German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier had an interview with the German magazine, Bild, and in it he criticized NATO for taking “bellicose” actions toward Russia. His comments rupture the NATO narrative that its build-up in the Baltic states and Poland are simply defensive responses to Russian threatening behavior. The interview exposes the split between western and eastern European perceptions of Russian intentions and the hard-line stance toward Russian actions in Ukraine.
Dina Temple-Raston, the counter-terrorism expert for US National Public Radio, gave an interview on the background of Omar Mateen, the shooter in the Orlando LGBT massacre. In the interview, Temple-Raston gives a number of reasons to believe that Mateen fits the profile of a typical mass-shooter in the US and that there is very little in his background to suggest that he was in any way “radicalized” by Daesh (the Islamic State). Speaking of the investigators who are probing into Mateen’s background and motives, Temple-Raston points out that they:
“say they’ve yet to find any indication that he became noticeably more religious, which is one of the indicators of radicalization. He still was going to the same mosque. The way he dressed didn’t change. His relationship with his family hadn’t changed in any way. And these are all typically warning signs that parents and friends and educators are told to look for if they’re worried someone they’re close to is radicalizing. I mean, this isn’t science, but in this case – so far, anyway – it doesn’t appear that any of those precursors were there.”
It may be the case that both the shooter and those who are politicizing the shooter have motives that do not fit with the narrative of “radical Islamic terrorism.”
I have posted many articles over the last few months on the rise of right-wing parties in Europe. The New York Times has a very informative article on the different parties in several countries that outline their policies. Most of them are anti-immigrant and anti-EU and are strongly nationalist. In many respects, they represent an anti-globalization wave in Europe.
“The scorching temperatures mean 2016 is all but certain to be the hottest year ever recorded, beating the previous hottest year in 2015, which itself beat 2014. This run of three record years is also unprecedented and, without climate change, would be a one in a million chance. Scaife [Adam Scaife, at the Met Office in the UK] says: “Including this year so far, 16 of the 17 warmest years on record have been since 2000 – it’s a shocking statistic.”
And as I write, the temperatures in the US Southwest are predicted to be record-breaking this weekend. And the number of acres already burned by wildfires in the US is already a million more than last year at this date.
The rate if urbanization is increasingly dramatically. It is estimated that the vast majority of the world’s 9 billion citizens will be living in cities by 2042 which means that we have to build a city of one million people every week from now until that date. But urbanization was a relatively slow process for humanity as this video suggests.
51 US State Department officials have signed a letter urging that the US use military force to coerce Syrian President Assad to adhere more rigorously to the terms of the cease-fire (which has been spotty at best). The evidence suggests that the regime, backed by Russian power, has violated the cease-fire by firing on “moderate” rebels supported by the US and not firing on the forces of Daesh (the Islamic State). Needless to say, the Russians are not in favor of such action, but pressure is building on the Obama Administration to give more tangible support to the Sunni Arabs in Syria who are opposed to both Assad and Daesh.
The possibility of a British exit (Brexit) from the European Union continues to rattle economic markets all over the world. The referendum will be held next Thursday, 23 June, and the polls indicate a close vote. It is hard to say what the effects of a Brexit will be but people are quite nervous. Interestingly., much of the support for an exit in Britain comes from working class people, in many respects the same people who support Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the US on the issue of trade and economic relations with the rest of the world.
US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) made this extraordinary statement about who was responsible for the massacre in Orlando, FL:
“Barack Obama is directly responsible for it, because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, Al Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures, utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq. So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies.”
McCain later tried to backtrack from his comment with this statement:
“I misspoke,” McCain said in a press release. “I did not mean to imply that the president was personally responsible. I was referring to President Obama’s national security decisions, not the president himself.”
Let me respectfully disagree with the Senator. The person responsible for the rise of the Islamic State is former President George W. Bush. Prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Iraq was ruled by Sunni Muslims who comprised 20% of the Iraqi population. They ruled ruthlessly, subjugating the interests of the Shia population (60% of the total population) and Kurds (20% of the population). By overthrowing Saddam Hussein and demanding that elections be held, President Bush allowed the Shia to come into control who began to rule just as ruthlessly as the Sunnis had done before. The Islamic State is made up of the Iraqi Sunnis who were ousted from power and their objective to to return to power in Iraq (and Syria). Finally, anyone who believes that Omar Mateen was primarily motivated by Islam needs to examine the evidence more carefully.
