Columns

There were smiles for the camera, handshakes, warm words and the unveiling of a couple of agreements. :  

Michael Beckley, Tufts University

(THE CONVERSATION) — There were smiles for the camera, handshakes, warm words and the unveiling of a couple of agreements.

But beyond the optics of the first meeting in over a year between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies, not an awful lot had changed: There was nothing to suggest a “reset” in U.S. and China relations that in recent years have been rooted in suspicionand competition.

President Joe Biden hinted as much just hours after the face-to-face talks, confirming that he still considered his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, a “dictator.” Beijing hit back, with foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning telling reporters Biden’s remark was “extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation.”

As a scholar of U.S.-China relations, I believe the relationship between the two countries can be best described as an “enduring rivalry” – a term used by political scientists to denote two powers that have singled each other out for intense security competition. Examples from history include India and Pakistan, France and England, and the West and the Soviet Union. Over the past two centuries, such rivals have accounted for only 1% of the world’s international relationships but 80% of its wars.
History suggest these rivalries last around 40 years and end only when one side loses the ability to compete – or when the two sides ally against a common enemy. Neither scenario looks likely any time soon in regards to China and the U.S.

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How enduring rivalries end

China “is a communist country … based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said after his meeting with Xi.

That comment gets to the heart of why diplomacy alone cannot reset the U.S.-China relationship. Washington and Beijing are not rivals due to any misunderstanding that can be sorted out through talks alone. Rather, they are rivals because of the opposite reason: They understand each other only too well and have come to the conclusion that their respective world outlooks cannot be reconciled.

The same is true for many of the issues that divide the two countries – they are framed as binary win-lose scenarios. Taiwan can be governed from Taipei or Beijing, but not both. Similarly, the East China and South China seas can be international waters or Chinese territory; Russia can be crippled or supported.

For the United States, its Asian alliances are a force for stability; for China, they’re hostile encirclement. And both countries are right in their respective assessments.

Diplomacy alone is insufficient to resolve a rivalry. At best, it can help manage it.

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When the US calls, who picks up?

Part of this management of the U.S-China rivalry involves finding areas of agreement that can be committed to.

And on Nov. 15, Biden and Xi announced deals over curbing China’s production of the deadly drug fentanyl and the restoring of high-level, military-to-military dialogue between the two countries.

But the fentanyl announcement is very similar to the one Xi gave to then-President Donald Trump in 2019. The U.S. administration later accused China of reneging on the agreement.

Similarly, committing to restarting high-level dialogue is one thing; following up on it is another. History is dotted with occasions when having an open line between Beijing and Washington hasn’t meant a whole lot in times of crisis. In 2001, when a U.S. surveillance aircraft collided with a Chinese jet over Hainan Island, Beijing didn’t pick up the phone. Likewise, during the Tiananmen Square massacre, then-President George H.W. Bush urgently tried to call his counterpart Deng Xiaoping but was unable to get through.

Moreover, focusing on what was agreed to in talks also highlights what wasn’t – and is unlikely to ever be – agreed to without a substantial shift in power that forces one side to concede to the other.

For example, China wants the U.S. to stop selling arms to Taiwan. But Washington has no intention of doing this, as it knows that this will make the disputed island more vulnerable to Beijing. Washington would like China to end its military displays of strength over the Taiwan Strait; Beijing knows doing so risks seeing Taiwan drift toward independence.

American policymakers have long said what they want is China to “change” – by which it means to liberalize its system of governance. But the Chinese Communist Party knows that doing so means self-liquidation – every communist regime that has allowed space for alternative political parties has unraveled. Which is why American attempts to engage China are often met with suspicion in China. As former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin commented, engagement and containment policies have the same aim: to end China’s socialist system.

For similar reasons, Xi has shunned attempts by the U.S. to bring China further into the rules-based international order. The Chinese leader saw what happened when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev tried to integrate the Soviet Union into the Western order in the late 1980s – it only hastened the demise of the socialist entity.

Instead, Xi calls for a massive military buildup, the reassertion of Chinese Communist Party control and an economic policy based on self-reliance.

