Author Archive
Pro-Russian protesters have attacked and occupied Ukrainian government office in the three eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv. All three of the cities are close to the Russian border and government forces tried to prevent the occupations, but the protesters were described by one official as “very aggressive.” The worry is that these protesters are being organized by Russian forces, and the attacks are a signal that a more robust Russian offensive may be beginning.
Hungary has re-elected Prime Minister Viktor Orban to another four-year term. Orban’s party, Fidesz, is a center-right party, but it also gets support from a far-right party, Jobbik. This reaffirmation of right-wing and nationalist politics, is ominous for the European Union with which Orban has had serious disputes. The result also augurs ill for the upcoming election for the European Parliament because the fear is that other right=wing parties might fare as well.
As the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations continue to falter, many are asking the question: “What happens if the talks fail?” It is difficult to predict outcomes, but it appears as if Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will take strong actions if the Palestinians proceed with membership petitions in 15 UN agencies. Those sanctions would clearly worsen the economic situation in the West Bank, aggravating an already volatile situation.
The Afghan election was conducted in relative clam and over 7 million Afghans voted, a number far surpassing previous elections. The robust election is a victory for the Afghan government and has to be interpreted as a loss for the Taliban who had vowed to disrupt the election. At this point it’s unknown who won the election and it seems unlikely that any single candidate for president received a majority of votes. So there will likely be a runoff election. But the results of the preliminary election are highly encouraging.
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera has issued an order for Japanese anti-missile systems to destroy any North Korean missiles that threaten Japan. Additionally, South Korea has announced its intentions to expand the range of its anti-missile systems. The moves come as North Korea has begun to test new missiles and has responded more belligerently than normal to US-South Korean military maneuvers. The moves suggest a deepening of tensions in East Asia.
The outbreak of Ebola fever continues in West Africa. It is a devastating disease with an untreated mortality rate of about 90%. It is only transmissible through direct contact, so, with proper procedures, the outbreaks can be contained (unlike the varieties of influenzas that continue to pop up globally). Nonetheless, the weak medical infrastructure in African states make any outbreak potentially dangerous. The only group that appears to be helping substantially is Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), a group that proves the incredible value of non-governmental organizations in world politics.
Dmitry Rogozin is the deputy prime minister of Russia who has been one of the individuals in Russia who has been targeted by US and European sanctions. He has a Twitter account and used it to goad President Obama by suggesting that the sanctions would not affect his position on Ukraine at all. His rhetoric is flowery and I recommend reading some of his tweets. My favorite? “I’ll ask you to send me your teeth ground in impotent rage”. I think Rogozin needs to get in touch with his inner child.
Afghanistan is holding its national elections on Sunday, and there are eight candidates vying for the presidency. Violence has spiked in the country as the Taliban tries to disrupt the election, deeming it an illegitimate exercise in US imperialism. The outcome of the election will determine the terms of the American withdrawal from the country. At stake is the possibility that the US will continue to support the humanitarian efforts even without direct military support.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations are not being carried out in a vacuum. The Daily Star is a highly regarded newspaper in the Middle East and its editorial today strongly urged the Palestinians to withdraw from the negotiations. If such sentiment is widespread in the Arab world, it will be difficult for the Palestinians to make any concessions in the negotiations.
The negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians seem close to breaking down completely. There are some ways the breakdown can be avoided, and one cannot dismiss the idea of a 11th hour revival–one negotiating tactic is to bring the discussions to a breaking point with a last minute “concession.” But these negotiations seem to be more opaque than most. It is impossible to figure out the difference between posturing and genuine positions. In some sense, the negotiations have also been distorted by the mediating role of the US. It seems apparent that both the Israelis and the Palestinians have lost faith in the US.
As the Indian election approaches, most polls are indicating that Narendra Modi, the BJP candidate, is likely to win. It is difficult to determine what Modi’s foreign policy might be, but Ankit Panda has written an essay on how Hindu nationalism might guide Modi’s approach to world affairs. The policy will certainly be different from traditional Indian foreign policy.
