World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The British House of Commons have voted, 498 votes to 114, to back Prime Minister Theresa May’s European Union Bill.  The overwhelming vote in favor of negotiating an exit from the European Union does not match the closer referendum vote, 51.9% to 48.1% in favor of Brexit.  But the vote reflects the decision of both the Labour and the Conservative Parties to honor the outcome of the election.  The Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrat leadership voted against the bill, suggesting that Scottish independence may be back into play.

US General David H. Petraeus gave testimony to the House Armed Services Committee during its Hearings on “The State of the World”.  Petraeus is generally regarded as a very astute analyst and his testimony raised serious flags about the current trends in world affairs.  I recommend the testimony to all who want a clear statement of the US vision of the liberal world order, not necessarily as an endorsement, but as a framework to understand previous US values and motives.  Petraeus makes his position very clear:

“Americans should not take the current international order for granted. It did not will itself into existence. We created it. Likewise, it is not naturally self-sustaining. We have sustained it. If we stop doing so, it will fray and, eventually, collapse.”

President Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn gave a press briefing today  in which he said: “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.”  The statement refers to the decision apparently made by the Trump Administration that the ballistic missile test two days ago violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231.  Flynn also referred to the attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen, believed by some to be backed by Iran, on Saudi Arabian naval vessels. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the “missiles are conventional and not capable of carrying warheads.”   The European Union Representative to the UN Security Council indicated that it was up to the Security Council to determine whether Resolution 2231 had been violated.  According to Bloomberg:

“Nabila Massrali, spokeswoman for EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini, told reporters in Brussels that ‘the Iranian ballistic-missile program was not part’ of the 2015 nuclear pact with world powers and ‘hence the tests are not a violation of it.’ She said it was up to the top UN body to determine if they contravened its resolution 2231 on ballistic technology.”

It remains to be seen how the Trump Administration will respond to the missile test.

Heavy fighting has broken out for the third day around the city of Avdiyivka in eastern Ukraine.  The city was government controlled, but rebels sympathetic to Russia have cut off electricity and water supplies to the city’s residents.  The Ukrainian government is trying to evacuate those civilians to safer and more comfortable areas in the face of sub-freezing temperatures.  Both sides accuse the other of violating the cease-fire that was signed in Minsk in February 2015.  I suspect that the outbreak in fighting is a test by Russia of the new US Administration to gauge its commitment to the government in Kyiv.  So far, the US has not issued a statement about the fighting.

Peter Navarro, who heads the US President’s new National Trade Council, has accused Germany of undervaluing the euro in an attempt to boost German exports at the expense of its trading partners.  In his statement, Navarro indicated that the US intends to move sharply away from its historical policy of free trade and will be seeking bilateral, as opposed to multilateral, trade deals.  German Chancellor Merkel rejected the accusation, indicating that the euro’s value is a composite of trade balances and that the European Central Bank is independent of German control.  The data, however, indicate that the euro is, in fact, undervalued.

President Trump and his press secretary Sean Spicer have adamantly denied that the Executive order regarding travel between the US and seven primarily Muslim majority population countries amounts to a ban.  David A. Martin is a former Department of Homeland Security attorney and he has annotated the Executive Order issued by the Trump Administration.  His annotations describe the background to each section of the order and provides important information about the intent of each section.  For those readers who wish to understand the ban order in great detail, I highly recommend this piece.

In his press conference today, Sean Spicer argued that the shooting in Quebec of people in a mosque was “a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the president is taking steps to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to our nation’s safety and security.”  The comment was made in defense of the new policy banning Syrian refugees and halting the immigration of Muslims from 6 other countries for 120 days.  The shooter in Quebec, however, was a white nationalist opposed to Canadian immigration policies and all the victims were Muslim.  Perhaps Mr. Spicer wants to ban Muslims from coming into the US in order to protect them from being murdered by similar white nationalists in America.