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Actions speak louder …

The encouraging words and limited agreements hammered out in the latest meeting between Xi and Biden should also not distract from the actions that continue to push the U.S. and China further apart.

China’s show of force in the Taiwan Strait has been sustained for three years now and shows no sign of abating. Meanwhile, Beijing’s navy continues to harass other nations in the South China Sea.

Similarly, Biden has continued the U.S. path toward military alliances aimed at countering China’s threat. It recently entered a trilateral agreement between the U.S., Japan and South Korea. And that came two years after the establishment of AUKUS, a security partnership between the the U.S., Australia and the U.K. that has similar aims.

Meanwhile, the U.S. administration will continue to tighten the screws on China’s economy through investment restrictions. Biden is well aware that easy flowing money from Wall Street is helping China weather choppier economic waters of late and is keen to turn off the tap.

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The point of diplomacy

This isn’t to say that diplomacy and face-to-face talks are pointless. They do, in fact, serve a number of interests.

For both men involved, there is a domestic upside. For Biden, playing nice with China projects the image of a statesman – especially at a time when, due to U.S. positions on Ukraine and the Middle East, he is facing accusations from the political left of being a “warmonger.” And encouraging Beijing to tread softly during the U.S. election year may blunt a potential line of attack from Republicans that the administration’s China policy is not working.

Meanwhile, Xi is able to showcase his own diplomatic skills and present China as an alternative superpower to the U.S. and to potentially cleave the Western business community – and perhaps even major European nations – from what he would see as the U.S. anti-China coalition.

Moreover, summits like the one in San Francisco signal that both the U.S. and China are jointly committed to at least keep talking, helping ensure that a rocky relationship doesn’t descend into anything more belligerent – even it that doesn’t make them any friendlier.

President Biden is proud of his price controls. :  

Jarrett Skorup and William S. Smith, Mackinac Center for Public Policy

President Biden is proud of his price controls. Federally dictated prices for prescription drugs are “a key part of Bidenomics,” according to the President. Yet these top-down mandates are already killing research into life-saving cures, and by one count, at least 135 new drugs will never come to market, including many cancer drugs. And now states may soon double down on this failed approach, capping the price of drugs in ways that hurt patients.

Look no further than Michigan, where lawmakers have introduced legislation to create a “prescription drug affordability board.” The board would have the power to set an “upper payment limit” on the prices that can be paid for certain prescription drugs — i.e., price controls. It’s similar to President Biden’s policy, though in other respects, the Michigan measure is even worse.

For instance: No board member could be from a drug manufacturer. That means the board will have little-to-no real-world experience with the production and sale of prescription drugs. It also makes it likely the board will make decisions that stifle medical research and ultimately hurt patient health.

Because while the bill bans members from having a “financial interest” in their decisions, it requires the board to have members from physician groups, hospitals and managed care organizations. These industries absolutely have a financial interest:
Namely, in cutting the costs they pay to drug manufacturers.

This is a recipe for less innovation that could save lives.

The Michigan bill’s authors suffer under the illusion that drug manufacturers determine the out-of-pocket costs that patients pay for their prescriptions. But the prices consumers pay are determined by insurers, including government programs such as Medicare. And in any case, the data on drug prices is clear: real drug prices have been dropping for five straight years, no price controls needed.

Where, then, is this bill coming from? The answer is economic illiteracy. Politicians believe they are better at pricing goods and services, despite evidence to the contrary.

If politicians are such experts, why stop at prescription drugs? If price controls work, the board should also dictate the costs of the food products that have witnessed the steepest rises in prices in recent years.

The same goes for energy. Let’s have the board look at the price increases for natural gas, propane, gasoline, diesel, and heating oil — all of which have seen price hikes in recent years. Why not institute price controls at the pump, too?

We all want lower prices, but, as the economist Thomas Sowell has said, “There are no solutions; only trade-offs.”

Whatever the industry or item, the trade-off for price caps is clear: When politicians or government boards start setting prices, consumers inevitably experience shortages. Cap the prices on steak, and meat producers will send very few steaks to your state.
Cap prices on gasoline and distributors will avoid gas stations.

