Bear necessities: learning to handle Russia

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Earlier this month, South Koreans elected the youngest person ever as head of a party. The new opposition leader is leaning into a growing culture war in the country and railing against feminist values that many young South Korean men find oppressive. And professional football these days is a lot about image, in particular about haircuts. Ahead of today's England, Germany match in the Euros, we speak to a stylist to the stars about how frequent and flashy cuts contribute to players personal brands. But first, 32 countries, more than 5,000 troops land, sea and air. Yesterday, the annual joint military exercises in the Black Sea known as Sea Breeze began. And this year's are the broadest yet. It's been going since 1997, coordinating American forces with those of regional NATO allies Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey in a sea also bordered by Russia and Ukraine. The exercises come at a busy time, both militarily and diplomatically.

Tensions have escalated between Russia and the United Kingdom on the seas off the coast of Crimea. If you cross the borderline, I'll be fired.

If you don't change the course, I'll be fired. Do you read me? Over.

We are conducting innocent passage along Route 9. 0 and we will continue to carry.

Our operations into international waters over.

Last week, Russian and British forces crossed paths in the sea. And though the details are disputed, the encounter clearly rattled nerves. Yesterday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin met virtually with his Chinese counterpart, xi Jinping, just 12 days after Mr. Putin met with President Joe Biden. Germany and France have also expressed interest in an EU summit with Mr. Putin. An uncertain rebalancing appears to be going on here, a strategic split between keeping dialogue with Mr. Putin open and keeping him at arm's length.

I think we've lived for a long time in the era where Western politicians has, in a way, been on a different wavelength when it comes to hard power.

Arkady Ostrovsky is the Economist's Russia editor.

Last week we had a British warship, HMS Defender, challenge Russia's claim to the waters off the Crimean Peninsula. Crimea, of course, being the Ukrainian territory that Russia invaded, annexed and continues to occupy since 2014.

And Shashank Joshi is the Economist's defence editor.

And Russia responded in a very aggressive fashion. It said it had fired warning shots at the British destroyer. It said it even dropped bombs in its path from a plane, although there's no evidence that actually happened. There is a clear sense of naval friction in the Black Sea. In addition to all of that, we've also seen this week Russia launch the world's longest ever submarine. And there is, I think, a mood of military competition that is. That is very evident in Europe today.

As Shashank was saying, there is this mood of tension and confrontation. And in a way, judging by the Russian propaganda, state television over the past few days, they absolutely relished this moment. The turn is, next time you come anywhere near our borders, we know we'll fire at you. We will destroy the British ship. And this was a first degree provocation. It's exactly the news that they want to try to drive home the message that the west is encircling Russia, is infringing on its waters and its territory, and Russia will fight back with all its military might, including, presumably tactical nuclear weapons.

But this clearly now is more than just propaganda and rhetoric. This is movement of hardware.

Yes, absolutely. The UK is not the only one involved here. Yesterday there was a big multinational naval exercise that began. It's called Exercise Sea Breeze.

It's.

It takes place off the coast of Ukraine. This is something that Russia is extremely annoyed about. It protested, it said it's a provocation, it's reckless. You know, it doesn't like foreign navies in the Black Sea. We've also recently seen major naval exercises in The Baltic Sea and Russian planes were buzzing American ships flying very low over them. And we have the British aircraft carrier strike group in the eastern Mediterranean. It's operating against Islamic State, so against Syria and Iraq. But the Russians at the same time have also begun pretty big air and sea exercises in the Mediterranean at the end of last week. And I think it's pretty clear they're trying to show, look, you, NATO, British, American ships are not the only ones who are going to be muscling around in our naval backyard. We can really turn up the temperature as well.

And Arkady, there's something of a countercurrent here in that there are some EU member states who at the same time want to engage in dialogue with Mr. Putin.

That's right.

