Liberation: The Journey to Freedom

As the European Union (EU) and the United States continue their sanction regimes against the Russian Federation over its war in Ukraine, it is important to gauge whether the public supports these various measures. Sanctions are an imperfect instrument of foreign policy and often carry two-way costs. More often than not the declared object of sanctions fails to be met. One such example can be seen in the Russian currency, which was touted as worthless when sanctions first kicked in, yet as of the writing of this article, the Ruble has rebounded in value to its pre-sanctions levels, and Putin’s popularity has skyrocketed to over 80 percent since March. Neither regime change in Russia nor severely undercutting Russia’s ability to conduct the war has yet to be achieved. Whether there are rejections or potential defections from the pro- or anti-Russia sanctions coalition in terms of who the public decides to elect is vital to see if the sanction regime will expand, stagnate, or fall apart. The Hungarian, Serbian, and French elections in April illustrate the limited extent of public support for the costly anti-Russia sanctions, and in Pakistan, the ousting of former prime minister Imran Khan presents the possibility for a potential defection toward the West’s sanctions regime. In the case of France it should be noted that at the time of the writing of this article that the sole election available to be analyzed was the first round of their presidential elections.

On April 3rd, Victor Orban, won re-election to a fourth term as the Hungarian Prime Minister, a position he has held since 2010. Not only did he manage to win re-election in what was predicted by many pollsters to be a close race between him and the united opposition party, but his party won an expanded 2/3rds majority in the parliament. The united opposition party lost seats and a new party that is further to the right than Orban’s nationalist coalition got seats in parliament. The head of the united opposition party did not even win in his own district. In Orban’s victory speech, he mocked those outside forces whom he saw trying to influence the outcome of the election like EU bureaucrats and President Zelensky of Ukraine. Orban is a well-known opponent of sanctions against Russia.

Orban’s main opponent and head of the united opposition party, Peter Marki-Zay, ran on a pro-EU and pro-Zelensky platform. Marki-Zay conceded while complaining that the elections were not truly free or fair. He claimed that the opposition did everything right in the election but that the results showed that Orban can always win elections due his “12 years of brainwashing” the public. The Organization for Security and Co-operation In Europe (OSCE), a third party observer of the Hungarian elections, reported that the election was well run and that it offered real alternatives to the public but that the Hungarian media coverage was marred by bias and the campaign funding was far from transparent. Two days after Orban’s landslide victory, the EU, which Hungary is a part of, announced that it is launching a rule of law disciplinary procedure against Hungary that may result in sanctions being levied against it.

The origins of controversy between the EU and Orban can be traced to his vision of Hungary as an illiberal democracy: in 2014, Orban gave a speech where he lambasted the liberal values of today as being ill suited for Hungary given that liberal values were self-destructive and were undermining national interests. Such criticism of liberal values has caused many to be concerned. Just last July, Reporters Without Borders issued a statement claiming that oligarchs close to Orban’s party controlled 80 percent of the domestic media. In 2020, the parliament passed a law that criminalized the spread of what was deemed misinformation concerning the government’s actions to contain the coronavirus. Similarly, the parliament also voted in March of 2020 to temporarily grant Orban emergency powers to rule by decree in order to combat the coronavirus. This law was repealed in June 2020.

Elections in the Republic of Serbia largely followed Hungary’s example. Incumbent President Aleksander Vucic won nearly 60% of the vote, and his party, the Serbian Progressive Party, won a large plurality of the vote (43%) for seats in parliament. The OSCE noted that the 2022 Serbian elections largely respected fundamental freedoms and offered diverse choices to the public while criticizing the candidate’s unbalanced access to the media, undue pressure put on public servants to vote for the government, and unequal campaign resources. Vucic has taken a nationalist line during the entire Ukraine crisis and has refused to participate in sanctioning Russia. Nationalist parties to the right of the Serbian Progressive Party also won 17.6% of the vote for seats in parliament. Only in 2008 did these right-wing parties perform better. Indeed, a poll taken after the election showed that for the first time in Serbia, more people are against joining the EU than in favor. It is largely expected that Vuvic’s Progressive Party will enter into another coalition agreement with the Serbian Socialist Party to garner a parliamentary majority. Moreover, in this election the Socialists aided Vucic by not fielding a presidential candidate.

