One of the fundamental assumptions of classical realist thought is that human beings are inherently aggressive. A corollary of that proposition is that humans are selfish. Modern research, however, is challenging that key assumption. Neuroscientists are uncovering evidence that humans might actually be wired to be charitable and that it is less demanding on the brain to behave altruistically. More evidence is necessary, but it is a true step forward to be able to assess key assumptions that were heretofore untestable.
Foreign aid is hardly an act of altruism–states only help other states if the act furthers their national interests. The US Congress is considering raising the amount of foreign assistance it provides to Israel. The Congressional Research Service provides the following chart on how much aid the US has given Israel over the years.
The world is approaching a genuine transformation in the nature of work as it begins to develop robots with unbelievable capabilities. The MIT Technology Review has published an article on China’s commitment to replace humans with robots. Many countries are also developing this tactic:
Automation appears to offer an enticing technological solution. China already imports a huge number of industrial robots, but the country lags far behind competitors in the ratio of robots to workers. In South Korea, for instance, there are 478 robots per 10,000 workers; in Japan the figure is 315; in Germany, 292; in the United States it is 164. In China that number is only 36.
Robots offer great promise in replacing humans in dangerous and boring jobs. But what jobs will be created for the flesh-and-blood remains an open question.
It is always difficult for those of us trained in liberal thought to interpret the policies of non-liberal doctrines. Such is the case with China, and, in particular, the politics of President Xi. On April 6th, Xi launched a new ideological campaign named “Two Studies, One Action”. The new statement was in line with Xi’s earlier pronouncements, especially the emphasis in January 2015 on the role of ideology in Chinese universities. Whether President Xi intends to move further down the ideological road remains to be seen. But ideology is no substitute for the sense of progress among the citizenry at large.
US President Obama gave a speech in Germany today which was an attempt to restore the bonds between Europe and the US. Those bonds have always been strong, but people on both sides of the Atlantic are beset by problems and concerns that are especially unnerving. Obama has a special gift for rhetoric and this speech was no exception:
So I say to you, the people of Europe, don’t forget who you are. You are the heirs to a struggle for freedom. You’re the Germans, the French, the Dutch, the Belgians, the Luxembourgers, the Italians — and yes, the British — (applause) — who rose above old divisions and put Europe on the path to union. (Applause.)
You’re the Poles of Solidarity and the Czechs and Slovaks who waged a Velvet Revolution. You’re the Latvians, and Lithuanians and Estonians who linked hands in a great human chain of freedom. You’re the Hungarians and Austrians who cut through borders of barbed wire. And you’re the Berliners who, on that November night, finally tore down that wall. You’re the people of Madrid and London who faced down bombings and refused to give in to fear.
And you are the Parisians who, later this year, plan to reopen the Bataclan. You’re the people of Brussels, in a square of flowers and flags, including one Belgian who offered a message — we need “more.” More understanding. More dialogue. More humanity.
That’s who you are. United, together. You are Europe — “United in diversity.” Guided by the ideals that have lit the world, and stronger when you stand as one.
The Egyptian transfer of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia continues to roil Egyptian politics. The backdrop to this controversy is the deepening economic distress of the country, but the transfer of land to Saudi Arabia acts as a lightening rod to the discontent. Today marks the day the Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt in 1982, land that Israel had seized in the 1967 war. Usually it is a day of celebration, but today it was an occasion to protest the government of General Sisi. Sisi remains firmly in control, but the situation cannot continue to deteriorate without some explosion of discontent.
Norbert Hofer of the Austrian Freedom Party won the first round of national elections with 35% of the vote, the largest percentage in the history of the right-wing party. None of the established parties earned many votes, with the Green Party and an Independent coming in second and third in the elections. The results signal massive voter dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs in Austria, and the influx of refugees appears to be a dominant concern of many voters.
A Freedom Party Poster from 2014 on Banning the Burqa in Austria
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic appears to have won a sizable victory in that country’s national elections. Vucic is an economic conservative who strongly favors closer ties with the European Union. Unfortunately, it also appears as if Vojislav Seselj, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Radical Party, will have a seat in the Parliament and will likely be the leader of the opposition. Seselj was tried by the UN tribunal at the Hague for war crimes during Yugoslavia’s break-up in the 1990s and was acquitted of those crimes. He nonetheless represents a very nationalist side of the Serbian electorate.