Russia is building up its military presence in the Arctic.  Much of its territory lies within the Arctic Circle but most that territory was militarily inaccessible for a good part of the year.   Climate change has changed that situation and the Russian expansion is clearly designed to make sure that, if a permanent naval route through the Arctic becomes possible because of ice melt, Russia will be able to control the rules of transit.  The US Geological Service also estimates that 22% of undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves lie within the Arctic Circle and Russia wants to assure its control over those resources.  Only a small part of US territory lies within the Arctic Circle (Alaska), but Canada has significant territorial claims as well.  The country that stands to lose the most is China as maritime traffic through the Arctic Ocean would save China a tremendous amount of money on transportation costs to the European market.

Iran has reportedly tested a medium-range ballistic missile.  If true, the test may have violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929, adopted on 9 June 2010, which reads, in part: “Iran is prohibited from undertaking any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons”.  The test will become an issue for many states, but, if a controversy does emerge, it will be necessary to understand two important conditions.

• First, the simple test of a missile does not necessarily signal that it is capable of “carrying nuclear weapons”.  Missiles can carry conventional weapons or can be used for space exploration.  The key concern is whether Iran has succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear bomb so that it can fit onto the missile, and that is the issue that needs to be verified.
• Second, the UN Resolution is not the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program (commonly known as the Iranian nuclear deal) which was signed in 2015.  The written plan does not include any language concerning missile technology.  The US did publish a fact sheet after the agreement was signed that claimed that missile development was covered by the agreement, but Iran rejected that interpretation.  The US does have sanctions against missile development by Iran but those sanctions are based on the UN Security Council Resolution 1929 and not by the Joint Comprehensive Plan.

The reason why these distinctions are important is that the Iranian missile test may violate the Security Council Resolution which means that the Security Council must reconvene and decide what measures to take in retaliation; the missile test does not violate the Iranian nuclear deal which could be dealt with unilaterally by any of the six signatories to the agreement (the US, Great Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany).  So listen carefully to how the missile test is characterized.

There are times when people in government find it impossible to reconcile their personal views with the policies of government.  In such circumstances, many choose to resign their positions, at great personal and professional cost.  I have been fortunate to know two such individuals:  Anthony Lake and Jon Western, who both resigned from the State Department over disagreements over policies in Vietnam in the case of Lake and policies in Bosnia in the case of Western.  Both also served as the Five College Professor in International Relations.  Tony is now the Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Western is the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at Mount Holyoke College.  A number of State Department officials have resigned after the inauguration of Donald Trump, but they have not made the reasons for their resignations public.  Peter Maas has written an essay on the factors that come into play in such decisions.

The US has reorganized the National Security Council, a body that was created in 1947 in the Truman Administration.  It was created to give the President of the United States advice on foreign policy from military, diplomatic, and economic experts.  Historically it has always been populated by people with deep experience in international affairs and diplomatic relations.  The reorganization announced yesterday removed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence as permanent members (although they can be invited to participate).  But more worrisome is the appointment of a political strategist, Stephen Bannon, who has virtually no background in international relations and is primarily a political hack.

The French Socialist Party has selected a rather hard-line lefty, Benoît Hamon, to represent the Party in the spring elections.  Hamon defeated the center-left candidate, Manuel Valls, by a rather convincing vote of the party members.  The vote represents a repudiation of the current President, Hollande, and suggests a sharply contested election if the hard-right National Front candidate, Marine Le Pen, chooses to run.  But the left is splintered and it is unclear whether it can hold its own as the French electorate seems to have shifted to the right wing.

Benoît Hamon

I try very hard to avoid posting opinion pieces, but there are, at times, issues that simply transcend simple analysis.  The US decision to restrict immigration into the country is one that defies clinical detachment.  Dylan Matthews has written an essay with a clear point of view and one that does not try to be even-handed, but makes an argument that I fully support: that the US policy is a horrific example of cruelty.   The policy cannot be reasonably justified in terms of security:

“The reasons for Trump’s ban on refugees could not be more feeble, and could not be more petty. It serves no actual security purpose. You have a better chance of getting killed by a train, or by your own clothes catching on fire, than by an immigrant terrorist attack. The odds of a refugee killing you in a terrorist strike are about 1 in 3.6 billion. That’s about four hundred times less likely than being hit by lightning twice. If you look back at significant terrorist attacks in the US like San Bernardino or the Pulse nightclub shooting or 9/11, exactly none of them would have been prevented by this policy.”

