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One of the most successful shows in Broadway history is coming to Molines Spotlight Theatre, and the usually family-friendly venue is warning some patrons.

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO! This show is written by Mel Brooks, the Spotlight says on its website of the gleefully boundary-pushing comedy legend and the musical The Producers. If you are bringing children, I highly recommend you look into the appropriateness of the show. There is some language and a lot of innuendo.

The four leads of the new Producers (directed by Brent Tubbs) which premiered in 2001 and swept the Tonys, winning a record 12 cant wait to be all about that innuendo.

Ive been itching to do this since college, Joel Kolander (who plays the wild director Roger De Bris in his Spotlight debut) said Tuesday. I dont enjoy the humor so much as everybody elses reaction to it.

He cited the shows most famous number, Springtime for Hitler, as the prime hilarious example. Kolanders character the gay, flamboyant, campy director is also a hoot.

On the echelon of shock humor, you have a gay Hitler. Thats about as good as it gets, he said. There are a lot of shocked faces in the audience.

Roger requires over-the-top comic acting, and needs to have one of the best and strongest voices in the show, according to a synopsis.

Some people might come to see The Producers and not remember whats in the supremely silly show, even if they are familiar with the title, Kolander said.

It swept the Tonys; its a big show, Chris Tracy (a Spotlight veteran who plays Max Bialystock) said. It was a big deal back then. The last time they did it in Chicago was 2019, before COVID. It was a reimagining of it.

QC Music Guild did it as their spring show in 2009.

Oscar-winning film, record-breaking Tonys

The Producers has music and lyrics byMel Brooks (based on his Oscar-winning 1967 film starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder), and a book by Brooks andThomas Meehan.

The story concerns two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich by fraudulently overselling interests in aBroadwayflop. Complications arise when the show unexpectedly turns out to be successful.

The humor of the show draws on ridiculous accents, caricatures ofgaypeople andNazis, and manyshow businessin-jokes, according to a summary.

The original Broadway production in 2001 starred Nathan LaneandMatthew Broderick as Max and Leo, andran for 2,502 performances, winning a record-breaking 12Tony Awards. It was adapted into a 2005 film version.

Chris Tracy is playing Max, and saw the original cast in Chicago (before Broadway) in 2001. Ive been a Mel Brooks fan for a long time, he said Tuesday.

Despite The Producers being Brooks first full musical, Tracy said the songs are incredible with wit, humor and intelligence.

Mel Brooks was a drummer when he started out, and everything he writes has its own rhythm, he added. That follows through to these songs. His wife, Anne Bancroft, basically forced him to turn this into a musical.

Many people recommended he turn the film into a musical. Tracy said Brooks originally wanted to call the movie Springtime for Hitler, but the studio made him change that (the only thing in the movie he had to change).

Musical within a musical

Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden is the fictional musical within The Producers (film and stage version). Its a musical aboutthe Nazi dictator, written byFranz Liebkind, an unbalanced ex-Nazioriginally played byKenneth Mars(and later byBrad OscarandWill Ferrellin the stage musical and the 2005 film, respectively).

To ensure that the play in The Producers is a total failure, Max chooses this tasteless script (which he describes as practically a love letter to Adolf Hitler), and hires the worst director he can find (Roger DeBris), a stereotypicalhomosexualandtransvestitecaricature.

The musical within a musical is described as an equal opportunity offender: Jews are portrayed as so greedy they make merchandise out of Hitler, gay men are lispy and limp-wristed and sexually depraved old women struggle to a sexual fling on their walkers, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The character Max is based on someone Brooks actually worked for, Tracy said.

Tracy bases his portrayal more on Zero Mostel, the 60s Broadway star who had leads in Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Fiddler on the Roof.

He was just iconic, so my thought process was, what if he were in the musical? Tracy said. Try to blend with a little homage here and there to Nathan Lane, but also try to do some of my own stuff up there, hoping it works.

Its also the latest time hes played a Max character including in The Sound of Music, Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo.

His Producers co-star is actually a Max Max Robnett (as Leo Bloom), who was also in Sound of Music at Spotlight, another musical with Nazis.

I was the sweetest Nazi in all of Austria, Robnett said Tuesday, noting his next musical has to be Cabaret, also set against the backdrop of Nazis (in 1930s Berlin).

Hes nervous about being a copycat of a nebbishy Matthew Broderick, and is confident hes just different enough.

Its not to emulate, especially when you have such iconic people playing such iconic roles, Tracy said of the Broadway stars. They were all so good. It was the perfect formula at the perfect time, so you have the desire to bring that same energy to the role, but at the same time, its not the Broadway show. Its not the Off-Broadway show, or the Off-Off-Broadway show.

Were doing our version, he said. We have a few moments that are definitely our own.

The Producers features an ultimate odd couple, with Max and Leo. Max is described as the consummate con man, animated, bombastic, and frantic. Leo is the timid, nave and meek accountant.

Im naturally a neurotic, paranoid person, so playing an anxious person comes very naturally, Robnett joked. He and Tracy are both big fans of the show.

Hes very knowledgeable about the show, so was very helpful, Robnett said. We were pretty much set to run on day one.

Your jets were on at the read-through, Kolander marveled.

Having more fun as blonde

Kirsten Sindelar is in her fourth Spotlight show she has been in The Wedding Singer, Little Shop of Horrors and The Lightning Thief. She plays the Swedish blonde bombshell Ulla, after friends of hers recommended she try out.

I got it and I am having the best time, Sindelar (a Circa 21 Bootlegger) said. I get to keep my blonde hair, which the former brunette has had since February.

Kolander is in his first Spotlight show, after several at Music Guild. He was in Cats with Sindelar, and was in Jekyll & Hyde and Beauty and the Beast at Guild.

Being half-Swedish helps a little bit, Sindelar said of Ulla. Her highlight is during her entrance, right before intermission kind of an audition song called If You Got It, Flaunt It.

Its all the breath I can muster to get through it and dance, Sindelar said.

The Spotlight music director is Chad Schmertmann, and choreographer is Shana Kulhavy.

An over-the-top style

The former Scottish Rite Cathedral at 1800 7th Ave., Moline (which opened as the Spotlight in 2018) is definitely the largest stage and space Robnett has performed in, which affects the actors style.

This stage has a lot more freedom of movement, he said. You can play it to the back row here, definitely.

And that fits the style of the show, Sindelar said of its big, over-the-top nature. Above and beyond is what it is.

Im excited its a larger space, Kolander said. All I want for Roger is this constant energy. You bounce around, pinball around.

The hardest thing for in the show is, everythings funny and I am trying not to laugh up there, Sindelar said

The orchestra pit actually plays way up high in the back loft at the theater, and they are amplified through on-stage speakers.

Everythings possible with technology, Robnett said.

The Producers will be performed Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 7, 8 at 7 p.m., and Sundays, Oct. 2 and 9 at 2 p.m. For tickets and more information, click HERE.

See more here:
QC The Producers revels in being politically incorrect - WHBF - OurQuadCities.com

This document is a copy of the original published by the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies at the following link.

Interdependence has not promoted democratization in China (PRC), modulated its revisionism, or reduced the potential for conflict in its environment. Contrary to what is generally expected, increased interrelations with People's China have brought about the era of non-peace.

The world's interdependence with the PRCh allows the battlefield to expand so far that decisive battles are no longer necessary. Future supremacy will not necessarily be elucidated in a naval air battle in the South China Sea or in the Taiwan Strait. However, to think that war can be avoided is to consider war as a possibility.

The accumulated tensions raise the risk that Beijing may attempt to blockade or invade Taiwan in the near future. The sense of urgency is felt on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, generating a dangerous current of pressing mistrust.

The dynamics of competition between the major powers are volatile and ambiguous. International players have very few certainties at their disposal. Precisely their scarcity increases their value, even if our relationship with certainties is uneasy.

The events of the last 12 months and their evolution can be interpreted by the Chinese Communist Party as an attempt to revise the One China doctrine. Taiwan's declaration of independence or the granting of U.S. defence guarantees imply war with mainland China. The certainty is absolute. Interdependence as a mechanism to avoid war has failed in Ukraine. The period between 2024 and 2027 will discover whether or not it fails in Taiwan.

The barriers between national security and business have dissolved

For decades, Edward Luttwak has been a politically incorrect strategic thinker. Many of his considerations, reflections and proposals were ahead of their time, initially uncomfortable, destabilising and controversial. In 1990, Luttwak circulated the concept of geoeconomics in a famous essay.1 It is worth highlighting some old ideas from this article, which are interesting for better understanding the power play between today's major powers.

The first idea is that commercial methods are displacing military methods, but without changing the logic of the conflict that remains. It remains because each power continues to seek to gain relative advantage over the others, albeit by means other than force. So what we can expect is that wars will persist even if they take the form of economic rivalry.