It is in France where a key defection is at risk from the international sanction coalition. Polls predict a shockingly close election in the second round between the current French president Emmanuel Macron and his challenger from the right Marine Le Pen. Indeed, anti-establishment candidates from both the French right and left wings got a predominant share of the electorate during the 1st round. Macron managed to win a plurality of the vote with about 27.9%, which was followed by Le Pen’s share of about 23.2% of the vote. Le Pen in the first round was followed by Melenchon, the main outsider candidate from the left, getting about 22% of the vote, and Zemmour, another outsider candidate from the right, garnering about 7.1% of the vote. The anti-establishment vote share between their three main candidates combined to approximately 52.3% of the vote. Many of these and other anti-establishmentarian candidates ran on a platform that was both EU and NATO skeptical. Marine Le Pen and her party have voiced the idea of a French-NATO rapprochement with Russia, raised concerns of the backlash in costs that some of the sanctions on Russia will cause in France, rejected prospective sanctions on Russian oil and gas, and has expressed reservations on sending arms to Ukraine. Le Pen has also raised the prospect of transforming the European Union - which she views aspects of as unconstitutional, anti-democratic, and anti-nationalistic - into a more devolved Association of Free Nations of Europe.

A second round of elections between just Macron and Le Pen will now happen after the first as no candidate got a clear majority of the vote. The second round of presidential elections between Macron and Le Pen is unlikely to result in a repeat of the +30% margin of Macron’s 2017 landslide victory against Le Pen. Since the 1st round, Zemmour has endorsed Le Pen in the runoff while Melenchon called for his supporters to not vote for Le Pen. In Melenchon’s case, however, a survey of his voter base (page 20) shows that 25 percent would vote for Le Pen, 34 percent would vote for Macron, and 41 percent would simply not vote. If polls are to be believed, the election between the two this time will be narrower than in 2017. Should Le Pen, who has popularity issues like Marcon of her own, fail to win the second round it will be because, as the voter survey suggests, she was unable to unite the anti-establishment vote. Nevertheless if Le Pen upends the odds and wins the second round then it is possible to see France defect from the Russian sanctions regime. Should Macron win in the presidential race, but see his party suffer heavy parliamentary defeat in either number of seat changes in parliament itself or through the popular vote to populist parties like Le Pen or Melenchon’s parties in the upcoming elections, then France’s foreign policy may likewise be moderated to take better account of the anti-war and anti-sanctions sentiments within the French electorate. Alternatively, given the weakening of the centrist parties and candidates in France, should this trend continue even if Macron and his party manage to win the upcoming elections in 2022, an outsider candidate with less baggage than Le Pen could win next time around.

In Pakistan, after the first parliamentary motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister, Imran Khan, and a call on April 3rd by the Prime Minister for the dissolution of the national assembly faltered, a second motion of no confidence against the government succeeded by a razor thin margin. These motions of no confidence were initiated by the opposition largely on charges of the government mismanaging the economy. The now former Prime Minister Khan alleges foreign collusion in a conspiracy to bring him and his government down. He has in particular singled out Donald Lu, an American official within the State Department, as the facilitator of this effort to remove him. Imran Khan has been an advocate for greater alignment with Russia and China, he has refused to levy sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and he has also refused to condemn the invasion. For its part, the Pakistani military (in particular the Inter-Services Intelligence agency), which is often accused of meddling in the internal politics of the country itself, has denied that any foreign or military conspiracy played a part in the ouster of Khan. However, sources within the Indian military have reported that the Pakistani military was increasingly dissatisfied with growing ties to China over the United States as the quality of military goods from China were in their judgment inferior to that of the goods they received from the United States. It should be noted amid this alleged coup, that a number of retired military officers have been supportive of Khan and were critical over the way he was ousted. This highlights that Khan has support among those with influence on certain circles in the Pakistani military. This in turn could spell a potential schism between the military should Khan try to press his claim to the premiership through undemocratic means or should the new Prime Minister try to use the military to deny Khan a chance to democratically undo his ouster.