Papa Wemba has died. He died while performing in a music festival in Ivory Coast. Papa Wemba first burst onto the music scene in the 1960s and his influence on music was truly global. His role in bringing African music to the world’s attention was singular and his death is a great loss to the world.
North Korea has tested a missile launch from a submarine. It is not clear if the test was completely successful, but the launch suggests that North Korea is developing greater strategic capabilities. Submarine launched missiles would give North Korea greater flexibility is an attack, but it seems as if the North Korean capability is still quite underdeveloped. There are concerns, however, that North Korea is getting close to testing a fifth nuclear explosion which would be in violation of UN sanctions. The test will inevitably bring China closer to the Western allies opposed to North Korean nuclear capabilities.
Daesh (the Islamic States) has claimed responsibility for the murder of a professor in Bangladesh. Rezaul Karim Siddique was killed on his way to his class at Rajshahi University and is the fourth professor to be killed in the last 12 years. Daesh said that Siddique was killed because he was an “atheist” although there is no evidence to substantiate that characterization. Bangladesh is officially a secular country, but radicals professing adherence to Islam have launched a string of murders against what they regard as enemies of Islam.
The Iran-allied Houthi movement and the Saudi-backed government of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi have met in Juwait to discuss a possible settlement in the ongoing war in Yemen, The meeting broke down without the sides even agreeing on an agenda to discuss. The violence began in September 2014 and more than 6,000 people have died in the conflict so far. The outcome is disappointing, but there has been a fragile cease-fire in place and at least the sides have agreed to talk. But there is clearly a long way to go.
Fred Kaplan has written an insightful piece for Slatethat reviews the steps the Obama Administration has taken in Iraq to fight Daesh (the Islamic State). He raises the central issue about which many analysts have raised concern: the possibility of “mission creep” into a larger war. Kaplan does a good job of pointing out how American forces have learned important lessons about fighting in Iraq and suggests that perhaps Obama has taken steps to avoid a larger war. But President Obama leaves office in less than a year and who knows who the next US President will be.
170 nation-states will likely sign the climate change agreement that was forged in Paris last year and with luck the agreement will be ratified by the end of 2016. The agreement is significant only because it signals (finally) that the major polluters have recognized their responsibilities in changing their behaviors. The agreement itself does not contain mechanisms to avert climate change in any signficiant way.
The nation-state is a poor agent to address the issue of climate change. It is so deeply rooted in the concept of territoriality that it is more likely to impede attempts to solve the problem than it is to contribute to a solution. In order to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change, the whole concept of sovereignty needs to be re-imagined.
Ever since the contested election of President Pierre Nkurunziza in Burundi a few months ago, there has been a steady level of violence in the country. The election was contested because Nkurunziza sought a third term in office, something prohibited by the constitution. Nkurunziza is a Hutu and the violence between that ethnic group and the minority Tutsi in central Africa has been endemic for many years, the most explosive episode being the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The rising tension is causing concern that the violence may once again explode.
Globalization and free trade are the underlying issues in this year’s presidential campaign in the US. The critiques of how trade policies have affected the American middle class have been launched from both the right and the left. What was once a given issue in the American hegemony is now being contested within the hegemon. Whatever the outcome in the US election, the debate will resonate strongly for many years to come.
The US Geological Service has published a group of stunning satellite images of the earth. Many are false images that highlight specific features of the landscape. Run it as a slideshow–the effect is mesmerizing.
Great Sandy Desert, Western Australia
One of the troubling aspects of this years presidential primaries is the extent to which the American middle class is showing great anger and insecurity. We worry about those emotions in politics since they are usually rooted in economic circumstances that are not quickly or easily resolved. The economic security of the American middle class has deteriorated over the last 40 years in ways that were completely unanticipated. According to Neal Gabler in the most recent issue of The Atlantic:
Median net worth has declined steeply in the past generation—down 85.3 percent from 1983 to 2013 for the bottom income quintile, down 63.5 percent for the second-lowest quintile, and down 25.8 percent for the third, or middle, quintile. According to research funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, the inflation-adjusted net worth of the typical household, one at the median point of wealth distribution, was $87,992 in 2003. By 2013, it had declined to $54,500, a 38 percent drop.
Under these circumstances, one can only expect politics to be highly volatile.