I think France and Germany have a very different view of how to build relationship with Russia. About a year ago, President Macron came up with this idea of engaging Russia, saying the sanctions and confrontation is counterproductive. Germany has traditionally been very allergic to any military tensions between Russia and the west, given the history. And last week came the news that just after Biden Putin summit, Macron and Merkel seemed to have suggested that the EU should hold a summit with Russia. And that suggestion actually infuriated a lot of European countries, particularly the ones that on the potentially on the receiving end of Russia's aggression, the Baltic states, Poland, countries of Eastern Europe. So the meeting, from what we understand, is not going to go ahead because there's been, you know, there's too much opposition to that proposal. There is a lot of nervousness in Europe about this much harder stance that America and Britain seems to be now taking.

I think Arkady's hit on something really important, which is the idea that for the last several years, particularly under President Trump, but even now, Europeans have tried to sort of find the idea of what they call strategic autonomy, a more independent European posture that is not as dependent on America. But the reality is the there's a big split in Europe, and lots of the Eastern and Central European countries just don't trust France and Germany when it comes to issues of Russia. And they don't want to do anything that would widen a split with the United States. They ultimately trust Biden to meet Putin, but they don't trust Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron to meet Putin. And I think we've seen that dynamic play out very clearly this week.

And what do those emerging divisions tell you about the defense end of this, where things will head?

You know, I think, Jason, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it completely changed the defence landscape of Europe. NATO spent a lot more money. It created new formations, it was revived. But a lot of that revival was focused on Eastern Europe. It was focused on the Baltic states, in Poland, where NATO put these new tank formations and new tripwire forces. What I think we've seen in the last year or so is more and more attention going to southeastern Europe, what some people call NATO's southern flank, that is the Black Sea, the Mediterranean. These were areas that were not seen as strategic battlegrounds perhaps 10 years ago. They very much are today.

And so with those kinds of shifts going on, then, Arkady, what's your view on the degree to which the west should try to engage more with Mr. Putin or to keep him at arm's length as things heat up?

This is a question of tactics. I think the west needs to engage with Russia as a country, with the Russian society, while standing very firm to Vladimir Putin, to the bullying of neighbors and people inside Russia as well, the abuse of human rights, the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny, building up or reinforcing the concept of deterrence, showing that, no, you can't have escalation, dominance because you will have to answer for it because NATO is nat and it will stand and will not recognize the borders and the lines that you draw.

And Shashank, what do you make of all of the dialogue that's taking place at the same time as all of.

This military friction in the last month? We've now seen a really interesting series of summits between America in Europe, between Russia and China, and debates over the possibility of a Europe Russia summit. And I think this tells you something about the fluid, even unpredictable nature of world politics today. You have these big poles, you have America, you have Europe, you have China, and no one's quite sure where they stand. Everyone still seems to be feeling each other out, working their way to some new kind of equilibrium, you know. And as Joe Biden said in the summit that Arkady mentioned, we're at an inflection point. And I think this is a symptom of that fact.

Shashank, Arkady, thank you very much for joining us.

Thanks, Jason.

Thanks very much, Jason.

Every week the Economist is packed with analysis like this from our editors and correspondents all over the world. Find a great introductory deal on a subscription@Equality.com IntelligenceOffer the link is in. The show notes. The main opposition party in South Korea picked a new leader earlier this month. Lee Joon Suk is an entrepreneur and a Harvard graduate who's never held elected office. And at 36 years old, he's the youngest person ever to lead a party in the country. Among Mr. Lee's biggest fans are young men who feel victimized by South Korea's feminist movement.

Many South Korean men in their 20s feel forgotten by the country's current leadership, who they feel are too focused on pleasing female voters.

Lena Shipper is the economist's sole bureau.

Chief, and Lee Joon Suk, the new head of the Conservative Party, has given voice to those concerns.

And in what way has Mr. Lee become something of an anti feminist champion?