Shehbaz Sharif, the new Prime Minister of Pakistan, who is from the Pakistan Muslim League party (which is not Khan’s party), was elected by the parliament on April 11th amid the resignation of over 100 Khan aligned lawmakers from parliament. Sharif is known for being a more pro-Western figure than Khan. There is however an open question over how much he can move Pakistani foreign policy and whether he will try to take a neutral rather than a friendly approach toward the West. The fact that Khan’s party did better than expected in local elections before the first motion of no confidence vote happened may present a further headache for the pro-Western elements in Pakistan. A poll of Pakistanis prior to his ouster, showed that Khan’s party would win a plurality of seats in parliament (see page 18 of the poll). Since his ouster, Khan has also held well attended political rallies. Put simply, Khan’s political career is not at an end, and he could be returned to power in the October 2023 elections, especially if the economic status of the country does not improve significantly.

While foreign policy may not be amongst the most important political issues a voter considers when they cast their ballot, these various April elections reveal that many voters were comfortable with a party that advocated a less hostile policy toward Russia. The Hungarian and Serbian elections showed that the public trusts the incumbent governments to maintain their neutral course in the dispute over Russia and that parties that advocated an anti-Russian policy were largely rejected by the public. In those two cases, the voters rejected the opportunity to get further involved in the sanctions regime against Russia. Indeed, in Hungary’s case, Orban boasted about the fact that he had beaten off Zelensky’s attempt to shame him and his country into a different policy direction over Russia. France is a potential case of coalition defection depending on how the second round of elections for the presidency and the parliamentary elections goes. Already in the first round of elections, parties that were skeptical of NATO, the EU, and the sanctioning of Russia captured the majority of the share of the electorate. Should Le Pen, who has framed the sanctioning of Russia as a cost-of-living issue for France, succeed and/or should outsider parties get a significant share of seats in parliament then such a course change is possible. The possibility that economic sanctions could destroy the living standards for those levying the sanctions has been acknowledged in the United Kingdom and in Germany. Such economic effects could mean that further defections in Europe are entirely possible if not probable at some point. Pakistan emerges as a potential new member of the sanctions regime but even here, the new Prime Minister (who was appointed through parliamentary maneuvers) has made cautious statements about his vision of foreign policy, and it is also possible here that Khan will regain the premiership and continue his policy of closeness toward China and Russia.

With the recent leak over the possible overturning of Roe vs. Wade, people may be asking themselves what is so important about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade? Before the 2020 presidential elections, some Democrats considered trying to add more justices to the courts current amount of 9. The court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade has the potential to give progressives new motivation to attempt “court stacking” and overturn the court’s decision by changing its balance of power. This article will help explain what the Supreme Court is doing by overturning Roe vs. Wade, what it means for the American people and the importance of the Supreme Court's role in the US government. Looking at previous controversial cases may help shed some light on what specifically is the Supreme Court’s role, the importance in having a balanced court, and help us understand exactly how they come to make their decisions.

The balance of the Supreme Court of the United States may be a confusing topic for some, but the Judicial branch is an important branch that helps to maintain proper checks and balances for the Federal Government of the United States. The term ‘Checks and balances', refers to the three branches of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial branches working together to keep the American government a government “by the people, for the people”, thereby preventing individual branches from seizing disproportionate powers.

The legislative branch is made up of the House of Representatives, and the Senate, collectively known as Congress. Each representative represents a certain district within the state, but the number of districts (and also representatives) is determined by population, and some states have a far larger number (for example California with 52) then others (such as Wyoming with just one). On the other hand, senators represent their states as a whole and each state gets 2 senators each, regardless of population. Congress is also responsible for declaring war, regulating interstate and foreign commerce and controlling taxing and spending policies.

The executive branch consists of the President, his or her advisors and various departments and agencies. The President is elected by the country as a whole, through the electoral college. This branch is responsible for enforcing the laws of the land.