Apparently, the US has established a Twitter account to spread stories in Cuba that would undermine the regime. The US and Cuba have been enemies since 1961, and, in that year, the US placed an embargo around Cuba to place economic pressure to topple the Castro regime. Since then, the US has tried to assassinate Castro, invaded Cuba, and isolated Cuba from global interactions. All the policies of the US have failed to change the regime, and this latest attempt to induce political change in Cuba is simply an index of the futility of the policy. Normalized relations between the two states are long overdue.
Do not ever underestimate the importance of territory to the nation-state, and the signal importance of maps to buttress territorial claims. German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a gift to Chinese President Xi Jinping of a map of China that omitted some sensitive territories–the Chinese response was to publish copies of a completely different map.
Merkel’s Map
The map that the Chinese people saw:
Russia and Iran are working to complete a $20 billion oil-for-goods agreement in which Iran would sell oil to Russia. The agreement would sound a death knell to the current sanctions regime against Iran and suggests that Russia is breaking ranks with the West on the Iranian nuclear program. One can only hope that Iran will continue to negotiate in good faith or it is likely that Israel will conclude that the current negotiations have no chance of success. If it comes to that conclusion, then Israel would probably take unilateral action to disarm Iran.
We are precariously close to a complete breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Israel has not released the final batch of Palestinian prisoners it currently holds that was promised as a condition for continuing the talks. In retaliation, Palestinian President Abbas has threatened to pursue membership in 15 UN agencies which would solidify Palestinian claims to statehood (importantly, the International Criminal Court is not one of those agencies). US Secretary of State Kerry is desperately trying to salvage the negotiations, but the current atmosphere is grim.
The Council on Foreign Relations has published an excellent review of the international issues surrounding the Arctic–an emerging region in world affairs due to climate change and the melting of the ice at the North Pole. Unfortunately, the issues are surfacing sooner than expected as relations between the US and Russia. Both are interested in the Arctic and have somewhat competing claims. Additionally, ExxonMobil is exploring for oil and gas in the Arctic and he US does not wish to impose sanctions that might jeopardize those activities.
The Guardian has an interesting essay on the changing nature of protests in the world today. Specifically, it asks the question why European young people have seemingly stopped protesting. It is a curious phenomenon since the economic situation in Europe remains grim and static. But the question is worth pondering in the context of the rather large spike in protests all across the globe and the somewhat quiet period we seem to be entering.
From the Financial Times:
Europe’s banks hold more sovereign debt than at any time since the eurozone crisis, fuelling worries about the potentially destabilising interdependency between the region’s financial institutions and national governments.
Eurozone banks have added to their holdings of government debt, as a percentage of assets, nearly every month since the beginning of 2012, according to data from the European Central Bank.
Government debt accounted for 5.8 per cent of their combined assets in February, up from 4.3 per cent in January 2012, despite warnings by European regulators to tackle a swelling “sovereign-bank” nexus.
Although the data records all government bonds, analysts say most of the increases are in holdings of banks’ domestic government debt, raising the spectre that increasing numbers of lenders are simply “too big to fail”, according to Eva Olsson, director of credit strategy at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.
“‘Too big to fail’ hasn’t gone away, and it is increasing to some extent,” she said.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its latest report on climate change, and its forecast is pretty grim. The thrust of the report is that climate change is already occurring and that the world really has to focus not simply on how to mitigate the changes, but also to manage them. On the issue of food production and fresh water, those areas of the world that are currently being affected can only look forward to a much more difficult future. This essay in the Economist is a very intelligent and measured analysis of the report–sober but not hysterical.
French President Francois Hollande has changed some of the ministers in his government after municipal elections in which his party lost substantial ground. The right-wing National Front took a number of municipalities, playing upon anti-immigrant sentiment in France as well as dismay over the slow but steady deterioration of the French economy. Hollande has not been able to establish his credentials and has one of the lowest favorable ratings of any post-World War II French leader. It is hard to imagine the European economy gaining any steam unless the French economy were to pick up.
North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire as the US and South Korea conducted joint military operations near the demilitarized zone. It is not unusual for North Korea to try to disrupt those activities, but the exchange of fire is a clear escalation of traditional activities. Moreover, the exchange comes on the heels of a North Korean threat to test another nuclear weapon despite the UN’s demand that it cease those tests. It seems as if we’re in for another round of North Korean challenges to its neighbors.