But the number of lives that have been disrupted and perhaps irrevocably compromised numbers in the hundreds of thousands.  And the reputation of the US will forever be damaged.

A group of Economists have created a new website entitled Econofact.  It was created in response to a widespread belief that many citizens are not getting accurate information about important policy issues.  Its format is straightforward: it identifies policy issues and then lists what the authors believe are corroborated sources of information relevant to the policy debate.  It is an interesting experiment.  I do not believe that any “fact” is free of subjectivity, but the decision to identify only those sources of information that are based on techniques that have passed a rigorous vetting process is a good step forward.  We’ll see how well the experiment works.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Seventy-two years ago Soviet soldiers liberated the infamous concentration camp known today as Auschwitz-Birkenau.  There is a Twitter account that commemorates the day by listing the manifest of the St. Louis, a vessel filled with Jewish refugees that was turned away by the United States in 1939.  Virtually all those refugees ultimately died in concentration camps.  The day should remind us all that we have to take every measure possible to assure that the hatred that led to the holocaust never returns and that we all have an obligation to refugees who have no place to go.

Bloomberg has updated its list of countries in which President Trump has investments.  It is a very long list and raises serious questions about whether US policy toward those countries will be based on the American national interest or Trump’s personal interests.  This question is not one that citizens should be forced to ask.  The world is complicated enough without having to factor in a private interest.  As an example of why this is not just a theoretical matter, the countries that Muslim countries which will NOT be subjected to Trump’s immigration ban (Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Azerbaijan) are countries in which Trump has investments.  Don’t forget that the majority of the attackers in the 11 September tragedy were from Saudi Arabia.

Stephen Walt is one of the most intelligent and insightful analysts of world politics in the world today.  He views the world from a realist’s perspective and honors that tradition with clarity and hard evidence.  His initial take on President Trump’s foreign policy deserves to be taken quite seriously–he offers not just criticism but also points out the ways Trump’s inclinations could be channeled in a more productive and effective way.  Unfortunately, I doubt that he has the President’s ear.

Walter Scheidel is a Professor of History and Classics at Stanford University and he has just published a book, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.  His hypothesis is that the only remedy to economic inequality is some sort of collapse: “the big equalizing moments in history may not have always had the same cause, but they shared one common root: massive and violent disruptions of the established order.”  I am looking forward to reading the book.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled his meeting with US President Trump, signalling greater hostility between the two states over matters of trade, immigration, and the building of a wall along the border.  White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer indicated to reporters today that President Trump will impose a 20% tax on imports from Mexico in order to pay for the border wall.  President Trump promised that Mexico would pay for the wall, but an import tax would be paid by American consumers who purchase Mexican products.  Americans would pay for the wall, not Mexicans.  This sleight of hand is despicable.

The US State Department has just undergone a dramatic change.  The Undersecretary for Management, Patrick Kennedy, Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond, and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions all unexpectedly resigned.  They join Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Gregory Starr and the director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Lydia Muniz, who both resigned on 20 January.  In essence, the entire senior management of the State Department has left: “’It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,’ said David Wade, who served as State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry”.  The management of the State Department is extraordinarily complicated given the size and scope of the State Department’s physical footprint in the world and it is quite different from the more traditional roles we typically associate with the State Department.

It remains to be seen how the Trump administration will address the issue of climate change, but the initial indications, such as the appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), suggest that the US will not take the threat as seriously as it demands.  One of the important points of debate concern the costs of reducing the emission of greenhouse gases which some argue would be greater than the economic losses of climate change.  For most scientists, the costs of climate change will be significant although those costs will not be equally shared across the planet.  But we should also be aware that we are already paying a heavy economic cost for climate change.