The judicial branch is where the Supreme Court sits. Whereas the executive and legislative branches are elected by the people, members of the Judicial Branch are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. They serve for life or until they decide to retire. The primary responsibility of the Supreme Court is to determine the constitutionality of federal laws and resolve other disputes about federal laws. This is extremely important as the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, it is the Founding Fathers’ authoritative doctrine for what kind of country the United States is supposed to be. By interpreting and deciding the constitutionality of laws made, the Supreme Court essentially has the power to decide what the rights of the people are, contingent on their understanding of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court not only acts to interpret the constitution, it acts to protect it from one of the other branches enacting laws that are infringing on constitutional rights. Adding one seat in the Supreme Court can make all the difference in swinging a tie, and deciding whether or not a law is constitutional. There are currently 9 justices on the court, with many examples in which laws and cases were decided by a 5-to-4 vote.

In the case of Van Orden vs. Perry, Thomas Van Orden sued Texas in federal district court, arguing a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state capitol building represented an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. Orden argued this violated the First Amendment's establishment clause (separation of church and state), which prohibits the government from passing laws "respecting an establishment of religion.” The vote on whether or not to remove the monument was split 4-to-4, showing just how divided the interpretation of constitutional law can be. In the end, Justice Stephen G. Breyer cast the deciding vote to uphold the monument. The Court held that the establishment clause did not bar the monument on the grounds of Texas' state capitol building. The plurality deemed the Texas monument was part of the nation's tradition of recognizing the Ten Commandments' historical meaning, even though the justices agreed that the Commandments are religious. In their decision, the majority ruled that "simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the establishment clause."

One of the United States most fundamental and controversial issues to this day is in regards to the Second Amendment, which sets out the right to keep and bear arms. In the words of the Constitution, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In 2008, in the nation’s capital, Washington D.C., Dick Heller, A special police officer applied for a registration certificate from the city for a handgun he wished to keep at home. At the time the District of Columbia law banned handgun possession by making it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm and prohibiting the registration of handguns; providing separately that no person may carry an unlicensed handgun, but authorized the police chief to issue 1-year licenses; and required residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. The District of Columbia denied Heller’s application based on this law.

In turn, Heller filed a lawsuit in federal district court of Washington D.C. arguing that the city’s bar on the registration of handguns, its prohibition on guns in the home without a license, and its requirement of trigger-locks for lawful guns in the home all violated the Second Amendment. After making its way to the Supreme Court, the justices held, (5-to-4) that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms independent of service in a state militia and to use firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense within the home. Heller had won the case but on very slim odds. One vote had changed the interpretation of the Second Amendment, and every individual’s rights.

While the verdict of these cases may be argued over and even be subject to change, it shows just how complex and important the U.S. Supreme Court Justice system is in determining what falls under constitutional law. The case of Heller and the 2nd Amendment represents a fraction of the cases, where a single vote changed history, and United States law. The Justices themselves disagreed with each other, perhaps due to their political differences and understandings, but that is why it remains of utmost importance to maintain balance in the Supreme Court, regardless of political affiliation. If the Supreme Court leaned too heavily in one direction, then these historic votes may have had different outcomes, may have been unanimous, and could have changed history to only represent one way of thinking and one political initiative, without representing the collective U.S citizen. Should the Democrats decide to add more justices to the supreme court, they may find themselves regretting that decision the next time the republicans control Congress.

With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine entering its 4th month, things are looking grim, and not just for the Russian Army. As badly as this war is going for the wannabe Tzar, neither Ukraine nor the West should rest easy at the prospect of Putin’s failure. Although it is unequivocally important for the U.S. and its allies to embrace the goal of a Ukrainian victory, such ventures must be taken with a full grasp of the hellacious slog that it will be. Given that a legitimate loss in this expansionist war (e.g. if Ukraine can drive Russian forces back to the pre-invasion line of control, or even repatriate regions occupied prior to Feb. 24th) would jeopardize Putin’s political survival, ultimately all cards are on the table if pushed to the brink of defeat.

For more reasons than the instinctual urge to secure his self preservation through a pyrrhic success in Ukraine, Putin will be willing to escalate the conflict, and in more ways than just brutality. A concept from behavioral economics, known as prospect theory, illustrates that people make decisions in difficult situations based on the status quo as a reference point rather than the net outcome of the choice. Thus over time they become more risk acceptant as they try to prevent further losses and more risk averse as they seek to maintain gains. Putin is currently on the prevent further losses side of this equation, and consequently we need to consider what new risks he is willing to take in a bid for victory.

