Happy Birthday, Pakistan!!! Seventy years ago the British ended its colonization of India and two new states emerged: India and Pakistan. The partition of the former colony into two new states was not an easy one. For some, the partition was a way to create a Muslim state called Pakistan on 14 August 1947 in order to give stability and order to those individuals who believed that the overwhelming Hindu composition of India could not be comfortable for Muslim citizens. So a great migration (the largest migration in human history–17 million people) occurred with huge numbers of people moving into what they believed to be a Muslim Pakistan or a Hindu India. Both states retain secular constitutions, although revisions to Pakistan’s constitution made during the rule of General Zia-ul Haq in the 1970s brought the laws into closer conformity with Islamic tradition.
Also, on this day in 1941 US President Franklin Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the USS Augusta just off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Together they drafted what came to be known as the Atlantic Charter which outlined the objectives of what would become an alliance against Nazi Germany. The British were locked in the Battle of Britain as the Germans tried to knock off the last liberal state in Europe, and the British were facing a possible defeat. The US had officially stayed out of the war (and would not enter it until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941) but Roosevelt was strongly in favor of supporting the British and entering the war. The Atlantic Charter was first to use the phrase “United Nations” which ultimately came into being in 1944.
On 13 August 1521, the capital of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlán, fell after a three-month siege by Hernán Cortés and his local allies, the Tlaxcaltec. The city was founded in 1325 CE and by 1502 it reached the height of power in central Mexico under the rule of Montezuma II. The Aztec Empire was sophisticated and complex, but ultimately it was unable to resist the military power of the Spanish which was underpinned by gunpowder. Subsequently, Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote many tracts on how the Spanish had destroyed the indigenous culture of Mexico, culminating in his Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies which was written in 1542 and published in 1552.
Artist Rendering of Tenochtitlán as It Might Have Appeared in 1521
Only a fool would try to predict the next steps in the US-North Korean crisis–both leaders are deliberately unpredictable and incredibly loose with their pronouncements. But we do have some sort of a timeline. North Korea has given 15 August as the day it will launch missiles toward the island of Guam. We do not know how close the missiles will land, what type of missiles they might be, and whether they will even be armed. The US and South Korea are also scheduled to hold joint military exercises on 21 August, and those activities are always considered highly provocative by North Korea. One point, however, is certain. The US and North Korea have fought before in the Korean War, 1950-53. That war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, so the war has never officially ended. Bruce Cumings is the author of the authoritative book in the English language on the Korean War, and he has written a short essay on the current situation. North Korea is no stranger to the “fire and fury” of the US military.
I count the recent days in Charlottesville, Virginia as some of the saddest days of my life. White supremacists and neo-nazis have always been part of the American social and political fabric throughout my life, but they were always in the background, kept there by the vast majority of decent citizens who held their views abhorrent and repugnant. These groups apparently believe that they now have the backing of significant elements within the US political system and have decided that they can now emerge from the shadows. I do not doubt that they will be forced back, but I am overwhelmed by the knowledge that old battles have to be refought. There was, however, one photograph from the violence in Virginia that gave me great hope and inspiration. An African-American police officer was so committed to the ideals of the Constitution that he upheld the right of people to state their views, even though those views were personally destructive to him. That police officer is a person of great courage, dedication, and embodies the greatest aspirations of the America that I hope will someday be fully realized.
Some of the increased threat perception occurred in reliable US allies:
“Just in the past year, perceptions of the U.S. as a major threat have increased by at least 8 percentage points among several long-standing American allies, including Australia (13 points) and the UK (11 points). Concern about U.S. power is up 10 points in Canada, Germany and Sweden, and 8 points in France and the Netherlands.”
There is also a striking difference in the threat perceptions of women as opposed to men as the chart below indicates.
At least 24 people have died in post-election violence in Kenya. The official results gave Uhuru Kenyatta, the current President, 54.3% of the votes, but his opponent, Raila Odinga, called the election a charade. As of now, the violence does not seem to be as widespread as it was after a contested election in 2007, but the opposition party does not intend to contest the election in courts, believing that there could not be a fair trial. A lot now depends on whether Kenyatta can take action to alleviate the fears of his opponents.
Russian President Putin expelled 755 people associated with the US diplomatic staff in Russia in retaliation for the new sanctions imposed on his country by the US. Not all these individuals are Americans–they include support staff at the embassy and consulates who are Russian. But the expulsion of diplomats is a very serious matter. Yesterday, President Trump thanked Putin for the expulsions, explaining that the move would “save a lot of money”. It is impossible to describe what a slap in the face that comment was to the entire State Department. It is also hard to explain why a person who was entrusted to defend his citizens would thank anyone who just expressed great contempt for them.