A draft of President Trump’s Executive Order, “Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals”,  has been circulating and a great deal of attention has been focused on the apparent decision to block Muslims from specific countries from entering the US.  But Section 6 of the draft should also attract critical attention.  That section directs the Secretaries of State and Defense to come up with plans to provide “safe zones” in Syria.  The section is designed to provide cover against charges that refusing to admit Syrian refugees is essentially a death sentence for an incredibly vulnerable population (a problem that will become significantly more acute is Syrian President Assad remains in power and conducts a vendetta against those he presumes fought against his rule).  But, from a strategic point of view, establishing safe zones in Syria would involve a massive military intervention by the US in the six-year old civil war.  Such a move at this point would be a disaster.

The Economist Intelligence Unit publishes a yearly “democracy” index.  It is a ten-point scale which ranks countries on the basis of “electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties”.  These are admittedly subjective criteria, but the Economist does a very good job of trying to develop appropriate and accurate measures of these criteria.  On the basis of these criteria, the Economist has downgraded the US status as a democracy from the first to the second rank.  The downgrade is due to a decline in the government’s effectiveness and to political participation in the political process.   The downgrade certainly seems warranted.

In an interview with ABC News, President Trump asserted that torture works and that he would reinstate the practice.  Torture is currently illegal for any agent of the US, no matter where the torture occurs.  The vast bulk of evidence, including the opinions of President Trump’s Secretary of Defense and CIA Director, indicates that torture does not work and that it is profoundly counterproductive.  Let us hope that the current legal prohibitions against torture remain intact and that the US never again engages in this abomination.

President Trump has withdrawn the US from the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP) the multilateral trade agreement drawn up by the US and other Pacific rim countries (except China).  The TPP was focused on much more than trade–it also included agreements on intellectual property rights, environmental protections, and global standards for workers’ rights.  The withdrawal marks a very sharp departure from US foreign policy since 1945 and a massive void in the global economic regime.  It may be the case that President Trump will try to negotiate substitute bilateral agreements, but China has already launched its own competing trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).  RCEP is far less ambitious than the TPP but it excludes the US.

The States Negotiating within the RCEP

White House spokesperson, Sean Spicer, reiterated the position taken by Rex Tillerson, the Trump Administration’s nominee for Secretary of State, on the US position vis-a-vis Chinese claims in the South China Sea. In a press briefing he said that: “It’s a question of if those islands are in fact in international waters and not part of China proper, then yeah, we’re going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country”.  China has advised the US not to intervene in the issue and warned it to behave with “caution.”  Both the US and China are forging a path into some very dangerous waters.

Israel has announced its intention to build 2,500 more settlement houses in the occupied West Bank.  This is the second such announcement Israel has made since the inauguration of President Trump.  In a marked departure from previous administrations, the US government chose not to comment on the announcement.  In the past, the US has always regarded such building as an obstacle to peace.  Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Trump soon.

Jessica T. Mathews has written a very well-documented essay on the world-views of President Trump’s foreign policy advisers for the New York Review of Books.  She points out how their worldviews differs substantially from the bipartisan consensus on foreign policy that has guided the US since 1945.  The departure from the rules-based international order to a more deal-oriented transactionalist perspective runs the risk of greater unpredictability and volatility in the international system.

The World Economic Forum was held last week in Davos, Switzerland.  It is an annual meeting of some of the richest people on the planet–of the 3,000 people who attended last week, there were 2,000 private jets that brought them there.  There was lip service to the idea of redistributing wealth to solve the problems of wealth inequality, but there did not seem to be much serious concern to the matter. 

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was the first Orthodox Jew to ever deliver a prayer at a US Presidential Inauguration and the first Rabbi in 30 years to deliver that blessing.   He was opposed by many Jews who did not think that President Trump spoke out strongly enough against anti-Semitism during the campaign.  But he also received hundreds of hateful messages after the inauguration.  President Trump should make a clear and powerful condemning such messages.