On that last point, the evidence about American Muslims (who make up about 1% of the American population) suggests that despite some profound misconceptions by non-Muslims, American Muslims are about as ordinary as every other variety of American. The Pew Research Center conducted a poll of American Muslims and the graph below clearly indicates that there are few difference between Muslims and non-Muslims in the US.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution which condemned attacks “targeting persons as a result of their sexual orientation” in the aftermath of the Orlando massacre. LGBT rights are not protected in many countries in the world. According to the New York Times:
“Homosexuality is still a crime in 73 of the world’s 193 countries, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association; in 13, the death penalty can be applied. In some countries, like Egypt, laws against “debauchery” are used to target gays. Russian law prohibits what it calls “propaganda on nontraditional sexual relationships,” which critics call a thinly veiled measure to harass gay men and lesbians.”
The resolution is a victory for a definition of human rights that is truly universal. There are, however, many more steps to be taken before that dream is realized.
Johnny Miller is a photographer who has used a drone to capture the reality of income inequality in South Africa. The photographs reveal a country that was once ruled by a white minority which enforced a highly unequal political and economic system called apartheid. South Africa overthrew this system in democratic elections in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. Despite the legal end of apartheid Miller’s photographs clearly indicate that inequality is still a serious problem in South Africa.
Hout Bay and Imizamo, Cape Town, South Africa
Terrorism is a major issue in many countries in the world and there is a profoundly mistaken belief that terrorism occurs because security forces such as the police are not vigilant enough in dealing with suspects. Being tough on immigrants and giving the police and FBI greater powers is often suggested as a way to address the terrorist threat. That view is naive. The Washington Post has the data that indicates the impossibility of the task. The long-term solution to the problem is to more effectively address the grievances of those who embrace violence. The short-term solution is to end the false distinction between “domestic” and “foreign” terrorism. For reasons that I cannot understand or even fathom, we seem able to accept domestic terrorism such as the massacre in Newtown, CT or Aurora, CO or Charlston, SC with less hysteria because the killers were white males. Americans have for a long time accepted levels of violence that most other societies deem completely unacceptable. That attitude is a serious problem, played out along racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation lines, and until the American people decide that the attitude must change, violence will remain an intrinsic part of the culture.
Britain will hold its referendum on whether to leave or stay in the European Union a week from Thursday (23 June). It will be a very significant vote, and current polls suggest that the “Leave” voters are in the majority right now. But the Pew Research Center has conducted a survey of European attitudes toward domestic and foreign policy. Not surprisingly, there was a range of attitudes among the European states, but it is safe to say that most Europeans are turning inward. In many respects, the trend of opinion in Britain on a Brexit mirrors that point of view.
German sovereign debt ventured into negative yield territory today: the bonds sold for a negative interest rate of -0.0020 percent. Investors buy sovereign debt because they believe that no sovereign government would default on the debt. A negative interest rate indicates that investors are willing to lose money as long as they are assured that their money is absolutely safe. Typically, one buys a negative yielding bond only for a short period of time, hoping that the rates will not go up and might even go down. The risk is that for some unforeseeable reason rates might in fact go up, in which case the investor will find it very difficult to find a buyer for the bond. The short end of this story is that the negative interest rates suggest that investors are anticipating that economic growth will remain slow or non-existent and therefore interest rates will not rise.
“[W]e’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind…..[T]he something else in mind, you know, people can’t believe it.”
“People cannot — they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism…..There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.”
These statements are not mere political rhetoric–they are an accusation that President Obama is working in support of terrorists. International observers were aghast at the accusation. The Trump campaign subsequently issued a clarifying statement. If Mr. Trump wishes to make the accusation, then let him do so openly and with the evidence that supports the accusation. No one can allow such innuendo to persist.
The massacre in Orlando has generated a political firestorm, with a variety of explanations and solutions offered by people who really have not waited for all the information necessary to formulate intelligent conclusions. But the explanation that relies on the assumption that the tragedy was a result of “foreign” influences is, for me, the most troubling because it relies on a 911 call from a deeply troubled individual made in a situation of great stress. The idea that the killer was operating as a agent of a foreign “power” is the least likely explanation for such senseless violence.