The first idea is that commercial methods are displacing military methods, but without changing the logic of the conflict that remains. It remains because each power continues to seek to gain relative advantage over the others, albeit by means other than force. So what we can expect is that wars will persist even if they take the form of economic rivalry.

The third idea is that the state's geoeconomic activity will become a focal point of political debate and partisan controversy. This will provoke ideological and intellectual tensions within democratic societies, pitting elites and citizens against each other over the relationship between security and the economy.

Remarkably, in 1990, Luttwak anticipated issues that the United States and the European Union have been facing for 15 years but especially now, with the war in Ukraine and the gradual increase in tension in Taiwan

The problem for liberal democracies is that they are not designed to exercise comprehensive, long-term planned management of their economy for the purpose of achieving a position of global power. Free societies do not accept subordinating the national economy to national strategic objectives, except during a more or less brief state of emergency. However, China and Russia can do so with greater ease and more leeway.

The rise of China and changes in the distribution of global power it has brought about confirm Luttwak's considerations. Political, diplomatic and economic power can and will be used as a preferred strategic mode of geopolitical change. Geoeconomics inspires Chinese geostrategy, which uses all the levers of national power, so far avoiding open warfare, to subvert the system of global governance where states compete from within and thus facilitate the achievement of the fundamental objectives of its national interest.

Geoeconomics renews political warfare between major geopolitical competitors, becoming a constant practice in the space of mutual interrelation, where any link can be used as a weapon and where fields of interdependence are contested spaces in a nuanced grey zone. It has been evident since the 2008 crisis that the formula of geoeconomic defiance is adopted by revisionist powers against the dominant power, the United States and its allies.

With the 2008 financial crisis, from which China emerged stronger, thinking should have begun to shift to realising that the good times were over and there was no more room for complacency. The 2008 crisis discredited confidence in the deregulated market system and has progressively weakened confidence in the more liberal optimistic proposals. China began to believe the conviction that its time had come and the inevitable would eventually happen, it was just a matter of a few decades.

The country has been draining the West of industrial, scientific and technical capabilities, co-opting much of the competitive advantages of its companies. China's production structure has absorbed most of the West's basic and more advanced industry, and has managed to direct its incentives to displace them. Having consolidated this process, it has begun to aim higher in order to gain an advantage in the leading technological sectors of the fourth industrial revolution.

Thinking the unthinkable is mostly uncomfortable exercise. Thinking the unthinkable means making decisions at a high cost. Thinking the unthinkable is to question the permanence of Business as usual.

When praising foolishness, Erasmus of Rotterdam warns us that there is nothing more inopportune than an ill-timed truth. Normally, when an election period gets underway in democratic systems, the inconvenient truth needs dressing up. Permanent scrutiny makes it difficult, even in ordinary political times, to look beyond the everyday, and so thinking the unthinkable is indecent until the unthinkable becomes an incontestable reality that imposes a certain punishment and sense of urgency.

Recognising the new situation in 2008 meant thinking the unthinkable, globalisation had gone too far. The Peoples Republic of China had been riding the trends of globalisation according to its own self-regulated patterns. Containing Chinas advance towards world leading power status would mean containing globalisation and thus disengaging not only from China but from a process of global interdependence. Trying to stop China was trying to stop the pace of the world.

The cost of accepting the challenge was too high for the establishment, many powerful companies and citizens in the West. Letting time pass was not conducive to the evolution of the Western powers' position of power, nor to the evolution of their productive fabric, scientific and technological developments and, even less so, to the welfare of the majority of their workers. However, recognising the trends imposed an ideological, political and economic shift that would be resisted by many because of the immediate detrimental effects, possibly unable to understand the future benefits. The United States, the West in general, needs a direct and devastating attack like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 to mobilise its response, which then tends to be disproportionate and ill-timed.

Since the 2008 crisis, the global system has been locked in continuous trade disputes. The United States was constantly complaining about Chinese barriers and was not alone in criticising the Asian giant's malpractices. The World Trade Organisation was not doing what was necessary to discipline the Chinese model of competition. Even President Obama, a staunch advocate of the benefits of global free trade, was forced to progressively impose protectionist measures. There was also an urgent need for an exit strategy in the Middle East.

The 2017 US national security strategy was the first document to clearly identify the gravity of the situation for the future of the United States as a great power.2 The United States will respond to the growing political, economic and military competition we face in the world.3 Suddenly, the unthinkable changed category.

China and Russia were challenging the power, influence and interest of the United States by eroding its security and prosperity. Patterns that had brought so much profit to major US and European companies had to be changed. President Trump's trade war was thebeginning of a new understanding of the situation. The decoupling of globalisation had begun

The COVID-19 coronavirus has highlighted the West's vulnerability to over-reliance on Chinese industrial production. We have seen it and suffered for a long time. The mask crisis during the first phase of the pandemic is hard to forget. The world's largest and sometimes only supplier of the active ingredients of some vital medicines is China. About 80 per cent of pharmaceutical products sold in the United States are produced in China. Not only is China the world's dominant supplier of pharmaceuticals, it is also the world's largest supplier of medical devices such as ventilators.4

Centralising the global medicine supply chain in any one country makes it vulnerable to disruption, whether by error or design. China could use this dependence as a weapon. If it were to close the door to drug exports, hospitals and clinics in the West would be out of business within weeks.

Gary Cohn, President Trump's chief economic affairs adviser, opposed the trade war against China from the start, arguing that a trade department study found that 97 per cent of antibiotics used in the US came from that country. "If youre the Chinese and you want to really just destroy us, just stop sending us antibiotics".5

China has become the largest source of imports for all core economic regions. More importantly, however, for many of these imports, China is the dominant producer. The factory of the world is China and whatever it may decide is immediately transferred and multiplied to the more advanced economies with which it competes for technological dominance.

Supply security and defending production are new and essential components for the redesign of a balanced economic structure that guarantees national and regional autonomy in the face of possible threats caused by the interruption of supplies or excessive dependence on a single country.

Competition between major powers is reshaping business strategy. Companies are seeking more security, aiming to make their operations more robust to external shocks and moving production closer to home. With the advent of COVID-19, many have realised that the barriers between national security and business have dissolved.

Weaponisation of interdependence

In his book The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict, Mark Leonard states that the unexpected has arrived.6 The flows of globalisation, long interpreted as effective mechanisms for strengthening peaceful relations, the expansion of free markets and democratic development in illiberal or totalitarian countries, have become a serious danger to stability, rule-based order and the expansion of spaces of peace and freedom.

Interdependence has not fostered democratisation in China, nor has it modulated its revisionism or reduced the potential for conflict in its neighbourhood. Contrary to what is generally expected, increased interrelations with the PRC have led to an era of non- peace, where the line between war and peace is increasingly blurred. Rather than eliminating tensions[...], connectivity offers new means of competing and engaging in conflict. 7

The new battlefields of war without war will be the most solidly interconnected areas of the world where there is no accepted ruling power. This idea is also supported by Mark Galeotti in his new book The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War.8

The world's interdependence with the PRC has allowed the Chinese Communist Party to expand the battlefield so far that decisive battles by large armies and navies are no longer necessary. Future supremacy will not be decided in a naval air battle in the South China Sea or in the Taiwan Strait. Through its political war, the PRC aims to make scientific and technological development, and control of production and supply chains, the centre of gravity of the great power struggle by exploiting the vulnerabilities of the system. The Chinese model could be identified as weaponisation of interdependence.

Efforts to decouple the US economy from the People's Republic of China have achieved some results in a short time. The first and most important is to question the model of globalisation. However, the US trade balance with the PRC in 2021 still accumulated a deficit of $355 billion. The trade war against China has reduced the trade deficit by justover 15%9 and Chinese dollar reserves have fallen by 18%.10 Decoupling the economies of the major powers is a trend, but its pace of progress cannot be dizzying because it would lead to shortages and the paralysis of companies would spread to the entire productive system.

The necessary controlled disengagement suggests that the weight of the geoeconomic and geotechnological components will be influential enough to allow a progressive reconfiguration of the current geopolitical model without the need for military confrontation.

Surprisingly, this has not been the case in Europe. The interdependence, especially energy interdependence, of Russia and the EU has not been enough to prevent war in Ukraine. The conviction that shared economic interests are sufficient to prevent a war of aggression has gone into crisis. The European Union has not hesitated in the face of Russian aggression. It has preserved the unity of the European partners in view of a difficult test, with serious effects on the economy. The infrequent unanimity has been maintained even when it was easy to anticipate the crisis in the energy and production model of European countries, especially those most dependent on Russian gas and oil.