With less revenue, drug makers will bring fewer new, often life-saving drugs to the market.

President Biden’s price controls are already holding back the next wave of medical progress. If states like Michigan double down, even fewer life-saving drugs will come to market, leading to even more suffering for patients.

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Jarrett Skorup is the vice president for marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. William S. Smith, PhD, is senior fellow and director of the Life Science Initiative at Pioneer Institute in Boston.

Calls for a cease-fire and other limits on military operations and violence were made by governments, advocacygroups and political leaders around the world almost immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023. :  

Laurie Nathan, University of Notre Dame

(THE CONVERSATION) — Calls for a cease-fire and other limits on military operations and violence were made by governments, advocacygroups and political leaders around the world almost immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians by Hamas. Israel immediately declared war on Hamas and began shelling and then invaded Gaza, leading to more than 11,000 civilian deaths and massive destruction.

Global calls for cease-fires have continued to be made by hundreds of disparate organizations and tens of thousands of demonstrators.

The United Nations General Assembly and Security Council have issued calls for fighting to stop, to ensure “the immediate, continuous, sufficient and unhindered provision of essential goods and services to civilians throughout the Gaza Strip” and to ensure “immediate, full, sustained, safe and unhindered humanitarian access” for the U.N. and other agencies.

To date, there has been no cease-fire, though in early November, Israel agreed to stop attacks for four hours a day to allow refugees to flee and aid to be distributed. And other efforts to establish a cease-fire agreement are reportedly underway.

Those demanding a cease-fire are driven by humanitarian compassion and principles, primarily the need to protect civilians caught up in a terrible war. But as a scholar of mediation who also works as an international mediator, I know that cease-fires are technically complicated military and political undertakings that always entail risk and require specialist expertise.

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The basic requirements

In addition to providing mediation training to senior international diplomats, I have done comparative research on what constitutes a strong cease-fire. I also have practical experience: In 2005 and 2006 I was a member of the African Union mediation team for ending violent conflict in Darfur, responsible for drafting the peace agreement’s cease-fire provisions. To this end, I facilitated tense negotiations between Sudanese military officers and Darfur rebels.

On the basis of my research and experience, it is clear that a strong cease-fire agreement must always have clear and viable rules and timelines, including about the use and control of weapons, the movements of fighters and the activities of humanitarian agencies.

The leadership and rank and file of the opposing forces must understand precisely what their responsibilities are in a cease-fire. They must know exactly what activities are prohibited and what activities are permitted.

Moreover, the rules and procedures must be tailored to the particular political, military and geographic circumstances of each conflict. The details of a humanitarian cease-fire agreement for Gaza would look completely different from, say, the cease-fire agreement for Darfur. And it needs political will from the opposing parties, which varies from case to case and can change over time.

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A cease-fire for Gaza

The relevant circumstances of Gaza include these facts:

• Israel has much more powerful military capabilities than Hamas.

• The fighting in Gaza is taking place in a densely populated area.

• Hamas fighters are physically close to and perhaps even immersed in the civilian population of Gaza.

• The U.N. and numerous other organizations have said it is essential for Hamas to release the Israeli hostages it holds.

• The people of Gaza have critical humanitarian needs for food, water, shelter and safety, as well as hospital and medical support.

The Israeli government and Hamas would have to negotiate mutually acceptable ways of addressing these challenges.

It would also be important to consult the U.N. and other humanitarian agencies to determine what they need in order to provide humanitarian support and protect children, injured people and other vulnerable groups.

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The role of trust – and mistrust

Opposing groups who are in violent conflicts inevitably hate and mistrust each other. It is therefore helpful for cease-fire negotiations to be supported by a mediator who is sufficiently trusted by the parties. The mediator can facilitate these negotiations through indirect dialogue – referred to as “shuttle diplomacy” – when the parties are unwilling or unable to meet face-to-face.

In the Gaza crisis, Qatar, supported by the United States, is playing the mediator role. Qatari mediators are attempting to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that could include the release of roughly 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day cease-fire.