Researchers have published a paper in the journal World Development that attempts to quantify the amount of money used to subsidize the production of fossil fuels. The subsidies come through various tax mechanisms and other government policies that create incentives to produce fossil fuels. The Guardian does a very good job ofoutlining the expansive definition of subsidies used by the researchers, many of which are totally hidden from the eyes of consumers of fossil fuels. The subsidies globally come to about $5.3 trillion in 2015 or about 6.5% of global GDP. According o the summary of the article:
“Undercharging for global warming accounts for 22% of the subsidy in 2013, air pollution 46%, broader vehicle externalities 13%, supply costs 11%, and general consumer taxes 8%. China was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 ($1.8 trillion), followed by the United States ($0.6 trillion), and Russia, the European Union, and India (each with about $0.3 trillion). Eliminating subsidies would have reduced global carbon emissions in 2013 by 21% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55%, while raising revenue of 4%, and social welfare by 2.2%, of global GDP.”
If all these subsidies were taken into account, we could more accurately compare the costs of renewable energies which are often heavily subsidized as well.
US President Trump indicated that there is a “military option” among those available to the US with respect to the constitutional crisis in Venezuela. Presumably, the President believes that there may be an effective role for the American military in the event a civil war breaks out in Venezuela. What that option might be is beyond me. What intervening in Venezuela has to do with “America First” is also beyond me. An American intervention in a Latin American civil war would in all probability make the situation significantly worse. If there is a humanitarian crisis and civilians need to be evacuated, there are other regional militaries that would be less intrusive.
A meeting between top military representatives from India and China to resolve the stand-off over the border dispute near Bhutan ended inconclusively. India is sending more troops along its entire eastern border. According to the Times of India:
“The Army has steadily but stealthily moved troops to their “operational alert areas” on the borders with China in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, while also maintaining high operational readiness of its other formations and units all along the 4,057-km long Line of Actual Control stretching from Ladakh to Arunachal, as was reported by TOI earlier.”
In a move that I find inexplicable, the US has sent a destroyer (the USS John McCain–I kid you not) into the South China Sea within the 12-mile limit of a Chinese facility near Mischief Reef (again, I kid you not). This is the third time the Trump Administration has tested the right of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and the US has international law on its side. But testing the Chinese at a time when the US is complaining that China is not doing enough to restrain the North Korean nuclear program makes no sense at all. Moreover, the US move comes at a time when the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has made the first tentative steps to reach an accommodation with China over the South China Sea (see the post of 6 August), a move that makes even less sense. China seems to be losing patience with both the US and North Korea, but it is clearly biased in favor of no changes in the status quo on the Korean peninsula. An editorial in Global Times, often a conduit for the official Communist Party position makes this position clearly:
“Beijing is not able to persuade Washington or Pyongyang to back down at this time. It needs to make clear its stance to all sides and make them understand that when their actions jeopardize China’s interests, China will respond with a firm hand.
“China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten US soil first and the US retaliates, China will stay neutral. If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”
Note the conditions concerning US and South Korean actions: 1) carry out strikes; 2) try to overthrow the North Korean regime; and 3) change the political pattern of the Korean peninsula. There appears to be a degree of ambiguity about what the Chinese will and will not permit.
38 North is a website devoted to information about North Korea (its title refers to the 38th parallel–the boundary established between North and South Korea). It is a publication of the US-Korea Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University and it is by far one of the most reliable sources of information about North Korea. One of its recent posts has to do with how the media translates Korean and often misses the nuances of the language. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho gave a speech at the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the pertinent parts of his speech were translated in this way:
“We will, under no circumstances, put the nukes and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table. Neither shall we flinch even an inch from the road to bolstering up the nuclear forces chosen by ourselves, unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the U.S. against the D.P.R.K. are fundamentally eliminated.”
38 North offers a different translation of that part of the speech which is far less categorical:
“Unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the U.S. against the D.P.R.K. are fundamentally eliminated, we, under no circumstances, will put the nukes and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table and will not flinch even an inch away from our path of strengthening of the nuclear forces, which is chosen by ourselves.”