There are yet a number of unutilized levers in the Kremlin’s arsenal that could be used to pressure the Western sanctions regime and the widening funnel of military aid. In general order of least to most escalatory, the options are as follows: economic retaliation against foreign suppliers of arms; cyberattacks against the private sector and critical infrastructure targets outside of Ukraine (which has been subject to such operations since the outset of the war); vertical escalation (i.e. increased brutality, war crimes, intimidation tactics, and the outright leveling of urban centers of defense - such as the obliteration of Grozny in the second Chechen war); broadening the conflict beyond the territorial borders of Ukraine; and ultimately nuclear blackmail.

The first two levers of coercion - economic retribution and cyber operations - are measures that could be employed to gain bargaining power in the ongoing flexing of soft power between Russia and the West. As sanctions begin to bite, Moscow will have an incentive to play up and exacerbate feelings of economic discontent in the Western electorate in a bid for sanctions relief caused by public pressure from the body politic.

Putin could use the almost complete reliance of some European nations on Russian oil and gas to economically punish them for supporting Ukraine by cutting them off, though at great loss of revenue and further economic destabilization. Writ large, the dramatically higher energy prices that would occur if Russia shut off the tap could exacerbate ongoing inflation in Western economies. Additionally, Russia and Ukraine together supply almost 30 percent of the world’s total wheat crop. Moscow could use its relative monopoly on international supply to exacerbate the existing food crisis caused by the war to further pressure Western economies.

Military cyber operations between peer adversaries represent a pandora’s box of unknowns, but based on Russian precedent, their use against neighboring states could indicate an intent to escalate militarily. Thus far, the considerable cyber capabilities of the GRU (the Russian military intelligence directorate) have been held back against Western nations in the sanctions and arms supply regimes, though for somewhat unclear reasons. This strategy is likely either based on a perception that these assets should be held in reserve for a larger and more existential conflict with NATO, should it arise, or for implementation at a time meant to achieve maximum leverage, such as during the lead up to negotiations for a political settlement.

As we are already seeing in Ukraine, Russia is more than willing to employ vertical escalation. That is: upping the cumulative costs of resistance by increasing the scale of destruction and intimidation through greater displays of brutality and disregard for collateral damage. Massed artillery used in direct fire mode, accompanied with thermobaric weaponry have been used against urban centers, and thermite, “molten rain” has been deployed in Mariupol (which recently fell to Russian forces). The thousands of civilian casualties are likewise indicative of Russia’s willingness to adopt vertical escalation.

Although Moscow is generally unlikely to commit Russian ground forces to any new conflict zone, four Beluarusian heavy brigades and the Kaliningrad garrison remain undeployed. They could theoretically be directed to initiate operations in Ukraine, or the Baltic states, should Putin see the need. However, the most probable site of military escalation outside of Ukraine will come from the pro-Moscow breakaway region of Moldova known as Transnistria, where Russian soldiers have been stationed for years.

Considering the stated goal of Maj. Gen. Rustam Minnekayev to create a land bridge between mainland Russia and Transnistria, plus the likely false flag attack on the Transnistrian Ministry of Security, its involvement in the conflict is almost inevitable. The pro-Moscow enclave borders Ukraine’s southwestern flank, and will eventually become a front in the conflict if the Russian forces garrisoned there can attempt to pincer and capture southern Ukraine along with forces occupying Kherson.

However, as of the writing of this article, the US National Intelligence Director, Arvil Hanines, deemed that Russian forces lack the requisite capabilities to attempt a push on that front from either side. This is largely due to the overwhelming concentration of Russian firepower being used to advance on the last holdout city in Luhansk, Severodonetsk, albeit at significant losses. This constitutes the lower portion of their encirclement campaign, which looks to entrap the forward echelon of the Ukrainian army that has been forestalling and reversing Russian advances in the East.