There are two other ways cease-fires can be strengthened in order to mitigate the hatred and mistrust between the parties. The first is by deploying cease-fire monitors – independent observers on the field of battle – who investigate alleged cease-fire violations. Their presence can help to deter violations.

The second way is by setting up communication channels between the mediator and representatives of the warring parties to resolve disputes and address violations that inevitably arise. The goal is to prevent small-scale violations from escalating into large-scale violations that could herald a return to hostilities.

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Political will is important

Israel and Hamas can overcome the technical difficulties of a Gaza cease-fire if they have the political will to do so. It is relevant that Israel and Hamas have previously negotiated cease-fires and truces in Gaza. And in 2023 a truce between Israel and the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad militant group was brokered by Egyptian mediators after cross-border attacks. A cease-fire brokered by the U.S. in November 2012 lasted 18 months. But none of the cease-fires was likely to hold in the long term because they were not linked to a political resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

In responding to the Gaza crisis, some world leaders have appeared confused about the distinction between a truce, a humanitarian pause, a cease-fire and a cessation of hostilities. In general, there is no international consensus on the meaning of these terms. In Gaza, as in every case, the cease-fire objectives, rules and procedures matter more than the labels that are used.

The current focus of international calls for a cease-fire is on humanitarian relief as a short-term objective. But the humanitarian situation, and the need to protect civilians in Gaza, will remain critical in the medium to long term.

The question of a permanent cease-fire and long-term security arrangement will have to be part of any negotiations to finally resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If the vision of a two-state solution is realized, the challenge will be to ensure that both Israel and an independent Palestinian state can enjoy sovereignty and adequate self-defense without threatening each other.

Too often, K-12 social studies classes in the U.S. teach a mostly glossed-over story of U.S. settlement. :  

Lisa Michelle King, University of Tennessee

(THE CONVERSATION) — Too often, K-12 social studies classes in the U.S. teach a mostly glossed-over story of U.S. settlement. Textbooks tell the stories of adventurous European explorers founding colonies in the “New World,” and stories of the “first Thanksgiving” frequently portray happy colonists and Native Americans feasting together. Accounts of the colonies’ battle for independence frame it as a righteous victory. Native American removal might be mentioned as a sad footnote, but the triumph of the pioneer spirit takes center stage.

As a scholar of Native American and Indigenous rhetorics, I argue that this superficial story hides the realities of what many historians and activists call ­“settler colonialism.” Historian Lorenzo Veracini asserts that colonial activity isn’t just about a nation sending out explorers and bringing back resources, or what scholars refer to as “classical colonialism.” It’s also about what happens when a new people moves in and attempts to establish itself as the “superior” community whose culture, language and rights to resources and land supersede those of the Indigenous people who already live there.

When U.S. history, culture and politics are understood through the lens of settler colonialism, it’s easier to understand how, as historian Patrick Wolfe wrote, “settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure, not an event.”

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U.S. policies and why they matter

While settler colonial policies can include genocide, they take many forms.

Deceptive and broken treaties forced Native American nations to give up vast portions of their homelands. For example, in eastern Tennessee, the Treaty of Holston, signed in 1791, was made in theory to help establish clear boundaries between Cherokee and settler communities.

The U.S. government would receive land, and the Cherokee would receive annual payments, goods and the promise of the government’s protection in return. Instead, settlers moved onto Cherokee land and the U.S. government did not intervene. By 1798, the First Treaty of Tellico forced the Cherokee to give up the land the settlers had illegally taken, plus some. Year by year, the Cherokee and other tribes were pushed out.

Forced outright removal beyond treaties further deprived Native American nations of their land and attempted to erase them. Instead of supporting any kind of coexistence, legislation such as the 1830 Indian Removal Act called for the complete removal of all tribes east of the Mississippi River.

Though the Cherokee and others fought such legislation in the courtroom, the result was the displacement of 100,000 Native people from the eastern U.S. between 1830-1850 and the deaths of thousands of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee and Seminole people on the Trail of Tears.

