The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions. Columbia University Press ISBN 9780231193740

- Sachs, Jeffrey (2018). A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism. Columbia University Press ISBN 9780231188487

- Sachs, Jeffrey (2017). Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, & Sustainable. Columbia University Press ISBN 978-0-231-18404-5

- Sachs, Jeffrey (March 3, 2015). The Age of Sustainable Development. Columbia University Press ISBN 0231173156

- Sachs, Jeffrey (June 4, 2013). To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace. Random House, ISBN 978-0812994926

- Sachs, Jeffrey (October 4, 2011). The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity Random House ISBN 978-1-4000-6841-8

- Sachs, Jeffrey D. (June 2010). "Millennium Development Goals at 10". Scientific American. 302 (6): 17. Bibcode:2010SciAm.302f..30S. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0610-30. PMID 20521476.

- Sachs, Jeffrey (2008). Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet Penguin Press HC ISBN 978-1-59420-127-1

- Humphreys, Macartan, Sachs, Jeffrey, and Stiglitz, Joseph (eds.) (May 22, 2007). "Escaping the Resource Curse" Columbia University Press ISBN 978-0-231-14196-3

- Sachs, Jeffrey (2005). The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time Penguin Press HC ISBN 1-59420-045-9

- Sachs, Jeffrey (2002). A New Global Effort to Control Malaria (Science), Vol. 298, October 4, 2002

- Sachs, Jeffrey (2002). Resolving the Debt Crisis of Low-Income Countries (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity), 2002:1

- Sachs, Jeffrey (2001). The Strategic Significance of Global Inequality (The Washington Quarterly), Vol. 24, No. 3, Summer 2001

- Sachs, Jeffrey (1997). Development Economics Blackwell Publishers ISBN 0-8133-3314-8

- Sachs, Jeffrey and Pistor, Katharina (1997). The Rule of Law and Economic Reform in Russia (John M. Olin Critical Issues Series (Paper)) Westview Press ISBN 0-8133-3314-8

- Sachs, Jeffrey (1994). Poland's Jump to the Market Economy (Lionel Robbins Lectures) MIT Press ISBN 0-262-69174-4

- Sachs, Jeffrey and Larraín B., Felipe (1993). Macroeconomics in the Global Economy Prentice Hall ISBN 0-13-102252-0

- Sachs, Jeffrey (ed) (1991). Developing Country Debt and Economic Performance, Volume 1 : The International Financial System (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report) University of Chicago Press ISBN 0-226-73332-7

- Sachs, Jeffrey and Warwick McKibbin Global Linkages: Macroeconomic Interdependence and Co-operation in the World Economy, Brookings Institution, June, 277 pages. (ISBN 0-8157-5600-3)

- Sachs, Jeffrey (ed) (1989). Developing Country Debt and the World Economy (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report) University of Chicago Press ISBN 0-226-73338-6

- Bruno, Michael and Sachs, Jeffrey (1984), "Stagflation in the World Economy"

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