Escalation of the kinetic conflict into other regions is possible but it would suffer a severe disability: namely the lack of military resources necessary to achieve any decisive result, given that the majority of Russia’s professional military is already deployed in Ukraine. Furthermore, it is doubtful that these operations would contribute anything meaningful to the war in Ukraine, and could undermine the limited international support still available to Russia. Until the conflict is resolved or frozen, the Kremlin lacks the military capacity to credibly threaten its neighbors. That is unless Putin feels the need to escalate his invasion to a total war against NATO as a measure to stave off his removal from power or some other existential threat to his tenure in office.

After the Ukrainian war has been decided, Finland and Sweden must be swiftly brought into NATO, or else they will certainly befall the same fate as Ukraine and other nations who have attempted to join the Alliance. Short of regime change in Moscow or their accession to NATO, we can expect Russian aggression against the Scandinavian nations irrespective of Russian victory in Ukraine - just on different timetables respectively. In the event of Russian defeat, a revanchist Putin will inherently want to reconsolidate and seek out a more manageable target in his ambition to reestablish Russian empire as his legacy. However, if Putin can walk away with more than a pyrrhic victory, his expansionist desires will merely be emboldened. The decades-long pattern of Russian expansionism will continue and accelerate.

If Turkish objections to the Scandinavian nations’ applications are circumvented and they join NATO before the Russian armed forces and economy can recoup, Putin will likely opt to target another former Soviet republic, such as Kazakhstan. In particular, the Kremlin may seek to punish a defiant and unsupportive Kazakh administration. In addition to being a part of the former Russian Empire, and thus a subject to Putin’s claims over the Russki Mir, the Kazakh military has only a fraction of the capacity and nationalist morale that have made Ukrainian forces such a potent underdog. Likewise, Putin’s speeches and internal disinformation campaigns have spent years putting their sights on the Baltic States, which stand between Kaliningrad and a contiguous Russia, and hybrid operations there could occur if new NATO reinforcements in the Baltic states pose an insufficient deterrence.

As for the most extreme form of escalation, which is understandably weighing on some people's minds, a nuclear strike is not out of the realm of possibility, but it would most likely not take the form that many fear (e.g. a mutually assured destruction style exchange). Before any nuclear strike we should expect to see more nuclear threats from the Kremlin, backed up by the tangible deployment of tactical nuclear systems in the theater of conflict.

In Russian doctrine there exists the concept of so-called “nuclear de-escalation”, i.e. ending a conventional conflict by intimidating opponents through limited use of nuclear weapons. Not necessarily targeting an enemy object, but, for example, exploding it in the air or off the coast. The message would be: stop, end this war, sit down at the table, negotiate a settlement because we do not believe you want this. If Zelenskyy were to remain steadfast, a low yield tactical warhead within Ukraine would be the next rung of escalation.

Likewise, should Russia find itself with full control of, and the ability to formally annex, the Donbass and Kherson regions, they would immediately extend their nuclear umbrella to these territories as a deterrent to Ukrainian counter offensives. Army General Valery Gerasimov, the chief commander of the Russian Armed Forces since 2012 and deputy minister of defense, is believed to have played a role in developing Russian military doctrine, including the concept of de-escalation through a limited nuclear strike. This doctrine reflects the Russian nuclear umbrella concept for limited wars, including possible wars against NATO countries. Consequently, fears of a nuclear exchange are currently unfounded, barring the possibility of misunderstandings such as the Able Archer 83 incident that sent Soviet nuclear forces into a hair trigger state of alert.

The first form of escalation that we are likely to see in the near term is that of an economic coercion and pressure campaign directed against the public in Ukraine-allied nations. We already have a full view of Russian vertical escalation, and until their armies begin to make significant headway, we should expect that escalation to continue. Broadening the conflict beyond Ukraine is always an option for Putin, but most of those options carry more costs than benefits given the current preoccupation of most military capacity. Though the presence of Russian forces in Transnistria predisposes it to eventual inclusion in the conflict, the present situation does not call for a Russian incursion into the neighboring Odessa region, especially given the significant loss of Russian naval power in the Black Sea after the sinking of the Moskva. Although it is a vain effort to predict the course of any war with true certainty, we can be assured that even in the most ideal circumstances, Putin won't lose this war without trying to make Ukraine unviable as a state. The escalation is going to continue, and we in the West must be prepared to endure it, because we already know that the Ukrainians will.