Blood quantum systems of identification attempted to make Native American people “disappear” by assigning Native American identity through counting the fractional amount of “Indian blood” and encouraging intermarriage with non-Native people. Once a certain degree of intermarriage was reached, a person was no longer considered Native and was not eligible for tribal enrollment.

As scholar and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation Elizabeth Rule notes, many Native nations today have adopted the use of blood quantum as a form of identification, which remains a controversial issue inside and outside Native communities. At the same time, she observes, it is the sovereign right of those nations to make these choices. However, the problem of erasure through this system remains, as blood quantum requirements can deny citizenship to clear lineal descendants and complicate discussions about Freedmen.

Alongside these policies, education was used as a tool to eradicate Native American languages and cultures by removing Native children from their families and forbidding them to speak their languages or practice their cultures. As the founder of the first boarding school, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Richard Henry Pratt is well known for arguing to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” Abuse of students was not uncommon. Many boarding school survivors experienced the trauma of losing connections to their families and cultures, a pain that is still felt today.

Twentieth-century U.S. policies of relocation and political termination further attempted to absolve the federal government of its treaty responsibilities to Native nations. If the U.S. government could “terminate” tribal nations by disbanding them as nations, then all obligations to tribes would legally disappear and all remaining tribal land would revert to government ownership.

After the passing of House Concurrent Resolution 108 in 1953, more than 100 tribes and 13,000 Native people experienced termination, and more than 1 million acres of land were lost. Further federal policies such as the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 encouraged tribal members to permanently leave reservations and relocate to cities to find work and thus assimilate into U.S. society.

Overall, these policies were not fully carried out, and many tribal nations advocated for their status to be restored. Yet real damage was done to the tribal nations that endured termination, and relocated tribal members faced discrimination and disconnection.

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Reducing harm

It isn’t possible to simply undo all of these policies and their impact. Yet scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang acknowledge that challenging those policies and reducing their influence, known as settler harm reduction, is a first step toward change. But for change to happen, those who benefit from the settler colonial system – whether original settlers or anyone today who gains advantage from these policies – need to work with Native American nations and communities toward finding active ways to do better.

The starting point is identifying the stories that still circulate in the U.S. about Native Americans and finding ways to change settler colonial assumptions that still reinforce Native American erasure. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I believe teaching the Thanksgiving story alongside the Wampanoag peoples of today is an easy place to start. The past cannot be undone, but it doesn’t have to dictate the future.
 

When Erek L. Barron, U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland, premiered a 60-second video that seeks to show how gun violence devastates families, he said his goal was to create an innovative public service announcement that would help “turn aroun :  

Three communication scholars offer their perspectives on effectiveness of PSAs

By Holli H. Seitz, Mississippi State University
Jessica Myrick, Penn State
and Sara C. Doan, Michigan State University

(THE CONVERSATION) — When Erek L. Barron, U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland, premiered a 60-second video that seeks to show how gun violence devastates families, he said his goal was to create an innovative public service announcement that would help “turn around violent crime and improve safety in our neighborhoods.”

Titled “Goodbye,” the video PSA starts with a high school girl, Tasha, getting a surprise visit from the ghost of her brother, “T,” who tells his sister that he won’t be home and that she is now in charge.

After T disappears, Tasha learns from law enforcement and Barron that her older brother has been shot and killed.

While the PSA – released in September 2023 – is heartbreaking, a critical question remains: Will it work? To answer that question, The Conversation reached out to three communication scholars for their perspectives on the effectiveness of PSAs.

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Jessica Gall Myrick, professor of health communication, Penn State University

While PSAs can prompt people to talk about a particular topic and keep it front of mind, using PSAs to persuade people to actually change behavior is more difficult.

Some people simply are not ready to change. They are at what researchers call the “precontemplative stage.” For such people, a PSA can be more persuasive if it just gets them to think about the topic. One strategy to achieve this end is to appeal to people’s emotions.

However, just provoking an emotional response will not necessarily lead to a change in behavior. If audiences are overwhelmed with fear or anger, they often reject the message or discredit its source.

When encouraging audiences to emotionally invest in a topic, too much of any one negative emotion may backfire, while not enough will leave them uninterested, perhaps believing the topic is not very important.