The United States can easily cope with sanctions on Russia. US trade and financial relations with Russia are irrelevant compared to those with China. Cutting off Russian gas supplies to Europe will sink the German economy, cause stagflation across the EU and weaken the euro's position against the dollar. Meanwhile, the US economy will be virtually unaffected and may even improve its trade balance with other countries as a result of the higher dollar. Without the need for military confrontation, sanctions on China on the same scale as those imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine would provoke a global economic seismic shock that would drag the US into an unprecedented crisis.

The effects of the Ukrainian war on Taiwan

There is no doubt that the war in Ukraine will affect perceptions of the People's Republic of China, especially in relation to its security and national rejuvenation project. Developments in the conflict in Ukraine will force the People's Republic of China to review its strategy in the South China Sea and especially in Taiwan. Meanwhile, strengthened relations between Moscow and Beijing may crystallise a worst-case scenario for the United States, a geostrategic alliance of the two great Eurasian powers.

In June 2022, Admiral John Aquilino, commander of the US Pacific Command, speaking at the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, stated that the most worrying factor in the war in Ukraine is that the People's Republic of China and Russia have a policy of friendship without limits, which could place the world in an extremely dangerous moment.11

A few days earlier, President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, argued that an insufficient US response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine would send a message to other potential aggressors, including China, inviting them to do the same.12

Many commentaries and analyses have linked the war in Ukraine to a possible invasion of Taiwan. There is no reason to believe that there could be a relationship. In this context, Robert Gates, former US Secretary of Defence, noted that the likelihood of a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is very low, but warned that developments in the war in Ukraine could favour a more aggressive Chinese policy against Taiwan, which would encourage non-military actions aimed at increasing Beijing's influence over Taipei.13

In any case, even if Robert Gates' comment is sufficiently well-founded, the truth is that Chinese dynamics are not easy to predict and even less so at this point in time. Should the renewed party politburo and central committee emerging from the October 2022 congress come to the realisation that its strategy of progressive rise and influence is no longer adequate to achieve, by fait accompli, positions favourable to its vital interests, especially with regard to the South China Sea and Taiwan, there will undoubtedly be changes of direction.

The war in Ukraine may lead the Central Military Committee to conclude that the invasion of Taiwan needs to move quickly, bringing all its military power into play from the outset. The aim would be to impose the occupation as a fait accompli in a matter of days. However, the complexity of the military operation and prior deployments could not go unnoticed. It would be foolish to contemplate the possibility of strategically surprising the United States and its allies with an amphibious operation of the magnitude necessary to occupy Taiwan.

However, it would not be impossible to surprise by using more limited and less ambitious military operations aimed at isolating Taiwan or occupying one of its islands in the South China Sea. We need not envisage a scenario of a complete blockade. A quarantine managed within a grey-zone Legal Warfare14 effort to demonstrate a de facto exercise of sovereignty would be enough to gradually stifle the island's economy. The invasion of the important Tawainese island of Taiping, the only one of the Spratley Islands where water has been discovered, or the Taiwanese archipelagos of the Matsu and Kirmen, located a few kilometres from the mainland, would be immediate and without any possible reaction without inducing an escalation.

Urgency as a problem.

Xi Jinping is not willing to postpone Taiwan's integration indefinitely. The previous political process involved renewing the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China every 10 years, a situation that allowed the historic mission of reunification to be passed on to the next leader. Changes introduced allowing for the unlimited renewal of mandates increase the danger. Xi Jinping will inevitably be tempted to identify his leadership with the historic destiny of a unified China.15

Meanwhile, a sense of urgency is emerging in the United States regarding the decisions and actions needed to prevent an assault on Taiwan. Retired US Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of the Pacific command until last year, has on several occasions set out his prognoses, which have become increasingly gloomy over time.

In 2021, appearing before the Senate, Admiral Davidson set a date after which the CCP's armed forces would have the capability to invade Taiwan. He pinpointed that he believedthe threat would manifest itself during this decade, in fact he was more specific in stating that from 2027 the PLA would be in a position to launch the occupation. His statements were picked up by the press around the world.16 The date is no coincidence.

A new milestone was set at the CCP's annual plenary session in October 2020. August 2027 marks the centenary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Chinese Communists seem to take anniversaries very seriously, so much so that they relate them to their achievements. The CCP said it wants to reach the centenary commemoration of its armed forces by fully modernising its military capabilities to meet future national defence needs. Xi Jinping underlined that achieving the goal of modernisation, on the day of the centenary celebration of the founding of the party's armed forces, is a relevant decision made by the CCP's Central Committee and the Central Military Commission, stressing that it is a task related to China's overall security and development.17 This decision brings forward the timetable set by the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2017 by eight years.

A little over a year later, Davidson himself rectified that "this is the decade of concern, particularly the period between now and 2027. I make that assessment because of the staggering improvements in Chinese military capabilities and capacities, the political timeline for Xi Jinping and the long-range economic challenges in Chinas future.18 The danger seems to anticipate even the expected completion of China's full military build-up.

The evident sense of urgency in the United States is clearly reflected in the views of some analysts. On 14 September 2022, Foreign Affairs magazine published an article entitled Time is running out to defend Taiwan: Why the Pentagon should focus on short-term deterrence. One of its co-authors is Michle Flournoy, the most senior woman in the history of the defence department.19 Of course the article is written by very well-informed people because they anticipate some of the details of President Biden's National Security Strategy (NSS). The anticipated content of the NSS highlights the urgent need for anaccelerated strengthening of deterrence vis--vis China.20 The authors also highlight a possible invasion of Taiwan within the next five years, identifying a window of opportunity for China between 2024 and 2027.

It is precisely in 2024 that the next presidential election will be held in the United States, where the polarisation of the United States could be a decisive source of weakness if Donald Trump were to run as a candidate. Xi may decide to occupy Taiwan because he understands that non-military efforts at reunification have run their course or because he believes the chances of success will diminish if he waits for US military capabilities to be fully deployed over the next decade.21

The danger of democratic stridency

Competition between the major powers feeds a continuous stream of surprising and worrying news. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's scheduled visit to Taiwan sparked a debate in the United States over its timing. Despite having majority support in the House, with the backing of both Democratic and Republican representatives, the White House did not hesitate to express its displeasure. Former President Trump's Republican circle was particularly critical of the decision. President Biden even stated that the defence department felt that the trip to Taiwan was "not a good idea at this time". 22

The trip by the second in line for the presidential succession to Formosa was compromising. No such high-profile US political representative has visited Taiwan in the last quarter of a century. Moreover, since the Tiananmen massacre in 1991, Nancy Pelosi has been particularly belligerent about human rights violations in the People's Republic of China. Mainland China did not expect any polite words from an activist Housespeaker, who for 30 years has never missed an opportunity to raise her voice in denouncing communist repression in China.23

The People's Republic of China had warned that there would be a strong response if Pelosi travels to the island, which Beijing considers an inalienable part of China's territory. In response to a journalist, Zhao Lijian, deputy director of the information department of China's foreign ministry, told a press conference that: "If the United States challenges China's red line, it will be met with resolute countermeasures. The US side must bear all consequences.24

The planned video conference between Biden and Xi in late July was threatened with suspension by the Chinese side. The meeting finally took place. Xi insisted on recalling that the historical ins and outs of the Taiwan question are crystal clear, both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China. Once again, mainland China is repeating a message without possible interpretation, the political pillar of China's relations with the rest of the world and, of course, with the United States, with whom it has three joint communiqus on the issue. China opposes not only Taiwan's independence but also any outside interference in what it considers a rogue province. Xi did not miss the opportunity to once again lecture, those who play with fire will perish by it.25

US defence analysts anticipated a strong reaction from the Chinese Communist Party as a result of the visit, which could lead to the establishment of a no-fly zone over Taiwan and other escalatory military measures to increase tensions. The visit at the beginning of August was certainly not timely.

The 20th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party is just around the corner in the autumn. Against this backdrop, where the Taiwan issue will inevitably come up, US foreign policy towards China is strident and in no case a whimsical mistake. It is the result of democratic principles that establish the separation of powers and periodic elections. Open political debate does not facilitate the planned synchronisation of messages that are fully consistent with a long-term strategy.

A few days after Ms Pelosi's return, the People's Liberation Army began the largest military exercises in its history in the South China Sea around Taiwan. The deployment, fire drills and areas of operations point to a rehearsal of a possible sea and air blockade of the island. Taiwan's defence ministry interpreted it in this sense. PLA naval air exercises imposed sea and airspace closures in six areas around Taiwan, which were declared target practice areas. Some of them are only a few kilometres from the island of Formosa.26

For the first time, the PLA has launched missiles over Taiwanese airspace. Five missiles fell in Japan's exclusive economic zone, prompting the Japanese government tocomplain. Meanwhile, Taiwan's military defence forces remained on high alert and exercised in response to an attack.