It is not challenging for one to see the effects of inflation these days. Across the world, prices have risen for a variety of products and goods, to varying degrees. Oil and gas, food and other household items have all been increasingly expensive at alarming rates. These past few months have seen worrying signs that the economy is heading deeper into a recession. This year in April, the labor department announced the single biggest increase (8.5%) in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) since 1981. Earlier this May, the US Federal Reserve (also known as “the Fed”) decided to raise interest rates for corporations (including banks) looking to borrow money from the US government. Although the Federal Reserve is typically a cautious institution when it comes to enacting radical policy changes, it decided to raise its interest to a dramatic degree, the largest raising of its interest rates in over 20 years. Here is how we have assessed inflation has been rising and why the Fed has decided to raise the interest rate to such a degree and take a gamble that could easily worsen the recession.

The Consumer Price Index measures the cost of living/inflation in a given area by using a collection of different products that consumers buy (including clothes, food, medical care, education costs, etc), to compare and contrast any change in those prices. Differences in the CPI can be measured between countries or different time periods and these differences in the CPI measure changes in inflation rates as well. After all, the term “inflation”, is used to describe the decrease over time in purchasing power for a certain amount of money in a given currency. In other words, if you can buy less goods and services with the same amount of money in a month from now, your currency’s inflation has increased. For example, if the price of bread one year ago in the US was on average $10 and next year the average price jumped to $15, the price for bread has been inflated to 150% of the price a year ago.

However, a rise in the price or inflation of a specific good (for example, bread) does not inherently imply the overall economy is experiencing a rise in inflation. Using the earlier example of the bread, if the price of bread increases to 150% of its value a year ago, the rise in price could be the result of some specific reason for bread to be more expensive (for example, a specific machine that is used to make the bread becomes more expensive) and prices for other goods and products might stay relatively the same in this case. However, simultaneous rising prices for a range of different products raises the CPI and indicates a rise in inflation.

There have been a number of factors that have been causing the rising prices. Major logistical issues with shipping companies have caused prices of all goods to rise on some level, because when products are more expensive to buy (because of increased shipping costs) businesses will raise their prices for their customers, instead of receiving a lower profit margin. An owner of a nearby supermarket gave a succinct description of this phenomena when he said to me “when my prices go up, yours do too”. Additionally, the war in Ukraine has sent oil and gas prices skyrocketing around the world, as much of the Western world attempts to find an energy supplier that is close to as cheap as Russia. Aside from fossil fuels, Russia and Ukraine export more than 25% of the global wheat supply, causing the prices of wheat products to soar as well.

The body tasked with managing dire situations such as rising inflation is the US Federal Reserve, which is also the national bank of the US government. Its responsibilities as an institution include monitoring the money supply and deciding how much US currency to print, setting interest rates and a variety of other responsibilities that are involved in protecting the American economy and fostering economic growth.

When the Federal Reserve raises the interest rates, it becomes more expensive for businesses and banks to borrow money from the government and in general. So the idea would be to raise the value of the dollars already in circulation by making loans harder to acquire. After all, if printing currency causes inflation to rise, slowing the release of more currency into circulation by raising the interest rates (and therefore the cost of borrowing money from the government) should cause the value of money to stabilize, because it costs more to get.

The chairman of the Fed Jerome Powell explained his move to raise interest rates as part of the Fed's efforts to move “expeditiously to bring it [inflation] back down”. Powell addressed concerns that the move could exacerbate issues within the economy by arguing that “businesses are in very good shape” and that “the labor market is very, very strong”. However, making money more expensive to borrow may lead to a drop in individuals and businesses investing money in developing businesses, which could lead to a further slowing of economic growth that impacts levels of unemployment as well, since companies may be forced to lay off workers (and ask the remaining workers to do more) and/or reduce or terminate their expansion plans. It is important for the Federal Reserve to succeed in its gamble (of raising interest rates). If this move does not work out it could end up worsening an already volatile and sluggish economy, by decreasing investment and increasing unemployment. American citizens had better hope the Federal Reserve succeeds in its gamble, because if not, things in the economy will get a whole lot worse in the economy before it gets better.