Research suggests that many audiences often respond more favorably to messages that offer some hope, at least by the end. Hope is an important emotion because it can boost our confidence in our ability to handle the threat discussed in the PSA.

In the case of a PSA like “Goodbye,” the sadness or sympathy evoked by showing the grief of the little sister may not immediately change anyone’s policy position or attitude about guns. However, it is memorable – it has the potential to keep people thinking about the issue of gun violence.

“Goodbye” also makes the impact of gun violence more concrete – it feels less abstract than a news story filled with statistics about injuries or deaths.

When stories evoke feelings of empathy and identification with the people directly affected by a social issue, they can help audiences to start to think more, and more often, about the issue’s effects on both themselves and on society more broadly, even if they do not instantly change behavior.

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Holli H. Seitz, professor of communication, Mississippi State University

When they work, media campaigns – which often include PSAs – can have small beneficial effects on people’s behavior and knowledge. However, sometimes PSAs have unintended effects or even harmful effects on behavior. In such cases, the effects are called “boomerang effects” because they go in an unexpected direction.

Case in point: From 1998 to 2004, Congress appropriated over US$1.2 billion for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. However, an evaluation found that the media campaign failed to have favorable effects and may have even promoted the perception that drug use among others was normal.

Even in cases where the message of a PSA is effective, there are other factors to consider.

For one, a lot of PSA research was conducted before the rise of social media. The changing media landscape may make it more difficult for PSAs to wrestle people’s attention away from whatever else they’re viewing.

Secondly, PSA creators don’t always do enough to ensure that their PSAs reach their intended audience. Getting a PSA into the media platforms that the target audience uses – and showing it frequently – is key to see effects. The limited effects of past programs, such as the Community Intervention Trial for Smoking Cessation, may be attributable to a lack of sufficient exposure to key messages.

To increase the effectiveness of PSAs, we can look to communication research for guidance. Communication scholar Seth Noar says that campaigns are more likely to be effective when campaign creators conduct research with the intended audience to understand the behavior they hope to change and pretest messages for effectiveness. For example, a campaign to encourage people in Victoria, Australia, to reserve ambulances for emergencies used audience research to inform their campaign development. An evaluation of that campaign showed desirable effects on public attitudes toward the appropriate use of ambulances.

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Sara C. Doan, assistant professor of experience architecture, Michigan State University

I argue that telling a relatable story makes people want to act. By avoiding the lectures, such as Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign, and the ironic pictures and quotes from New York City’s posters of crying babies to prevent teen pregnancy, Maryland’s PSA invokes a real situation: how families of gun violence victims deal with losing a family member.

This story allows people to bring their own knowledge, experience and social connections to the problem of gun violence, making people want to act. T tells his younger sister, “You’re in charge right now, Tasha… Just feed my birds for me, alright?” This dialogue feels genuine, without the cheesiness that made people joke about previous anti-drug PSAs.

People respond better to real images and situations in PSAs, especially when the topic is unpleasant. The “Goodbye” PSA shocked me but doesn’t rely on shock value.

I believe a call to action – whether by a local government, nongovernment organization, or a group of citizen activists – that shows how people’s actions will matter would make the PSA’s message more powerful.

Actions also need to follow a PSA to change people’s behavior.

For example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s campaign “Click It or Ticket” – combined with traffic enforcement begun in the 1990s and still ongoing – has helped raise rates of seat belt use by 8% between 2009 and 2022.

The horrors of gun violence should not be made into a snappy slogan, which, thankfully, Maryland’s PSA avoids. I argue that giving people a concrete action to take – and empowering communities to act through funding and support for on-the-ground efforts – would make PSAs more effective.

This is the case of Detroit restaurateur and Nazi-sympathizer Max Stephan. In 1942, the German-born Stephan became one of the first U.S. citizens to be found guilty of treason since the Lincoln Assassination in 1865. :  

By John F. Sase

(With assistance and inspiration from Gerad Senick, editor; Julie Sase, copy-editor; and William Gross, researcher)

"It is ideas that shape the course of history and, furthermore, that it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

-John Maynard Keynes, English economist

In our troubled world, focused upon situation that threaten humanity, we search for meaning and understanding of the human conflict. This discussion focuses upon the many groups in Easten Europe, the Middle-East, Africa, South America, and the Far East. Perhaps we can learn again from a power for good and understanding.