In the first half of 2022, President Biden stated three times that the US would intervene militarily if China tries to take Taiwan by force. The president's statements call into question the deliberate ambiguity that Washington has traditionally maintained on the issue. On all three occasions, the White House was quick to reinterpret the president's words, concluding that in no case does it imply a change in US policy. Inevitably, the words are out there. Three times is neither a coincidence nor a mistake by a long-serving president, even more so when it requires the intervention of his cabinet to re-edit the message. Biden hit back in September 2022 by bluntly stating on CBS's 60 Minutes that the US would support Taiwan militarily if China attempted an invasion.

To finalise the new US position on Taiwan, the Senate passed a bill called The Taiwan Policy Act on 15 September 2022. The content of the proposals is a decisive first step, redirecting the traditional US position of strategic uncertainty in Taiwan by strengthening mutual relations.

The content of the Taiwan Policy Act represents a change in language and terms, to which Chinese diplomacy attaches so much importance.27 In the security field, in addition to increasing military aid and funding, the secretary of defence is ordered to review and report on war plans to defend Taiwan from aggression by the People's Liberation Army.28 It also asks the administration for a programme of economic sanctions in the event of escalation around Taiwan, whether as a result of a blockade or an occupation of territories under its sovereignty.29

Approval of the US Senate bill could be interpreted by People's China as a revision of the one-China doctrine. In this case, the Chinese Communist Party would understand thatthe status quo established between the two great powers in 1979 with the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which was signed into law by US President Jimmy Carter, has been changed. The consequence would be a military intervention by the People's Republic of China in the Taiwan Strait.

The Brussels summit declaration and the approval of NATO's new strategic concept in Madrid do not facilitate dtente. The UK is adding fuel to the fire. British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, newly arrived at 10 Downing Street, dismissed the need to choose between Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security as a false dilemma, arguing for a global expansion of NATO to help defend the region's democracies, including Taiwan.30

Without eliminating the known effects of US democratic stridency, the messages and actions undoubtedly have to do with increased concern associated with the perceived risk by Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul, other allies and Washington itself that Beijing may attempt to invade Taiwan in the near future. We may be living a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Against this backdrop, Kevin Rudd, former prime minister and foreign minister of Australia, has published a book entitled The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China, where he argues for the necessity and possibility of avoiding military confrontation. 31

There is therefore more than a possibility of open war between China and the United States. To avoid it, according to Rudd, we must interact, knowing that there is an antagonistic worldview, an incompatible ideological and political foundation, an abysmal cultural distance, and complex historical grievances embedded in China's memory. Disaster can only be avoided if both sides are able to understand their mutual obligation to refrain from imposing a situation that would force the other side to betray its vital interests. The formula is a managed strategic competition relationship.32

Conclusion

The dynamics of competition between the great powers, in a scenario of rapid and accelerating change, are volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. International actors have very few certainties that allow them to anticipate possible futures. The scarcity of certainties increases the value of the few that are available, and they need to be identified in order to build the best possible future.

The dynamics of competition between the great powers, in a scenario of rapid and accelerating change, are volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. International actors have very few certainties that allow them to anticipate possible futures. The scarcity of certainties increases the value of the few that are available, and they need to be identified in order to build the best possible future.

In Eastern Europe, the certainty that Russia would not accept Ukraine for NATO membership cannot be disputed. Joining NATO does not happen overnight and requires a potentially lengthy adaptation process for all applicants. The further Ukraine moves forward in the integration process, the more pressing the pressure would be from Russian leaders to consider the option of open war. There is no point in debating who the aggressor is, we all know that. Perhaps what needs to be discussed is what has or has not been done to avoid war and to what extent ignoring the continuous warning signs has been a serious mistake.

In the Western Pacific, the certainty that Taiwan's declaration of independence or an extension of the US Taiwan Relations Act to provide defence guarantees will mean war with mainland China is absolute.

Open war between great powers is possible if the few certainties available are not considered. The immense pain and destruction that would result from a direct military confrontation between great powers can be avoided. However, the major powers are obliged to recognise and accept the constraints imposed by the limits of their competitors. Opposing parties can accept outcomes less than their preferred outcome, but pretending to coexist by forcing another major power to give up its vital interests is not possible.

A peace that is unbearable for a great power will sooner or later end in a costly and tragic war. Qui totum vult totum perdit33 How can we not fall on our knees before the altar of this certainty?

Andrs Gonzlez Martn* Artillery Lieutenant Colonel, IEEE Analyst

References:

1 LUTTWAK, Edward. From geopolitics to geoeconomics: Logic of conflict, grammar of commerce, The National Interest, n.o 20. Center for the National Interest, verano de 1990.

2 THE WHITE HOUSE. National Security Strategy of the United States of America. Washington, diciembre de 2017. Disponible en: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final- 12-18-2017-0905.pdf

3 The United States will respond to the growing political, economic, and military competitions we face around the world. China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.

4 CRUDO BLACKBURN, Christine et al. The silent threat of the coronavirus: Americas dependence on Chinese pharmaceuticals, The Conversation. 11 de febrero de 2020. Disponible en: http://theconversation.com/the-silent-threat-of-the-coronavirus-americas-dependence-on-chinese- pharmaceuticals-130670

5 WOODWARD, Bob. Fear: Trump in the White House. Simon & Schuster, Nueva York, 2018.

6 LEONARD, Mark. The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict. Bantam Press, Londres, 2021

7 LEONARD, Mark. La guerra de la conectividad, Project Syndicate. 1 de diciembre de 2021. Disponible en: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/connectivity-conflicts-weaponization-of-migration-by- mark-leonard-2021-12/spanish

8 GALEOTI, Mark. The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War. Yale University Press, Londres, 2021.

9 The US Census Bureau fixed the trade deficit with China increased by $355.3bn the largest since the record $418.2bn in 2018. The 2020 gap had been a 10-year low of $310.3 billion. Available at: https://www.forbes.com.mx/economia-exportaciones-de-eu-a-china-caen-en-diciembre-y-provocan-45000- mdd-de-deficit/

10 China's portfolio of US government debt fell in May to $980.8 billion, according to May data from the Treasury Department. In 2017, at the start of the trade war, the volume of dollars in Chinese hands was close to $1.2 billion. Available at:https://www.epe.es/es/mercados/20220729/deuda-eeuu-pierde-atractivo-china-14183821

11 JUST THE NEWS. EE. UU. dice que el apoyo sin lmites de China a Rusia amenaza a la humanidad, ADN Amrica. 24 de junio de 2022. Disponible en: https://adnamerica.com/ucrania/eeuu-dice-que-el- apoyo-sin-limites-de-china-rusia-amenaza-la-humanidad

12 LO, Kikling y DELANEY, Robert. US security adviser says hard line on Russia is needed to dissuade China from similar moves. 17 de junio de 2022. Disponible en: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3181999/us-security-adviser-says-hard-line-russia- needed-dissuade

13 SAVVA, Anna. Russian invasion of Ukraine prompts concerns over China's sovereign claim on Taiwan, Scottish Daily Express. 23 de junio de 2022. Disponible en: https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/world-news/russian-invasion-ukraine-prompts-concerns- 27308679

14 War of laws.

15 The 21st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will be held in 2027, where Xi Jinping couldrevalidate his fourth term in office at the age of 72. Waiting until 2032 to achieve unification would meanforcing Xi Jinping to renew for a sixth term and reach the expected level of strength to be able to carry out thethreat of invasion with sufficient guarantees of success at almost 80 years of age.

16 I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact in the next six years (SHELBOURNE, Mallory. Davidson: China Could Try to Take Control of Taiwan In Next Six Years, USNI News. 9 de marzo de 2021. Disponible en: https://news.usni.org/2021/03/09/davidson-china-could-try-to-take-control-of-taiwan- in-next-six-years).CORRESPONSAL HONG KONG. EE.UU. prev una invasin china de Taiwn en seis aos, La Vanguardia. 11 de marzo de 2021. Disponible en: https://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20210311/6299523/ee-uu-preve-invasion-china-taiwan-seis- anos.htmlDE LA CAL, Lucas. China podra invadir Taiwan en los prximos seis aos, El Mundo. 10 e marzo de 2021. Disponible en: https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2021/03/10/6048b814fc6c83f06f8b45ba.html

17 YUWEI, Hu y HAILIN, Xu. Xi stresses CPCs leadership and achieving goals set for PLA centennial prior to Army Day, Global Times. 31 de julio de 2021. Disponible en: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1230155.shtml

18 HILLE, Kathrin y SEVASTOPULO, Demetri. Taiwan: preparing for a potential Chinese invasion, Financial Times. 7 de junio de 2022. Disponible en: https://www.ft.com/content/0850eb67-1700-47c0-9dbf- 3395b4e905fd

19 9 Michle Flournoy was Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USDP) under President Barack Obama. TheUSDP is the chief of staff and principal adviser to the secretary and deputy secretary of defence. This office isappointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate.