The lower house of the Brazilian Congress has voted overwhelmingly to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. The vote to impeach was more lop-sided than expected, and the bill to impeach now moves to the Brazilian Senate. The vote reflects widespread disillusion with the state of the Brazilian economy (which is expected to decline by 3.8% this year, a similar decline to last year), charges of widespread corruption, including charges against the very politicians who voted to impeach Rousseff, and a sense that Rousseff is incapable of addressing the problems facing Brazil. It seems likely that the Senate will vote to conduct an impeachment trial which means that Brazil will be in a state of limbo for some time.
Last week, research was published reporting a consensus among 97% of all climate scientists that climate change is occurring and that it is caused by human activity. The report can be accessed here but I will not ask any questions on the quiz about the report itself since it is quite technical. This report sounds like old news, and in many respects it is. But only 12% of the American people are aware of the high degree of consensus and instead believe that the climate change issue is a controversy within the scientific community. Further, evidence suggests that “that three out of five high-school teachers in the US were unaware of the scientific consensus on global warming, and that one in three brought that ignorance to their classroom, encouraging their students to discuss the climate-change ‘controversy’.” The data suggests a wide discrepancy between public and expert opinion, a situation which makes policy-making very difficult.
The US has announced that it will continue its process of increasing its commitment to Iraq by increasing the number of troops and helicopters sent to the country. These troops will embed in Iraqi forces in small groups known as “advise-and-assist teams”, undoubtedly bringing them into combat arenas. In addition, the US is going to increase its military aid to the Kurdish peshmerga which will likely anger Turkey even more. The pressure on Daesh continues to grow, but the US is moving very slowly into another ground commitment in Iraq. This movement is something to watch very carefully.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stated today that Israel will never give up control of the Golan Heights, Syrian territory that Israel has occupied since the 1967 war. Israel extended Israeli civil law to the territory in 1981, signalling its intention to incorporate the territory under Israeli sovereignty. The international community has never recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Occupied Territories, but with the Syrian government in total disarray right now, there is no appetite to contest the Israeli claim.
The major oil producers failed to reach an agreement to freeze production of oil in order to stabilize global oil prices. Prices have fell sharply over the last year as Saudi Arabia tried to depress the market to prevent US fracked oil and Iranian new production from being economically viable. The effort, however has failed, and it was principally Iran’s refusal to join in the production freeze that led to the collapse of the discussions. All the major oil producers have suffered greatly from the price decline, but Saudi Arabia is playing a long-term gain to prevent the emergence of future competitors.
Image of an Oil Tanker Traffic Jam Near Singapore as Oil Supplies Overwhelm Storage Facilities (4 days ago)
The Czech Republic (part of which we once called Czechoslovakia) is poised to change its official name in the United Nations to Czechia. The name change is part of a “rebranding” effort to better market the country by have a single word on products, like sports apparel, to designate their place of origin. The Czechs cannot use “Czech” since that word is just an adjective in Czech. And many countries are known by a single word even though their official name silently carries the word Republic (France is officially the French Republic). Unfortunately, Czechia sounds an awful like Chechnya, an area in Russia that has long been agitating for its independence.
Saudi Arabia has threatened to sell $billions of its US Treasury bonds if the Congress passes a law allowing victims of the 11 September 2001 tragedy to sue the Saudi government for damages. We don’t really know how many billions of dollars of bonds the Saudis own (strangely, the US treasury withholds that information although it makes that information available for most other countries that own US bonds), but we assume that its holdings are substantial. But the American people have been kept in the dark about Saudi Arabia’s involvement in 9/11 for a very long time. There are 28 pages of the official Congressional investigation in the tragedy that have never been released, and all 28 pages outline Saudi involvement in the attack.
US President George W. Bush and Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, 25 April 2005
When one listens to discussions about Islam in Europe, one could be forgiven for thinking that Europeans know little about Muslims because the movement of Muslims into Europe is a recent phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the time that Islam began, the interaction between Muslims from the Middle East and Christians in Europe has been constant and sustained. Much of the interaction has been hostile, but the persistence of misinformation about Islam in Europe is difficult to fathom.
When the Zika virus was first detected in 1947, it did not seem to be a particularly dangerous virus. But recent outbreaks in Brazil and Colombia have led to serious birth defects and paralyzing disorders. Researchers now believe that the Zika virus has a peculiar ability to mutate in a way that has led to exponential growth in Brazil. The research is still ongoing, but there is little doubt that the virus now poses a serious risk to human beings.
World Politics News 