“Not only is malnutrition responsible for nearly half of all deaths of children under five, it is also, along with poor diet, the leading driver of the global burden of disease.”
Malnutrition is also responsible for almost half of all the deaths of children under five years of age.
Sometimes the study of world politics is just one miserable worry after another. An article in The Atlantic just gave me another nightmare to worry about: the failure of the Global Positioning System. I thought I was free of that worry since I do not use a cell phone nor do I have a GPS system in my car. But my understanding of the system was flawed and I never knew how integral the system was to our lives, even those of us who have tried to be technologically backward. And the kicker of the article was that the probability of a GPS failure is in some scenarios as high as 12%. It’s time to buy a yurt.
Our World in Data is an extraordinary website. It graphically displays data in ways that are remarkable in their comprehensibility. For example, the website has a section on global population growth that is both historical and contemporary. The different sections of the website visually represent much of the data that we rely upon in the study of world politics.
The French are having a rough year. First, there were the terror attacks in Paris. Then came the floods. Now, labor strife is befouling the cities as workers go on strike in advance of the European Championship soccer matches. The strikes are in response to the government’s efforts to reform labor laws which currently limit flexibility in hiring and firing workers. Truck drivers, airline pilots, metro workers have gone on strike in opposition to the changes, but it is the garbage workers that are bringing Paris to its knees. Apparently, the piles of rotting garbage are attracting vermin and chasing away tourists. The government refuses to back down, and we’ll see how long the workers can hold to their strikes.
The International Monetary Fund is warning China that its rising corporate debt is of serious concern. China’s official budget deficit is about 225% of Gross Domestic Product which is high but not abnormally so in the current environment. But the amount of debt held by corporations (both private and state-owned) stands at 145% of GDP which is dangerously high since any one of those corporations can go bankrupt (unlike the Chinese government) and those bankruptcies might have a cascading effect on other corporations. As the Chinese economy continues to slow down, such bankruptcies become more likely.
It should come as no surprise to the readers of this blog that I find the fact that Donald Trump is a serious candidate for the US Presidency to be abhorrent. I cannot take Mr. Trump seriously, but I do take his supporters very seriously. They are angry and have given up on the political system as it has performed over the last 40 years, and I understand those feelings. So I will not make a pretense of objectivity in the blog postings in the future that have to deal with the presidential election in the US in 2016. But the election does have consequences for foreign policy and I cannot avoid those implications. One of the intriguing aspects of Mr. Trump’s candidacy is the rhetoric is has chosen to use. The phrase that he has chosen to encapsulate his foreign policy is “America First”. That phrase has been used before in American history–it was a rallying cry for those who opposed US entry into World War II.
Several thousand protesters ringed the US air force base in Ramstein, Germany. They were protesting the use of drones in American military policy. Drone warfare is only about 15 years old, but the technology has advanced considerably over that time and drone warfare is now an integral part of American military policy, particularly in Afghanistan. It remains a controversial tactic since it offers precision strikes against wanted individuals, but almost invariably kills civilians in the process.
US President Obama has expanded the authority of US military forces to use force in Afghanistan. The expanded authority does not authorize the military to engage in offensive combat operations, but the authority will put more US soldiers at risk. Obama came to office in 2009 on the promise to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The end of his presidency sees him expanding the US military role in both theaters, as well as a new theater in Syria.
The USS Porter sailed into the Black Sea on a “routine” maritime mission. Ships from countries that do not border the Black Sea can sail there for no longer than 21 days according to the 1936 Montreux Convention so the mission will be short-lived. But the Russians do not regard the Porter as a “routine” vessel–it is equipped with the latest anti-missile technology and the Russians have adamantly opposed the deployment of such land-based systems in NATO countries close to Russia. Obviously, the fact that the anti-missile system is floating does not alter the Russian strategic perception.
The SeaRAM Anti-Missile System on the USS Porter
One of the joys of studying world politics is that what we think to be true often turns out not to be true. Such, apparently, is the case with the man who led the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini. The BBC has just released documents that suggest that US President Carter had contacts with the Ayatollah prior to his departure from France to Iran two weeks after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. The documents indicate that the Ayatollah assured President Carter that he did not represent a threat to American interests. According to The Guardian, Iranian officials are not pleased with this information since it implies that the Ayatollah was working with “the Great Satan”.
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