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Interdependence as a weapon in the era of non-peace: Failure in Ukraine and danger in Taiwan - Atalayar

A wayward and callous Ramy (Ramy Youssef), after cheating on his new wife, Zainab (MaameYaa Boafo), with his cousin; thereby inflicting untold damage on everyone in his wake, sits in a car with a dog of an incarcerated friend in the backseat. Cans of dog food are piled in the windshield. He listens silently to a CD explaining how to be a good Muslim. That ending to Ramy season two was akin to a firecracker exploding in your hand. The kid left holding the proverbial self-inflicting cherry bomb was Ramy, played by the shows creator and director.

READ MORE: Fall 2022 TV Preview: Over 45 Series To Watch

As the screen faded to black, with the cameras gaze fixed on a car as dingy as Ramys soul, you wondered how the series could return with such a detestable character. Surprisingly, it comes back better than ever.

The third season of Ramy takes place one year after the events of the previous installment. Ramy is still working in the diamond district for his politically incorrect Uncle Naseem (Laith Nakli), who is now freely searching dating sites for young available Muslim men (though even these interactions carry a rushed, transactional mood with Naseem unable to wholly admit his homosexuality). Ramys traditionalist parents, Farouk (Amr Waked) and Maysa (Hiam Abbass) have never been unhappier or closer to divorce than right now. The pair are still picking up the financial pieces from Ramys infidelity and from Farouk losing his job and his terrible subsequent investments. His independent-minded sister Dena (May Calamawy) is nearing her test date for the bar exam, with her own self-doubts arriving just as fast.

READ MORE: Ramy Season 3 Trailer: The Award-Winning Hulu Comedy Series Returns On September 30

This newest season of Ramy is about the impact of Ramys decision at the close of the previous year. It concerns the myriad of ways: financial, personal, mental, and otherwise his infidelity altered everyone around, including himself. It once again concerns sex and its weight within the Muslim religion. It features tremendous performances. And the series even gives greater space to the women in Ramys life (a consistent weakness in a series centered around a man grappling with his own shortcomings). The third season of Ramy is certainly the most self-aware season yet.

It would be pointless, however, to enumerate every storyline in this newest season. If only because the developments that occur truly come together in the final three episodes. But there are some points of emphasis worth noting: While Ramy does begin the season working for his uncle as a diamond dealer, he soon branches out on his own by partnering with Israeli mobsters with anti-Palestinian ties. His decision prompts us to wonder if Ramy really learned anything in the ensuing year between his marriage failing and now. Because once again, he chooses his own personal desires, in this case, monetary, over the well-being of his loved ones. It doesnt help that he is now in league with some morally corrupt people who see him as nothing more than a messenger boy. He has never been so dislikable than the capitalist bootlicking he does here (and thats saying something!!).

To sell these diamonds, he partners with his unreliable Jewish friend Michael (Michael Chernus), a man with an uncontrollable sex addiction that reveals Ramys own uncomfortable relationship with sex. While Michael as a character never really works (the series is far too concerned with him as a punchline than sharply interrogating his trials), he does translate as a good foil for Ramys own insecurities: Especially as Ramy tries to make contact with Zainab (she understandably would like to never see him again, even if he is sorry for what he did). Similarly, Uncle Naseem has more scenes this year, but hes still deployed more as a sideshow than a three-dimensional person. Such is the difficulty of adding depth to such a loaded gun of a man. There are certainly openings in his arc, but they close oh so quickly. Instead, he exists here as a foil for everyone else, with his individual scenes barely moving further than the penultimate, aching episode of season two.

What has improved is how much the series comes to focus on Ramys parents. Waked and Abbass are such tremendous actors, you almost wish we had an entire season just focusing on them. Nowhere is Ramys dysfunctionality more readily seen than in their performances, to the point of them often adding more contours to Ramy as a person than he can ever hope to infuse. Speaking of the kids, while Dena as a character receives greater room, here, its still not altogether clear if the writers know exactly what to do with her. She isnt just experiencing a personal and professional malaise this time around. But is adrift from her place in this series too.And her fate at the end of this season is far too conventional and undercooked (though that could be a foundation the writers are just itching to crumble).

Its a shame because nearly every other component took a step forward, especially the visual language employed by Youssef (its probably the best shot season of three). This seasons stylistic and narrative tracks feels like Youssef spent his time watching the Safdie Brothers. And not just because it centers on Ramy working as a diamond dealer in New York City. But youre reminded of how the Safdies sketched Robert Pattinsons character in Good Time. There are instances where Ramy displays that same frenzied, scruffy energy and a similar selfishness. He shows the same unavoidable unlikability that makes his abject state both tragic and disdainful.

It would be fruitful to consider every storyline from season three: Zainab does return; Ramys friends Mo (Mohammed Amer), Steve (Steve Way), and Ahmed (Dave Merheje) all deal with personal problems that reveal their own desires out of life and their respective proximity to religion. And much like the previous season, this one ends with Ramy at a spiritual and moral crossroads. Can he change? What does change look like? And how much will his transformation cost him and those around him? Similar to its titular character, Ramy isnt perfect. But this is the best, more fascinating season yet. [B+]

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'Ramy' Season 3 Review: Ramy Youssef's Comical, Rich Look At Muslim Family Life Is The Best One Yet - The Playlist

Are you familiar with the Portuguese dish carne de vinha dalhos? I thought not. It consists of pork in wine vinegar and garlic. The Portuguese have made it for centuries. It became the mainstay of sailors meals because they would preserve pork in barrels when they set out on their voyages. When they were hungry, they would reconstitute garlic by marinating it in red wine or vinegar and cook it with the pork.

Doesnt sound that exciting, does it?

Now, consider what happened to the same dish when the Portuguese arrived in Goa. They did not have access to red wine or wine vinegar. So they used palm vinegar. But because their dish seemed inferior to the local cuisine, they began tarting it up with spices and with ground, dried red chillis.

The dish finally came to life. And it may be the most famous Goan dish in the world today. Of course, we dont use the Portuguese name.

We call it vindaloo.

The story of vindaloo seems to capture the central paradox of the journey of the chilli. The Portuguese did not discover chillis in Goathey were unknown in Western India then. It was the Portuguese who introduced the chilli to Goa, using plants that had recently been discovered in the Americas.

Though the Portuguese had the original dish, the garlic, the vinegar and the chilli, nothing much happened till they reached Goa. It was only then that someone had the bright idea of adding chillis to flavour their traditional dish.

What is it about the chilli and some societies? Food historians will tell you that the chilli spread all over the world because of the influence of the Portuguese.

It is not always a pretty story. In the early years of the 16th century, the Portuguese took the chilli to Africa. At that stage, Africans (like Indians) enjoyed pungent flavours, such as the melegueta pepper, which they used to spice up their food. So, they loved the chilli and even today, the peri peri sauce that the Portuguese introduced to their colonies is popular in Africa.

If the story ended there, it would be fine. But then, it got nasty. Once the Portuguese realised that chillis were an in-demand commodity in Africa, they began using them as currency. More specifically, Portuguese slave traders began paying for their human cargo partly with chillis rather than gold. Because the slave trade operated in large sections of Africa, (not just the parts that became Portuguese colonies), the chilli spread far and wide.

Nobody seriously disputes that white people (Europeans) brought the chilli (which had been secured after a partial genocide of the native South American people) to Africa and Asia. But heres the thing: why did it never become an integral part of European cuisine in that case? Most of the foods that emerged from the New World (chocolate, potatoes, tomatoes etc.) found their way into European cuisine.

But not the chilli.

It remained a rarely used flavouring, useful for buying slaves or planting in the colonies. Why were white people willing to use all the new flavours they found in the Americasexcept the chilli?

I have been trying to find an answer to that question. But nothing I have read seems convincing. Even in the US, though the chilli did eventually work its way north from Mexico and it turns up in Tex-Mex cuisine, it is hardly a staple in that country.

The Spanish, the Italians and the Portuguese, who had first claims on the chilli, rarely added it to their cuisine. They do use some chilli in southern Italy (in such areas as Calabria) and some Italian pastas do use a little chilli (aglio olio pepperencino or arrabiata) but these are relatively recent inventions, dating back mostly to the 19th or 20th centuries, at least three centuries after the chilli first arrived on their shores. Even Spanish and Portuguese chorizo (which may now use chilli) is mostly mild and the chilli component has been upped only over the last few decades.

The Hungarians use paprika, but they got it many centuries after the chilli came to Europe. And they got it from India via Turkish merchants. And no Asian would regard Hungarian goulash as being particularly spicy or hot.