His thing is, basically, he says, you know, feminism is discrimination against men, and what he's actually after is equality. So he's promised to abolish quotas for women in his party. He wants to restore fairness to the political process by using things like tests on computer skills and that kind of stuff to choose his party's candidates. And he's picked up on cultural battles. Last month, for instance, there was a poster issued by a chain of convenience stores that advertised camping gear and included an illustration of thumb and finger reaching out to grasp a sausage. And angry young men complained because they said the fingers reaching out for the sausage obviously resemble an emoji that makes a pinching gesture, which they say is commonly used when mocking the size of a man's penis. And Mr. Lee demanded an explanation for this apparent hidden insult by feminists, which went down really well with his male constituency.

So he's something of a leader of a new culture war, then. I mean, how did he end up as leader of the opposition?

His election marks an effort to rejuvenate the Conservative Party ahead of the presidential election next year. This is a party that feels itself pretty badly in need of rejuvenation because last time it held power, its president was chased out of office in a corruption scandal. The other thing is, young men are an important constituency for the conservatives. In the mayoral elections in Seoul and Busan, the two biggest cities in South Korea, in spring, more than three quarters of young men voted for the conservatives. Having said that, there's some doubts about whether Lee Joon Suk is a sort of lasting figure as a leader because he's actually too young to become president himself. Constitution sets the minimum age at 40, and he's only 36. But still, you know, Mr. Lee's youth and his novelty might prove pretty powerful assets. It is sort of reasonably likely that Mr. Lee's current popularity may aid whomever the conservatives decide to nominate in the run for presidency, at least, you know, among some of the men.

And as for those young Men who are apparently an important conservative constituency, what exactly is it that they feel so aggrieved about?

So they're aggrieved by a pretty wide range of things. One thing they complain about is the marriage culture in South Korea. Men are expected to have an apartment, have a job, look after the woman, because it's still like a pretty traditional arrangement in marriages where men are expected to be breadwinners and women are expected to go and do the domestic work. So they feel there's a lot of pressure because good jobs are hard to get, houses are expensive. When it comes to jobs, they have this feeling that because the current government says it's a feminist government and it wants to make life easier for women, there's a vague sense that women are being preferred for promotions. And then another area is the application of law. There are some young men who argue that in cases of discrimination and harassment, women are getting a fairer hearing than men are getting in the same cases.

And so do these young men have a point in any way?

Yes and no. There is a point in that compulsory military service is pretty long. It's still a year and a half, and it applies only to men. And so they say that having to spend that time in the military sets them back in their careers. Having said that, South Korea still scores extremely poorly on measures of equality between the sexes. If you look at something like the Glass Ceiling Index, which the Economist Intelligence Unit compiles every year, that rates it the worst rich country in which to be a working woman.

And what do young women then make of those imbalances?

So I think you have very little overlap in perception between men and women. Women say discrimination against men is not a problem at all. They're incredibly privileged. They just don't realise it. And the data, at least at the moment, are kind of still on the side of the women, because things that you can measure and the things that you can see, there is a lot of job discrimination. There are a lot of glass ceilings that you come up against, kind of once you're beyond that initial period of school and university, which I think younger men are right to say is fairly egalitarian at this point.

So, on the one hand, you've got young men who resent the marriage culture in which they're expected to be breadwinners. On the other hand, you have women who feel held back in their careers. I mean, it sounds like both genders here are caught in the middle of generational change.

Yeah, I think that's probably fair to say. There's a sort of social change going on that's not quite complete and that's creating a lot of uncertainty for a lot of people and they don't quite know what to make of it. I think it's going to be a really big problem, actually in the next few years because I don't really see any reconciliation in that generation. I mean, if you look at slightly older generations, there are also differences obviously in political outlook between men and women, but not anywhere near as extreme as among people in their 20s. And as those people grow up and start calling the shots or taking positions of power in the country, it could be incredibly conflictual and fraught for a very long time to come.

Thanks very much for joining us. Lena.

Thanks very much for having me. Jason.

Later today, England will play Germany in the knockout stage of football's European Championship. In England's lineup will be Phil Foden, a 21 year old who some think is the national team's most talented player. But at a press conference earlier this month, it wasn't his prowess on the pitch that was the focus of attention, it was his hair.