Introduction

This is the case of Detroit restaurateur and Nazi-sympathizer Max Stephan. In 1942, the German-born Stephan became one of the first U.S. citizens to be found guilty of treason since the Lincoln Assassination in 1865. This affaire and the decades of events that led up to it and followed it centered in Detroit, the city known as the World War II Arsenal of Democracy. We recount the case of Max Stephan in detail because of its historic value and relevance to modern times. Furthermore, Stephan's story is important to contemporary legal studies because of the yet-unanswered questions that surround the case.

Max Stephan was a Detroit restaurateur who aided in the escape of POW Luftwaffe Lieutenant Peter Krug in 1942. Krug had escaped from the Bowmanville Camp near Toronto and was attempting to get to the German Embassy in still-neutral Mexico. Stephan and others in Detroit gave him refuge for a couple of days as well as food and money to continue onward through Chicago. For his complicity, Stephan was arrested and tried for high treason as a U.S. citizen. However, a serious study of the case leaves one with the sense that the matter was indeed odd, curious, and had more holes in it than a block of Baby Swiss cheese.

As John Maynard Keynes states in our opening quote, ideas that are dangerous for good or evil shape the course of history. Therefore, in order to amass a greater perspective on the case of Max Stephan, we must explore the ideas as well as the events that both preceded and followed the Stephan affaire in Detroit. Let us start with the ideas and events that preceded the case of Max Stephan: He and many others believed in, were influenced by, and worked under an ideology that emerged in nineteenth-century Europe and continues to flourish to this day throughout the world. Most notably to the case, this ideology ferments to this day in Detroit, and does so through the National Socialist Movement (www.nsm88.org).

Birth of an Idea

The ideology that drove the Stephan case emerged from the Volkisch Movement, a nineteenth-century German cultural movement that had a romantic focus on folklore, which represented a Germanic interpretation of the populist movement. The early phase of the Volkisch Movement drew upon the teachings of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the German educator and nationalist who appeared as the Volkisch prophet of athleticism, German identity, and national unity. In order to spread his vision, Jahn founded a network of patriotic fraternities in the wake of the Napoleonic War that ended with the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

By the 1870s, the Pan-Germanic vision had arisen with the formation of the Second Reich, during which Otto von Bismarck installed Wilhelm I as the Kaiser. Following this confederation of more than one hundred small principalities, the older land-based economy of the First Reich (the Holy Roman Empire) broke down.

Consequently, a mass migration from Germany to America began for those who opposed Bismark and the Second Reich during the Kulturkampf era. In 1866, the Germanenbund formed as a federation of cultural groups that held festivals and other Volkisch events. These cultural groups explored the history, literature, and mythology that would ferment into the beliefs of Arisophy, the wisdom and ideological systems of an esoteric nature that concern the Aryans. By 1901, more than 160 such groups existed throughout the country as the democratic German parties and the Pan-German Movement made strong electoral gains.

Guido von List

During the late-nineteenth century, the German/Austrian polymath and Volkisch occultist Guido von List stood out as one of the most important figures of this movement. His work formed the platform for Germanic and Runic revivalism and Ariosophic mysticism.

However, the ideas developed by von List and others in the nineteenth century were carried forward into the twentieth century by Lanz von Liebenfels. A former monk in the Cistercian order, von Liebenfels brought the ideas of Ariosophy to a new overt level. In 1907, von Liebenfels founded the Order of the New Templars and, with fellow supporters, the Guido von List Society in 1908. Von Liebenfels advocated sterilization of the sick and "lower races" in his anti-Semitic Volkisch magazine Ostara, a work studied by Adolf Hitler. The latter was said to have met with von Liebenfels at least as early as 1909 when he gave this Viennese student some missing issues of his magazine.