On the other hand, the chilli spread all over Asia. Nobody is quite sure how it happened. There was not enough contact between the Portuguese and the Thais to explain how the chilli became a staple of Thai cuisine. The case of China is more complicated. The chilli is not popular in the coastal regions where, you could argue, Portuguese ships would arrive with cargoes of chilli. Instead, it is popular in landlocked Hunan and Sichuan where there was little or no contact with the Portuguese. Food historians tie themselves in knots trying to explain how the chilli got to Hunan and Sichuan where it is a defining characteristic of the cuisine.

More curious is the case of Japan. We know that Portuguese ships sailed regularly from Goa to Japan. And we know that the Portuguese taught them how to make tempura. (More likely Goan cooks on the ships taught them how to make bhajiyas.) But there is almost no chilli in Japanese cuisine.

There are many alternative explanations. One, favoured by Korean scientists, is that some varieties of the chilli grew wild in East Asia anyway. Yes, the Portuguese did bring American chilli species to Asia but by then, the Koreans had some experience of the flavour from their own chillis. There is apparently DNA evidence to support this claim. If it is true that we had chillies in East Asia then it would explain not just Thailand but also our own North East where nobody had heard of Portugal when they started adding chillis to their dishes.

Another view is that chillis only appeal to people who live in warm climates. Thats why Europeans did not take to them. This sounds right but the theory collapses when you think about it. When winter comes to Korea, they dont give up on chillis. What about Bhutan where some statistics suggest that the average family consumes one kilo of chilli every week? Bhutan is not a hot country but it must have among the highest per capita consumption of chilli in the world.

Frankly, I dont have an answer to the question. It is true that white people are beginning to enjoy the chilli but for the most part, it is a freak show. Chilli-heads compete to see who can eat the hottest chilli. There is no real introduction of chilli into the local cuisines. When chillis are consumed, it is usually in the form of sauces. And many of those sauces come from non-white countries: the Caribbean, Africa, South America or even Thailand whose Sriracha has been bastardised in America.

So, as politically incorrect as this may sound, there is no getting around the fact that chillis are not really meant for white people. Yes, white people procured them by slaughtering people of colour in South and Central America.

And yes, they brought them to Africa and Asia. But they were no more than couriers.

You need a bit of colour to know what to do with the chilli. It sounds a little racist, I know. But its true.

The views expressed by the columnist are personal

From HT Brunch, October 1, 2022

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Why hide the papers? Why keep the conspiracy theories related to Netaji Subhas Boses death alive? And why deny India the truth about the death of one of its great freedom fighters?...view detail

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Rude Food by Vir Sanghvi: Colour and the chilli - Hindustan Times

Quite a few lovers of English literature raised a glassspecifically a Macallan single malt Scotch with a dash of waterthis past April. The occasion? The centennial of the birth of the greatest comic writer of his generation, and kingfish of the literary quaffers as well: Kingsley Amis.

Make that two or three glasseser, no, Lets do this right, I can hear him bellowing. Prepare a decent-sized flask. Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1990 for his services to Literature and known affectionately to his friends as Kingers, Amis was a man of letters who excelled above all as a novelist and cultural critic. Along with his lifelong friend, the poet Philip Larkin, he has a strong claim to being the best-known British writer of the second half of the twentieth century.

Bursting on the literary scene as the author of Lucky Jim (1954), a satirical gem and the first British campus novel, Amis (1922-1995) followed that tour de force with another twenty novels, pulling off the feat of being both best-selling and critically acclaimed throughout the next forty years. Numerous contemporaries achieved commercial success; many others impressed the reviewers or dazzled the literary academics. Yet Amis was virtually alone as a mainstream novelist who, consistently, both captivated the broad reading public and attracted serious, if at times severe, attention from the literary-intellectual elite and literary scholars. The masterpiece of his mature years is surely The Old Devils, published in 1986, which received the august Booker Prize, a combined British version of the Pulitzer and National Book Award, beating out Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale and other strong contenders.

Like so many others, I first met Amis in the pages of his hilarious debut novel when I read Lucky Jim in the mid-1970s before my first trip to England. It was a quarter-century after the publication of the novel and the British university world that it portrayed. Yet, as I soon discovered first-hand, initially during my encounters at several English universities and later as a Ph.D. student in the U.S., Lucky Jim had not much datedand had indeed remained superior in every way to the flood of academic novels that had followed in its wake on both sides of the Atlantic.

It was an unsettling experience to read Lucky Jim just as I was embarking on my Ph.D. in literary history. Its hero Jim Dixon is a history lecturer at a provincial British universitylike Amis at University College, Swansea in the 1950swhose policy in his teaching and research is to read as little as possible of any given book. His scholarly topic is The Economic Influence of the Developments in Shipbuilding Techniques, 1450 to 1485: a perfect title, Dixon muses, which crystallized the articles niggling mindlessness, its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it threw upon non-problems. As his research proceeds, Dixon reflects that he had read, or begun to read, dozens like it, but his own seemed worse than most in its air being convinced of its own usefulness and significance. Explaining his topic choice to his colleague Beesley, Dixon points out: Havent you noticed how we all specialize in what we hate most?

Bathed in scintillating wit, laced with delicious satirical invective, and sidesplittingly funny on every page, Lucky Jim yielded a laugh-out-loud quotient that exceeded any ultramarathon binge-watch of sitcoms. In the genteel climate of early post-Second World War British and American academic life, its mockery of higher education had the force of a convulsive shockand a revelation. Although the novel certainly triggered personal disquiet that suggested my idealistic imaginings about the exalted vocation of professor needed quick revision, Lucky Jim turned me into a permanent Amis fan.

My admiration for Amis both as an entertaining satirist and formidable polemicist grew with the years. I paid him a visit in 1985. Growing restless as he basked in public praiseAmis hated nothing so much as boredom, even endlessly sunny California dayshe had decided to burnish his politically incorrect credentials. His target was feminism. He was returning for a second round. Six years earlier, his novel Jakes Thing (1978) had raised the eyebrows and the ires of some womens libbers as they were known in the 1970s, chiefly in the U.S. (The novel was short-listed for the Booker in the U.K.) Jakes Thing tells the woebegone saga of Jacques Jake Richardson, a 59-year-old Oxford University lecturer fretting over the loss of his libido and frequent impotence. That is to say: Jakes thing doesnt work, and much of the blame went to the women in Jakes life.

The subject of the women, and incriminations about sexism widely voiced a few years earlier had resurfaced by the time of my visit to the Kingers. On a chilly mid-March afternoon in London, I found myself sitting in Amiss bachelor digs in a small house in Kentish Town. In a decidedly unusual mnage, the floor upstairs was occupied by none other than his first ex-wife, who served as his housekeeper/cook/chauffeur, assisted by her third husband, in return for free rent and household expenses. (Amiss divorce a couple of years earlier from his second wife, the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, had been public and painful.)

The hubbub in literary London about Jakes Thing and the women had died down, and probably would have been utterly forgotten, if it had not been for the appearance of its thematic sequel, Stanley and the Women (1984), published just a few months earlier both to acclamations and animadversions, with the latter predominating. It was back to the barricades, Amis announced with glee, reveling in the sniping from the feminist snipers. The reservations about Jakes Thing now seemed in hindsight little more than a tempest in a teapot compared to the firestorm of controversy attending Stanley and the Women. The twice-divorced Stanley Duke is a quite explicit British version of Archie Bunkernot an Oxford don like Jake but rather a car magazine staffer who handles the advertising accounts. Even more so than Jake, he is a cantankerous, ill-tempered, behind-the-times man of old-fashioned opinions who finds himself "out of touch, high and dry, a survivor from a bygone era."

What are those opinions? Consider a representative passage in which Amis satirizes feminism, psychiatryand even the Soviets, as the twice-divorced Stanley quotes approvingly a friend who holds forth that women are like the Russians:

If you did exactly what they wanted all the time you were being realistic and constructive and promoting the cause of peace, and if you ever stood up to them you were resorting to cold-war tactics and pursuing imperialistic designs and interfering in their internal affairs.

With specific reference to his ex-wife, Stanley explains that her Orwellian version of history is to make up the past as she goes along. You know, like communists.

[W]hatever she said has got nothing to do with what's happened. If you remind her that she said something, and it doesn't suit her down to the ground at that moment to have said, she says she didn't say it, even if you're fool enough to produce a boatload of people who heard her say it.

Asked whether such pronouncements reflected Amiss own opinions, he told one interviewer: People are so over sensitive. If they had a sense of humor it would help. He might have added that three of the women in the novel are presented quite favorably, as a counterbalance to the trio of difficult women.

This line of thinking considerably enriches the novels title. On this view, Stanley and the Women refers not just to his tribulations with his two wives and female sex therapist, but also to cordial and warm relations with his housekeeper, journalist colleague, and occasional lover, Lindsey. This more inclusive interpretation of the title helps us to appreciate that his Swiftian satire is not directed against women per se, but rather against some features of second-wave feminism that Amis regarded as immature, narcissistic, and above all humorless. A line from one of the other male characters is firmly autobiographical, in fact, pure Kingers: The rewards for being sane are not many, but knowing what's funny is one of them.