It is extraordinary that the differences are so stark. 38 North argues that the second translation is more consistent with previous statements made by North Korea. In diplomacy, intelligent statespeople will choose the interpretation that offers more opportunity for negotiation. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, US President Kennedy received two very different messages from Soviet leader Khrushchev. He chose to conduct the negotiations on the basis of the more benign message and Khrushchev did not object. The strategy actually earned a catchphrase: it was know as the “Trollope Ploy” after a “plot device by nineteenth-century British novelist Anthony Trollope, in which a woman interprets a casual romantic gesture, such as squeezing her hand, as a marriage proposal”.
Kenya held national elections on Tuesday, pitting the current President, Uhuru Kenyatta, against his opponent, Raila Odinga. The same candidates ran against each other in the election of 2013 which Kenyatta won despite being under indictment by the International Criminal Court for his role in the violence of an earlier election in 2007. May Alam, another Mount Holyoke alumna who has also become a noted analyst in international affairs, has written a superb background to the election, emphasizing the importance of the election to the country and the region. Initial results have given 54% of the vote to Kenyatta, but Odinga has claimed fraud. There are reports of sporadic violence in the country, but information has been spotty. This election is critical to the future of one of the most important countries in Africa and we should monitor events as they unfold.
Polling Station in Kenya
US President Trump and members of his administration have issued several statements about the North Korean nuclear weapons program. US intelligence has apparently determined that North Korea had developed the ability to miniaturize a nuclear bomb so that it could be fitted onto a intercontinental ballistic missile. This information, along with the two tests of ICBMs earlier this month, led President Trump to issue a warning to North Korea:
“‘He’—Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader—’has been very threatening beyond a normal statement,’ Trump went on. ‘And as I said, they will be met with the fire and fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Thank you.'”
This language is unusual in a crisis. Typically, leaders attempt to manage a crisis carefully and thus avoid language that could be perceived as inflammatory and contribute to an escalation of the crisis. Indeed, hours later, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued such a tempered message, as described by The Army Times:
“’What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un can understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,’” Tillerson said. “’I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime on the U.S. unquestionable ability to defend itself.’” He said the U.S. “’will defend itself and its allies.’
“The comments put Tillerson once again in the role of translating the president’s aggressive rhetoric into more diplomatic terms, and of working to minimize the chances of public panic. In fact, Tillerson argued that North Korea’s escalating threats indicated it was feeling the pressure from a successful U.S. strategy.”
“The United States and our allies have the demonstrated capabilities and unquestionable commitment to defend ourselves from an attack. Kim Jong Un should take heed of the United Nations Security Council’s unified voice, and statements from governments the world over, who agree the DPRK poses a threat to global security and stability. The DPRK must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.
“President Trump was informed of the growing threat last December and on taking office his first orders to me emphasized the readiness of our ballistic missile defense and nuclear deterrent forces. While our State Department is making every effort to resolve this global threat through diplomatic means, it must be noted that the combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth. The DPRK regime’s actions will continue to be grossly overmatched by ours and would lose any arms race or conflict it initiates.”
The rhetoric is not consistent. The inconsistency may be deliberate. There are those who believe that the Administration is following a “Madman Theory” of diplomacy, a reference to a ploy used by President Nixon in bargaining with North Vietnam during the peace negotiations. Nixon instructed his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, to warn the North Vietnamese that Nixon was “out of control” and might amplify the bombing of North Vietnam if progress was not made in the peace negotiations. Those threats also included a nuclear alert that was intended to send a message to the Soviet Union to stop supporting North Vietnamese intransigence.
If the Trump Administration is following the Madman Theory then it should also know that Nixon’s ploy failed. It failed because North Vietnam was more committed to its policy than the US was to its policy–North Vietnam was willing to suffer more damage than the US was willing–not capable, but willing–to inflict. Thus, the question is whether North Korea is more committed than the US is on the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program.
The US could probably overthrow the North Korean regime if it decided to bring the full force of its military power to bear. I hesitate to accept that outcome as quickly as others appear to be. There is considerable evidence that regimes are far more durable than most Americans assume. It took time for the US to overthrow Hussein in Iraq in 2003, it has failed to overthrow Assad in Syria, it was unable to even find Osama bin Laden for almost 9 years. Military power failed to achieve objectives in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba.
But the costs of that effort would be very high for American allies, particularly South Korea and Japan. The US is concerned that North Korea could potentially hit the American homeland with nuclear weapons at some point in the future; North Korea already has the ability to do so with South Korea and Japan. If the US attacked North Korea with its full might, then there is nothing that the US could do to stop an attack upon its allies. The missile defense systems already deployed in those countries are touted as eminently reliable. They have never been tested in combat and just one failure of those systems would be catastrophic. Moreover, North Korea would not even need to use nuclear weapons to attack South Korea. It has substantial conventional weaponry to inflict serious damage on the South Korean population. According to Secretary Mattis in an interview with Meet the Press:
“A conflict in North Korea, John, would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes. Why do I say this? The North Korean regime has hundreds of artillery cannons and rocket launchers within range of one of the most densely populated cities on earth, which is the capital of South Korea.”