Next, let us turn our attention to Berlin in 1912. Phillip Stauff, an occultist and officer of the von List Society, joined with anti-Semitic publisher Theodor Fritsch and others to form the Germanenorden, a Volkisch secret organization that was directed toward the upper echelons of society. With Germanenorden, the world saw a new use of the ancient Tibetan/Buddhist symbol for prosperity and fire from Heaven-the swastika.

The Germanenorden survived the First World War, though it split into two factions. In 1916, the former Chancellor of the order, Herman Pohl, founded Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail. He was joined by Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a wealthy occultist and admirer of von List and von Liebenfels. In his book "The Occult Roots of Nazism" (Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2009), English scholar Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke tells us that the Munich lodge of this organization chose the cover name of the Thule Society (taken from the ancient Nordic name for the mythical Aryan homeland) upon its dedication on 18 August 1918. Having enlisted the backing of various bankers and industrialists in Western Europe and beyond, the Thule Society was determined to contain any Communist expansion westward from Russia.

Another key element of the Stephan case is that of the German Workers Party (DAP), founded by Anton Drexler, a member of Thule, on 5 January 1919 in Munich. The DAP came to public attention during the time of the summer of street fights against the Communist Party that had won the election and had taken control of the government in Munich.

Given the notoriety afforded the DAP, the Thule Society began to question the autonomy and political direction of the ragtag militant organization. As a result, the Society enlisted the aid of former-Corporal Adolf Hitler to infiltrate the ranks of the DAP. After attending a meeting of the group at a Munich beer hall on 12 September 1919, Hitler reported back to Thule that the DAP posed no danger and could be instrumental to the goals of the Society. In addition, corroborating sources state that Drexler was so impressed with Hitler at that meeting that he was asked to join the party. Evidence suggests that it was at this juncture that the Thule Society began to sponsor the DAP heavily as an anti-Communist front. Through the involvement of Hitler, who was funded by the Thule Society, the DAP began to transform into the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP, aka the Nazi Party).

Barring a couple of setbacks in the early 1920s, the political strength of the NSDAP grew as the party rose to power between 1925 and 1933. The election of 1932 had established the party as the largest parliamentary faction of the Weimar Republic. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Weimar Republic by ailing President Paul von Hindenburg. Following the still-suspicious Reichstag fire, which a number of historians assert was started by the NSDAP as an excuse to expel the members of the Communist Party from the Reichstag, the Enabling Act was passed on 23 March 1933. This legislation conferred dictatorial powers on Hitler. The Third Reich was open for business.

During the rise and takeover of the German government by the NSDAP, the group known as Abwehr was active in Germany and around the world. The sole German military-intelligence organization, Abwehr (which comes from a word that means "defense") functioned as an information-gathering agency from 1921 through 1944. Per the terms of the Treaty of Versailles following the armistice of the First World War, the Allied powers left Germany devoid of any armed defenses.

The organization of Abwehr developed as a concession to Allied demands that post-war intelligence activities by Germany be used for defensive purposes only. The Abwehr intelligence- gathering agency dealt exclusively with human intelligence, drawing upon reports from field agents and other sources. The head of Abwehr reported directly to the High Command of the German Armed Forces. From there, intelligence summaries were disseminated to intelligence-evaluation sections of the disarmed German Army, Navy, and Air Force.

This worldwide "defensive" intelligence network developed through the 1920s, a decade of peace and prosperity for many, though not for Germany. When the NSDAP assumed totalitarian control of the country in 1933, the intelligence network was already well-established. Rearmament became the topmost priority of the German government under the NSDAP regime, which formally renamed Abwehr as the Foreign Affairs/Defense.

To be Continued.
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Dr. John F. Sase teaches Economics at Wayne State University and has practiced Forensic and Investigative Economics for twenty years. He earned a combined M.A. in Economics and an MBA at the University of Detroit, followed by a Ph.D. in Economics from Wayne State University. He is a graduate of the University of Detroit Jesuit High School (www.saseassociates.com).

Gerard J. Senick is a freelance writer, editor, and musician.

Julie G. Sase is a copyeditor, parent coach, and empath.