He would have fully endorsed the view of Clive James, a younger friend in the circle of his son Martin, who affirms it in an essay on Kingsley in The Rub of Time:

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing moving at different speeds. The sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humor are without judgement and should be trusted with nothing.

However fallacious (or, at minimum, dated) Stanley Dukes generalizations about women, it is worth noting here that the other half of his analogyabout the Russiansseems unfortunately true enough if applied to the current batch of Kremlin diplomats conducting peace talks with Ukraine and guided by Vladimir Putins speeches on Russian history. Indeed, though Amiss novels about Russia were often dismissed on the left as the bluster and blather of a Cold Warrior, they seem stunningly relevantquite unfortunatelyin todays geopolitical climate.

I should add that diatribes about the Russians, by which Amis meant Party apparatchiks and the Soviet nomenklaturanot the Russian peopleturn up frequently in his oeuvre. Of course, novels such as Russia Hide-and-Seek (1980) were widely condemned in bien pensant circles when he wrote them. Amis had good grounds for some aspects of his critique, starting with the liquidation of Soviet art. Consider, for instance, this passage from The Russian Girl (1992), spoken by a prominent Russian dissident on how Soviet Russia coopted writers and destroyed literature:

You don't crush literature from outside by killing writers or intimidating them or not letting them publish. You do better to induce them to destroy it themselves by inducing them to subordinate it to political purposes. [This situation has] applied in Russia for a long time, not just since 1931or 1917.

Back to Stanley and the Women. A few dissenting voices notwithstanding, the novels ambivalent reception in London was practically a Kingers coronation in comparison to its boycott in New York publishing circles. It made the rounds for months with repeated, not-so-polite turndowns for Britains most famous novelist, including from houses such as Harcourt Brace and Viking, both of which had published him for three decades. Before my visit, leading periodicals such as TLS and the Spectator reported that feminist editors had pressured those publishers and others to rescind offers to publish Amis. American publications ranging from the New York Times Book Review to the Saturday Review ran stories throughout the spring and summer of 1985 about whether Amis was the victim of censorship. Rumors swirled in the conservative press about the forbidding specter of a new feminist-left version McCarthyism. The novel was finally published by Summit Books a year later.

For a brief moment, Amis was the center of a feud among New York and London literati about Cancel Culture, circa 1985: "the biggest debate on what should be or should not be made available to the intelligent reader, as another Amis biographer Richard Bradford observed, since the unbanning of Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1959/60. (A telling, curious landmark to cite, for Bradford omits mention that Amis had loudly refused to take part in the 1950s campaign to lift the Lady Chatterley ban in Britain, arguing that Lawrence was nothing more than a sexual ideologue indulging in sexual explicitness in order to provoke a sensation.)

Amis would continue to have immense success with the British publicno fewer than six of his novels were adapted for British film and television during 1986-92and with the critics. At the time of his death in October 1995, he had more than forty titles in print. He still has more than a dozen today, and Penguin Modern Classics marked the Amis centennial by adding two more, a pair of collections, covering his poetry and his nonfiction. Among Amiss current top sellers are a high-spirited trio devoted to his favorite non-literary activity: drinking.

Reissued in a posthumous omnibus edition, Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis includes an engaging introduction by another world-class imbiber, Christopher Hitchens, who enjoyed many a round with the Kingers. A late-life honor that Kingsley valued far more than the Bookerso went the rumorwas his featured appearance in several print ads for the divine Macallan malt whiskey, with partial remuneration, gratefully acknowledged, in his favored currency to ensure maximum liquidity.

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At Amiss memorial service, held in October 1996, exactly a year after his death, his son Martinperhaps Britains best-known novelist of the succeeding generationspoke wistfully about his fathers afterlife. Martin voiced confidence that the world will now begin to see him differently, and not just as the old devil. We will begin to see the whole man. The service closed with an excerpt from a posthumously broadcast radio interview in which the host asks Kingsley if he would most like to be remembered as Kingsley Amis the critic, the poet, the serious writer, or rather as Kingsley Amis the man who wrote books that made people laugh?

Oh, he answered, as somebody who made people laugh.

You shall be, Kingers, you shall.

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The Old Devil and the Whole Man: Kingsley Amis at 100 - The American Conservative

"You are too sensitive," Shlomit Weiss was told by the manager of the department at Intel at which she worked in the 1990s following her first year of management. "Your team's performance is good, but you won't be able to advance to senior management positions," her manager concluded before leaving the room as the young Weiss remained, wiping away her tears.

Thirty years later, its seems only Weiss remembers the name of the manager who disappeared into the abyss. She, on the other hand, was appointed recently as senior vice president and co-general manager (GM) of the Design Engineering Group (DEG) at Intel, making her the most senior Israeli in the organization. She will report directly to the company's CEO Pat Gelsinger, and from now on there will be no less than 20,000 employees under her sensitive management style.

This appointment puts Weiss, who has just turned 60, among a limited list of people with a direct line to the CEO of Intel. This list numbers the 20 most senior executives in the global computing giant and includes two Israelis - Weiss and Amnon Shashua, the founder and CEO of Mobileye, who functions as a kind of an independent unit within the company and will split from the parent company in the coming months if the plan to issue Mobileye on Wall Street succeeds.

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Shlomit Weiss.

(Photo: Gil Nehoshtan)

Weiss is now the most senior Israeli at Intel but is based locally only from a geographic standpoint. In practice, she manages a global operation at Intel. With her appointment to one of the top positions, she now has the responsibility for planning and designing all of the company's production processes, the same weak point that caused Intel - which was once the market leader and set the tone when it comes to chip miniaturization - to lose ground when competitors, from the East and the West, overtook it in the race for fewer nanometers.

This story is also that of the war over engineers that has been going on in recent years between hardware manufacturers who discovered Israeli talent. Intel, the largest private employer in Israel, faced Nvidia, which bought Mellanox for $7 billion in 2019 and has since become a monster in the field of chips for gaming. Intel is also storming the gaming world with two consecutive flagship processors that were developed in Haifa, an unprecedented occurrence at the company that usually prefers to spread development over several different centers.

Weiss became the latest appointment in the significant shake-up initiated by Gelsinger, who was appointed CEO of Intel in early 2021, and has since replaced many senior executives. Gelsinger, by the way, apparently does not have a problem with sensitive female management. Other than Weiss, he has appointed four more women to senior positions, not in human resources or legal consulting, which are usually reserved for women, but rather in "hardcore" departments - head of the customer computing division, VP of technology, and VP of data centers and artificial intelligence.

"During that feedback conversation back in the 1990s, I started to cry because I'm really sensitive. It happened 30 years ago, but I remember it as if it happened yesterday. In the end, I wrote a book about it, which is based on my experiences as a manager and describes real events that happened at Intel during my time," Weiss told Calcalist a few weeks after the announcement of her appointment.

"I wrote a book about it because I really think that I have a unique management style. There are managers who believe in being tough, that the more you demand, the more you will get. There are other managers who think that the most important thing is to be liked and if something cannot be done then it's ok, they will accept anything. I believe that you need to combine both styles. I really care about people, I like to see pictures of children and grandchildren, I make sure employees develop professionally and that they feel part of the action, but I also have high demands. Over the years I have found the balance between those demands, because engineers like challenges, but it is also important to me to provide a personal touch. However, let's not label it female management - I call it 'leadership with a soul', it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a woman," she clarifies.

Weiss emphasizes that she is against affirmative action for women, but is still in favor of giving them a boost and assisting them in marketing themselves at higher levels because women somehow still have a harder time with those issues. Even at Intel, despite the fact that Gelsinger is pushing women into senior positions, the balance is still completely in favor of men.

You have been at Intel since 1989. Are there more women in the company today?

"It is enough to see the team close to Pat to understand how much progress Intel is making when it comes to women. There are more women within the organization than there were in the nineties, but the number is far from 50%. We need to work on this, we need someone to help women speak up about the good work they do."

One more thing that should be made clear at the beginning of the interview with Weiss is that she is not married and has no children, but this is not intentional. She wants to clarify: "It's not really a decision that I made or that I said, 'I can't have a family because I want to build a career,' it just happened. I actually really like to disconnect from work and when I take time off I have no issue with others replacing me.

Sorry for the completely politically incorrect question: if there are no family obligations weighing you down, why did you insist on being the first in your current position not to do it from the U.S., but from Israel? After all, most of your employees are not here at all, and neither is management.