So the real question for the US is: how many non-American lives is it willing to sacrifice? The answer to that question is probably not very many unless North Korea struck first.
The other side of the calculation is how committed North Korea is to its nuclear program? Why does it refuse to even put the issue of its nuclear capabilities on the negotiating table?
There is little question that North Korea believes that nuclear weapons are its only defense against an American invasion. Most Americans do not take this matter seriously enough because few Americans believe that the US intends to overthrow the Kim Jong-un regime. However, analysts need to shed such preconceptions in order to understand the situation more clearly.
First, it is interesting that most Americans do not take the rhetoric of their government seriously. The rhetoric about North Korea has been unremittingly hostile since the onset of the Korean War in 1950. There is little to commend about the way North Korea is governed and its human rights abuses are despicable. But North Korea was not, until very recently, a strategic threat to the US. North Korea has witnessed the US overthrow of governments in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), the Dominican Republic (1961), and Cuba (1961) as well as numerous interventions in the internal affairs of other states such as the Congo in 1960 and Chile in 1973.
Second, North Korea refers to two historical examples of nations where the regime was overthrown by the US and attributes those overthrows to the absence of nuclear capabilities: Libya and Iraq.
Iraq was on the “axis of evil” along with Iran and North Korea. The phrase was coined by US President George W. Bush in 2002 after the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001. In March 2003, Iraq was invaded by the US ostensibly to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and the regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown and he was subsequently hung. North Korea withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq. The implication was clear: North Korea believed that if Iraq had had a nuclear capability, the US would not have invaded it. North Korea was not going to run the risk.
In December of 2003, Libya renounced its nuclear program, induced to do so by promises from Great Britain and the US that they would cease efforts to overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddaffi. However, in 2011, amid the turmoil of the Arab Spring, the US and its NATO allies bombed Libya and targeted Gaddaffi’s locations with aerial bombardment. Ultimately, Gaddaffi was overthrown and murdered in the streets. Again, the North Koreans believed that Gaddaffi would not have been overthrown if he had had nuclear weapons.
We characterize North Korea as “irrational”. However, it has clearly chosen a very risky strategy that it believes is its only defense against an American invasion. And, so far, that strategy has worked.
On this day in 1995, Jerome John “Jerry” Garcia died. Peace out, Jerry.
Every four years, 13 US Federal agencies are required to submit what is known as the National Climate Assessment. The previous three reports have indicated that climate change has occurred and that human activity is partially responsible for the change. Copies of the 4th report are currently being circulated and there were many scientists who were concerned that the US Environmental Protection Agency, which is currently under the direction of Scott Pruitt who has expressed doubts about climate change, would water down the report in line with the doubts expressed by many within the Trump Administration. Last March Pruitt made this statement to CNBC:
‘”I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
“China will not allow the military standoff between China and India in Doklam to last for too long, and there may be a small-scale military operation to expel Indian troops within two weeks, Chinese experts said after six ministries and institutions made remarks on the incident within the past 24 hours.”
Setting a deadline is risky business in world politics. It makes it very difficult for both sides to back down.
Income inequality is perhaps the second-most important issue facing the world (after climate change), but it is only recently that it has become rigorously studied. The pioneering work of Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics), Emmanuel Saez (UC Berkeley and NBER), and Gabriel Zucman (UC Berkeley and NBER) involved some incredibly detailed analyses of inequality in the US and the conclusions of those studies are uniformly grim. Since the 1980s, the vast majority of citizens in the US have seen their incomes stagnate and the bulk of income growth has gone to a remarkably small number of people. Their most recent paper, released in July, reinforces this conclusion. David Leonhardt has written an op-ed for the New York Times which summarizes the conclusions of the papers.
The distribution of economic growth in the United States
Gabrielle Rifkind of the Oxford Research Group has written one of the most intelligent analyses of the situation with North Korea and the best ways to resolve the crisis. The analysis should be required reading for all the leaders of the states on the UN Security Council. Additional sanctions without understanding North Korea’s motivations will only be counterproductive.