At the end of World War II the US helped establish three economic institutions to regulate the global economy: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and what is now known as the World Trade Organization. These institutions were set up to enforce and facilitate the rules of market capitalism, and membership in these organizations is, theoretically, voluntary. But the US was also careful to craft the rules of these institutions in a manner which guaranteed that the US would have a dominant voice in their governance. By the standard of economic growth, these institutions have been incredibly successful (perhaps less successful by other measures such as economic development). However, the US seems to be reducing its support for these institutions in recent years even as the global economy seems to be struggling a great deal. The strategy is probably the worst one to follow at this time, but the appetite of the American Congress to honor its commitment to these global institutions is diminishing at a rapid pace.
On the other hand, the US helped introduce new patterns to world politics in 1945 by working hard with others to create the United Nations. The UN, on the whole, has not been the success that many had hoped for. But it has had a dramatic effect on the incidence of aggressive war. Fareed Zakaria is a perceptive observer of world politics and has written a great essay on how the Russian annexation of Crimea is a throwback to pre-UN rules.
The Philippines and China are playing a cat-and-mouse game in the South China Sea. In 1999 the Philippines rammed a World War II transport chip into a reef called the Second Thomas Shoal, and stationed Filipino sailors on the rusted-out vessel (there are 8 sailors who endure three-month tours on the wreck). The purpose is to establish its claim to sovereignty on the reef. But it also means that the Philippines must make supply runs to their sailors periodically. The Chinese try to prevent those runs, and the Filipinos try to evade the Chinese blockade. This month the Filipinos were successful.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated publicly that Russia has no intention of conducting any more military operations inside Ukraine. Yet there remains a deep suspicion of this statement, particularly among the US intelligence services. Foreign Policy has published an article listing 10 reasons not to believe President Putin and outlines the reasons to suspect that Russia will in fact intervene and seize territory in Ukraine. Unfortunately, if Russia does invade, the Ukrainians will be standing alone.
In a second attack in a week, Taliban insurgents have launched an attack in Kabul, targeting the Afghanistan election commission offices. The attackers, disguised as women in burqas, used rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine guns to attack the offices. After a four-hour standoff, Afghan army units killed the attackers. But the message was clear: the upcoming elections in Afghanistan will be accompanied by a great deal of violence as the Taliban try to delegitimize the elections.
Cases of the Ebola virus have been detected in West Africa. Cases of the deadly virus have been found in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Unfortunately, there have been many cases in Guinea’s capital city, Conakry, and the conditions in the city are highly favorable to rapid transmission of the virus. In some cases, the fatality rate for the Ebola virus is 90% and the effective treatment of the disease requires very intensive medical attention.
The United Nations General Assembly voted, as 100 votes in favor, 11 against and 58 abstentions, that the secession resolution in Crimea had “no validity.” Apparently, Russia pressured former Soviet states quite heavily to vote against the resolution. Russia applied “political blackmail and economic threats” to persuade them to vote against the resolution. Great power pressure before such votes is not at all unusual even though votes in the General Assembly are not binding. Nonetheless, the vote is a repudiation of Russian policy.
US President Obama met with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah in an attempt to repair some seriously damaged relations. The Saudis resent the US overtures to Iran, and are disappointed that the US is not helping Syrian rebels to overthrow the government of President Assad in Syria. In those meetings, it is rumored that Obama promised to send advanced anti-aircraft weaponry to the Syrian rebels, a move that the US has resisted because of the worry that these weapons might fall into the hands of Islamic militants who would use the weapons against US aircraft. The US has been desperately trying to forge relations with Syrian rebels that do not share the same politics of the more radical elements of the rebel movement. The rumor, if true, might suggest that the overtures have been successful; it may, however, also suggest that the US is more willing to take risks to oust the Russian-backed Assad regime.
The right-wing National Front Party has won a number of municipal elections in France, raising the possibility of a very strong showing nationally. What is most interesting is that the far-right and the far-left parties did very well in the elections and the centrist parties lost substantial ground. Such political outcomes are perfectly consistent with a deepening sense of economic malaise–people tend to seek out more radical solutions as the economic situation declines. The trend, however, is deeply disquieting.
World Politics News 