"First of all, I have a family that I am very connected to, my mother and sister, and it is also important for me to live in Israel. The division's employees are scattered around the world. Most of them are in the U.S., there are large groups in India and Malaysia and a number of smaller groups in Europe, so there is no value or meaning to my location. It is true that I am the only one in top management that is not in the U.S. This is the first time that such a central position is located in Israel, but when it was offered to me I said that I wanted to stay in Israel.

It just means there will be a lot of evening work hours and a lot of plane travel. Pat holds a regular weekly meeting where everyone connects remotely and there is also a monthly meeting where everyone arrives physically and Amnon and I connect online. A few days ago, I participated in my first such meeting that lasted all night (Israel time) because they have it from 8am to 5pm (PT). I presented at two in the morning," Weiss laughs. By the way, for some reason, Shashua did not participate in all of the management's recent forums, even though one of the main issues on Intel's agenda is Mobileye's IPO on Wall Street. The IPO was supposed to take place by the end of 2022 at a value of $50 billion, but in view of the situation in the markets, it will shrink towards $30 billion and may be further postponed. "I don't know why Amnon was not in attendance," says Weiss, "maybe he is on vacation.

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Pat Gelsinger.

(Photo: Alex Kolomoyski)

Intel currently finds itself in its most complex situation since its founding as severe management mistakes made in the last decade damaged its leading position in the processor market and returned its market value back 20 years to only $110 billion. Not only Nvidia, but even AMD, which has been chasing it all these years, has already overtaken it in market value. Although Gelsinger announced an ambitious strategic plan of focusing on core areas as opposed to diversification and chasing (often belatedly) after trends that has characterized Intel over recent years, in the second quarter the company shocked investors when it reported its first loss in thirty years. Intel not only posted a loss compared to a profit of $5 billion in the corresponding period and not only missed forecasts for the second quarter, but also dramatically reduced forecasts for the second half of 2022. Intel reported revenues of $15.3 billion in the second quarter, which were $2.7 billion lower then forecasts and reflect a decrease of 17% compared to the corresponding period last year. Currently, it expects revenues of $15-16 billion for the third quarter, well below the previous forecast of $18.7 billion. In an annual summary, Intel will reach revenues of only $65-68 billion, compared to an expected $76 billion. There was no good news in the field of profitability either. Intel officially announced a slowdown in hiring new employees and a $4 billion cut in capital expenditures from $27 billion to $23 billion. Even after this cut, it will register a negative flow of $1-2 billion dollars in 2022.

Last quarters reports were a severe disappointment and there is a feeling, at least in the capital market where the stock has fallen by 45% since the beginning of the year, that Gelsinger's plan is not really working.

"The stock price is short term. People who buy the stock don't look at the fact that in four years Intel will have four new factories that will do amazing things. The new strategy is long term, it's not something that can happen immediately. Leading in production processes is an event that takes time, but you can already see the beginnings of change in small things like the fact that last year the Alder Lake processor was released and a year later the Raptor Lake was released, both of which are the most advanced processors intended for gaming computers. We received feedback from Intel's customers that they really want us to succeed and Intel is learning from the mistakes we made in the past."

Both you and Gelsinger have been at Intel since the nineties and have witnessed the deterioration. What were the really big mistakes of the last few years?

"I think the significant problems began mainly over the last five years. These were organizational issues where no one addressed technological problems in time. There was a culture of looking for guilty parties and people were simply afraid to warn about issues. Today, Pat is leading a real cultural change where everything is on the table and the problems are discussed. They don't look for someone to blame. Cultural change doesn't happen in one year, but I see that things are starting to seep in and already Intel is back to working in the new-old way. It's a change that allows for more innovation and a push for challenges."

Is this what ultimately led to the lag that resulted in competitors from the East managing to produce 7 nanometer chips ahead of you?

"The very fact that Intel only had internal production meant that there was no ability to solve the technological problems, it's a cycle that fed itself for too long. Today, part of Intel's great transformation is also in the decision to move to external production and not just do everything in-house."

Intel's main challenge is in bridging the gap that opened up in the transition from 14 nm 10 nm chips. While Intel fought to reach a normal production process of 10 nm chips, competitors were already deep in developing 7 nm and even 4 nm. The gap is so significant that Intel tried to mask it through simple semantics by calling the 10 nm chips "Intel 7" and the 7 nm chips "Intel 4". Intel dominated this field undisputedly until 2016, when the production processes began to creak.

The problems and mistakes built up at Intel in recent years under the two CEOs who changed rapidly - Brian Krzanich, who led the company from 2013 to 2018, followed by Bob Swan, who held the chair for an even shorter period of three years until the beginning of 2021. At the end of Krzanich's time, both Weiss and Gelsinger, like many others at Intel, abandoned the company because they felt that the ship was rocking and going nowhere.

"I felt that things were not going well, I wanted a change. It was always very important for me to enjoy work, after all we invest so much time there and if we enjoy ourselves then we are also more successful. This is what always motivates me. At the time I was managing a division in Haifa, I was responsible for a thousand people. When I talked about the change, I was told that the only way was to move to the U.S. and I didn't want to. So I went for a big change," Weiss recalls.

Weiss received a parting gift from Intel, a voucher that offered her four meetings with a writer so that she could write the management book she had always dreamed of, which she did. At the same time, she also received a call from Eyal Waldman, founder and then CEO of Mellanox. When he heard that I had left Intel, he said, 'Come to Mellanox, we'll decide on the position when you arrive, and so she did. In the end, the position was defined as something quite similar to what she does today at Intel - Senior Vice President of Engineering. At first it was exciting, but then Nvidia came along and acquired Mellanox and things changed, including the almost immediate departure of Waldman who was reluctant to join the merger forced upon him by the board.

"After the completion of the merger, Nvidia began to mix the companies and change the structure. They built the organization differently and it was no longer the same for me. At that time Sunil Shanoy (who served in her current position at Intel - S.S.) came to me with the offer to return to Intel and I was enthusiastic. It is very important to me how we work and not just what we do. I decided that I want to come and be a partner in the big change that is happening in the company. What is happening today at Intel is very different from the way it has been conducted in recent years. Today it is much more similar to the beginning and the way it was conducted when Andrew Grove was CEO."

What are the goals that Gelsinger has set for you?

"Intel's engineering organization is responsible for all Intel projects. If the company decides to develop something new, we receive the definitions and technical requirements from the relevant division and decide how to build the product, what the correct production process is, and after the initial production we check that everything works and only then can it move on.

Is it still possible to close the technological gap created by your competitors in the last five years?

"Intel learns from its mistakes, it learns to do things differently. In manufacturing processes, for example, Intel announced that it will have five different processes at the same time. Intel 7, Intel 4 and others. The push to make many improvements in four years is ambitious and it is still in the works, but I believe it is possible."

What is Israel's place in Intel today? Before Gelsinger took office, the expansion of the factory in Kiryat Gat was almost frozen and there were also quite a few concerns regarding Intel's place in Israel as a country caught in the middle of the chip war between the U.S. and China.

"Intel Israel is very central to Intel today, not necessarily in numbers, but in the type of projects it receives. The very fact that year after year Israel has been allowed to develop the company's flagship products - both Alder Lake and Raptor Lake, is unprecedented. At the same time, the factory in Kiryat Gat is expanding and there is a new building in Haifa, which means a lot."

Now that you are part of top management, can you tell us what they are saying about Israel? Are they reconsidering manufacturing here because of China?

"No, not at all. It was a completely different strategy and Intel is not there today. Intel learned from all kinds of indecisive strategies, to be decisive. To mark where we are going and to get there. Pat believes in Israel. It should be noted that he arrived here a few months after his appointment and immediately announced the expansion of the factory and also about expanding development plans here. It was his decision not to stop in Israel and this included the construction of the new building in Haifa. The acquisition of Tower was also his decision. There is an understanding and trust that Israel knows how to deliver the goods. There are very experienced people here.

It is impossible to ignore the tough competition for employees against Nvidia and other companies. How do you feel since the hiring freeze? Is it easier to recruit employees today?

"On the one hand, yes, because there is a strategy and people want to be part of the success. Everyone is very motivated to return Intel to what it used to be. When I left, there was no energy. Today there is more drive to win, but on the other hand, in Israel there is more competition. It used to be all about software, but now suddenly the world of hardware has overtaken the world of software in terms of demand. Suddenly hardware engineers are something in demand, once everything was just software and hardware people had about three options.

Don't you feel relieved after the layoffs?

"Layoffs are a temporary solution to a decline in the market and expectations. There is an understanding that the world will not continue to grow as it did during Covid. However, good engineers are still recruited, even though there is officially a freeze. As soon as recruitment declines, there are more people available. Right now there is a halt, but two or three months ago we were in full competition. Only in this quarter did everyone stop to look at where they stand. There are still open positions in Intel Israel."

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Everyone is very motivated to return Intel to what it used to be - CTech