Now, first of all, obviously, I've had the same haircut for what seems ages now, so I thought I'd just try.

Something new, dig a little deeper. And it appears that a fresh haircut can mean quite a lot to the sport's top players.

Phil Foden is a generally shy and retiring type.

Rachel Lloyd is our online culture editor and writes for 1843, our sister magazine.

He has a reputation for being very humble and quite quiet. Unlike most of his counterparts in the Premier League, he doesn't post sort of flashy cars or his designer clothes on Instagram. But he recently unveiled this bold platinum blonde haircut, very short, very angular. And I think it does tell us something about modern footballers. It tells us that to stand out, to be a brand, you have to physically look the part. And getting a bald haircut is the easiest way to do that.

And that's something of a new thing, is it?

It's certainly a modern development. If you look back to players like George Best, who played for Manchester united in the 1960s or even more recently, players like Roy Keane or Paul Scholes, they didn't really care about their hair. They had the same length all over, or it was shaved really short. They had scruffy fringes. It was seen as sort of effeminate and sort of preening to care about your hair. But in recent decades, and especially in the 1990s, as a huge injection of cash went into the Premier League players were on camera. They realized that they had to look the part on the pitch and off really changed with David Beckham. He was a player who was unashamedly metrosexual. I mean, his hairstyles were high maintenance and he changed them regular. As a result, other footballers began to follow suit. He attracted lots of sponsorship from brands. He set up his own aftershave company. And players began to realise that if you became a personal brand, you could make a lot of money from it. So the impetus to get your hair cut regularly and to choose striking styles became a lot more urgent.

So I see the argument for having a well tended head, I suppose. But why change it up so much?

Shelton Edwards, who is Foden and many other players barber, says that players come to him to change up their look pretty regularly. It's a way for players to show a bit of personality.

And I was the barber there, was me from Jamaica. Now I'm in the changing room cutting the players, you know what I mean? And of course, one of the players was like, Phil Foden.

I went to Sheldon's Barbershop in South West London and he told me that for Phil Foden, his new haircut was a way of drawing comparisons visually. His new look is very similar to that sported by Paul Gascoigne, best known as Gazza, at the Euros in 1996. Gazza is one of the most cherished English players of all time, so being visually compared to him is no bad thing.

I put a photo up on my Instagram in the middle of the year.

Cut.

People started tagging Phil and tagging me. We got hundreds of tags. Is it going to be like Eminem? And then he came in bow, is Phil Foden going to do the Gaza? And they tagged him a picture of Gazza. Now, Phil Foden was so elated at the time, he was like, wow, Gazza done it. And he was like on the floor. We were laughing.

And so that must bring a lot of business to people like Sheldon, the sort of celebrity hairdresser type.

Yes, it's a huge amount of business. Not only the fact that some players like to have their hair done twice a week, but also that players refer Sheldon Edwards to other players. So Musa Dembele, who is his first major client, a Belgian footballer who plays for Tottenham, referred him to all of his friends. As a result, HG Cuts, as this salon is known, is a brand in its own right. It has half a million followers on Instagram. So he's got a bit of a celebrity status in his own right now.

And possibly even acts as a kind of lucky charm for some of these players.

Definitely. Sheldon told me that when Raheem Sterling was going through a bit of a gold rout earlier this season, he switched up his look.

Raheem, he decided he wanted to change his haircut, and that has changed his haircut Bomb. The next game, he scored two goals. So everybody started saying, you know what? This is the haircut, the haircut, done it. I think it's a confidence thing. Definitely. Haircut has a lot to do with it.

He's not the only player as well. Lots of players, Ross Barkley being one of them, likes to have his hair done before every game as a sort of pre game ritual. It's almost as necessary as tying up your laces or putting on your boots or listening to a certain song before a game. So looking their best allows players to feel their best too, on the pitch.

Rachel, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you, Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, leave us a rating and a review and see you back here tomorrow.