The United Nations Security Council unanimously passed UNSCR 2371, a resolution imposing additional sanctions on North Korea for its recent launching of two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The new sanctions include:
Expand the existing sanctions on North Korea’s economy to include a full ban on the export of coal, iron, iron ore, seafood, lead and lead ore;
Expand the list of designated entities and individuals by adding four entities and nine individuals;
Expand sanctions on joint ventures and commercial cooperation with North Korea; and,
Prohibit countries from allowing additional North Korean laborers into their territories.
These sanctions will definitely hurt the economy of North Korea and it is notable that both Russia and China voted in favor of the sanctions. But the real stumbling block to resolving this issue is the insistence of the Trump Administration that North Korea agree to abandon its nuclear program. North Korea firmly believes that its program is the only thing preventing a US invasion and will never give up its nukes. The US needs to initiate concessions, such as halting its joint military exercises with South Korea if it sincerely wishes to begin negotiations.
Joint Security Area of the Demilitarized Zone Between North and South Korea
NBC NewsUS is considering airstrikes against is reporting that the Daesh (the Islamic State) in the Philippines. The strikes would most likely be carried out by drones, but if they occur, would constitute a serious commitment to the government of President Duterte, a leader who has been accused of 1,400 extra-judicial killings by various human rights organizations. The decision reflects the relative priorities of the US: security interests outweigh the issue of human rights.
Progress is one of the most important values in a liberal society. For some societies, stability and tradition are more important; for other societies, faith in an after-life is more important. But liberal society promises a better future for one’s children and that future is measured in material terms. It is a difficult value to measure, but some aspects of a better future seem to be pretty simple. For example, artificial light makes life significantly easier (although for some it has ruined humanity’s appreciation for the normal rhythms of natural light). Guido Mingels has written a short essay on how the costs of producing light have come down over the years:
“One hour of light (referred to as the quantity of light shed by a 100 watt bulb in one hour) cost 3200 times as much in 1800 in England than it does today, amounting to 130 euros back then (or a little more than 150 dollars). In 1900, it still cost 4 euros (close to 5 dollars). In the year 2000, we arrived at a cost of 4 euro cents (5 U.S. cents).”
Today marks the 72nd anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The use of the atomic bomb marked the beginning of the end of traditional world politics, although few at the time realized its full significance. There are now nine nuclear states: the US, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Fortunately, nuclear weapons have not been used in war since the end of World War II, but they remain a very active dynamic in world politics. Last month, 122 members of the United Nations passed a Treaty to ban nuclear weapons, but none of the nuclear armed states signed the Treaty. Intriguingly, Japan also refused to sign the Treaty.
“In Sunday’s video, a man who identified himself as Juan Carlos Caguaripano, a former National Guard captain, said: ‘We demand the immediate formation of a transition government.’ He was flanked by about a dozen men in military uniforms.
‘”This is not a coup d’etat,’ he said. ‘This is a civic and military action to re-establish constitutional order. But more than that, it is to save the country from total destruction.’
The uprising occurred after the newly elected constituent assembly, whose members were all hand-picked by the government of Nicolas Maduro, ousted Luisa Ortega, a prosecutor who has worked hard to control the government from breaking the law. There should be little doubt that Maduro will use the failed coup attempt to further crush opposition in the country.
European researchers have estimated that up to 152,000 people a year could die in Europe by the year 2100 if nothing is done to stop the process of climate change. The study assumes a rise in temperatures of 3°C by the end of the century, which is above the current targets of 2°C for the Paris Agreements, and also does not assume any steps to mitigate or adapt to the process of climate change. Thus, it is literally a “worst case” projection. However, it did not take into account the decision by the US to leave the Paris Agreement which may well render the Paris Agreement targets moot.
The situation in the South China Sea continues to evolve. Vietnam has recently stopped exploration of an oil and natural gas reservoir in the Sea, and there are suggestions that it did so because it believed that the US would not back up its claim. The strategic significance of the Sea rests on the value of world trade that passes through it. Virtually all the trade of East and Southeast Asia transits the sea, but China overwhelmingly depends on its ability to send and receive ocean-going vessels through key areas of the sea. Even if China were to control the entire South China Sea, it would still be dependent on access through some of these choke points (the Malacca, the Lombak, and the Sunda Straits) which are all controlled by other states. The Chinese are well aware of these vulnerabilities and they should be taken into account when assessing the threat posed by Chinese moves in the South China Sea.
“….68% say America’s openness to foreigners is a defining characteristic of the nation, while just 29% say ‘if America is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.'”
There are differences among different age groups and different party affiliations, but those differences do not seem to account for the current discourse in American politics. The poll confirms an earlier poll taken by Pew last February on American attitudes toward ethnic and racial diversity.
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