The protests against the US for the dissemination of the film, “Innocence of Muslims,” has now spread to 11 countries. Libya has arrested some individuals associated with the violence in Benghazi, but the center of attention will remain on Cairo. Egyptian President Morsi has been less than forthright in his assessment of the protests, and President Obama responded by labeling Egypt as neither a friend or an enemy. A lot hangs in the balance right now, and the course of events over the next few days will be determined by how the Egyptian government decides to deal with the protests. In the meantime, the violence in Syria continues to escalate.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has issued yet another rebuke to Iran for its failure to comply with IAEA expectations. The intent of these resolutions is to prepare a paper trail of non-compliance. The important point is that the IAEA has yet to declare that Iran is in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Even then, the matter would have to be referred to the UN Security Council before military action against Iran is authorized.
The miners strike in South Africa continues and is spreading. The strike poses a serious challenge to the ruling African National Congress Party and President Zuma. It is also a serious threat to the South African economy. We will have to see if the strike precipitates more general unrest in the country.
There’s too much going on right now for me to sort out intelligently. The dreadful events in Libya are difficult to figure out. The “movie” that precipitated the crisis apparently is not what it seems: someone modified it and planted it. That conclusion leads us into the wacko world of conspiracy which is an impossible framework to analyze without hard information. There are a number of actors who might have a motive in fostering such discontent. We’ll have to hope that the journalists do a good job of ferreting out the information we need.
Europe is breathing a lot easier today after the German constitutional court ruled that German participation in the European Stability Mechanism was legal and after the results of the Dutch election return pro-euro parties to power. The euro gained strength as a result, but these improvements are just temporary. The weaknesses of Greece and Spain still persist.
US-Israeli relations reached a new low because of comments made by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that suggest he is losing confidence in US promises to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. The cancellation of a planned meeting between Obama and Netanyahu in mid-September is a sign of a significant rupture. Whether that rupture will lead Israel to take action without US support is a real possibility, but also one to be feared.
It is very difficult to interpret the relationship between discontent and political violence. We know that riots periodically appear, but often when we least expect them and sometimes never when we think they are most likely. A group at MIT has developed a computer model that predicts political violence (successfully in the case of the Arab Spring), and the model suggests that riots will return to world affairs in 2013.
Violence has broken out in the West Bank, mainly against leaders of Fatah, the governing party in the West Bank. I must admit, this outbreak caught me by surprise. There is no reliable news about what goes on in the Occupied Territories, and I didn’t see any reports in any of the mainstream media. But the violence was provoked by rising prices and discontent with corruption. The spark that lit the fire were self-immolations–the same spark that ignited the Arab Spring in Tunisia. In retrospect, I should not have been surprised. We will have to see how this part of the story unfolds.
Xi Jinping, the President-in-waiting of China, has gone missing. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party changes every five years (at least in its most recent history) and Xi was expected to succeed Hu Jintao at the next Party Congress in October. But the dates for the next Congress have yet to be announced and Xi has missed several important appointments with visiting diplomats. No one really knows what is going on, but the rumors are swirling in the Chinese (and non-Chinese) blogosphere. Needless to say, such uncertainty concerning one of the world’s most important countries is highly unsettling.
We have just witnessed the birth of a new nation-state: Kosovo. Kosovo was part of the former Yugoslavia, and then, after the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991, part of the independent nation-state of Serbia. The population of Kosovo, however, is mostly Muslim and it was threatened by the non-Muslim majority of Serbia in 1998. There was a war and Kosovo has been protected by NATO forces which feared a genocide at that time. Since 2008 Kosovo’s independence has been protected by a coalition of states, and today its full independence was announced. Needless to say, Serbia is not pleased, and some states, such as Russia and China, have refused to recognize Kosovo as an independent state. We’ll see if there is a reaction from those quarters.
The quiz on Wednesday, 12 September, will be on the blogs posts from 6-10 September and the following readings on the syllabus: the lecture notes on political realism and the entry by Korab-Karpowicz. I will also ask questions about materials presented in the lectures.
The Economist has a great interactive map of global debt: check it out. But don’t worry. I won’t be asking any quiz questions about it (much too detailed).
Greece is a highly indebted country, and is clearlyunable to repay its debts. In order to make the payments on its debts, Greece needs to borrow money from the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (the three institutions have been dubbed “the troika”). In return for the loans, the troika is demanding that the Greek government reduce its expenditures on normal government functions such as police, education, and social services. But Greece is in the sixth year of an economic recession and unemployment is over 25%. So the question for Greece is should it repay its debts by depriving its citizens of needed services, or should it default on its loans and leave the eurozone?
The European Union is ratcheting up its presence in world affairs, and is demanding increased action against the violence in Syria and the Iranian nuclear program. The US is certainly happy about the moves, but it is unclear whether the Union has the ability or the will to take stronger action. Both issues seem to be intractable as long as the US and the EU are stymied by the vetoes of Russia and China in the UN Security Council.
The violence in Syria has been going on for over 18 months and there is no clear indication of when it might end. There is virtually no question that President Assad has lost his legitimacy as the leader of Syria, but government forces continue to fight on his behalf, despite continuing defections and despite orders to kill ordinary Syrian civilians. Such loyalty is difficult to explain, but this article in the Christian Science Monitor offers some reasons why government forces remain loyal.
US-Pakistani relations are incredibly complex and difficult, although both states need each other’s support: the US needs Pakistani support in the war in Afghanistan, and Pakistan needs US support to counterbalance Indian power in South Asia. The US has just taken a step that will complicate the relationship further. It has designated the Haqqani network, an organized group of individuals in Pakistan dedicated to helping the Taliban in Afghanistan, as a terrorist group. The network has significant support within the Pakistani military and among parts of its civilian population, but the designation means that the US will have to take action against some very powerful people.
The new technologies offer great promise to poor countries. It allows them to leapfrog over the very costly infrastructural investments that historically been associated with communications networks. The Economist ran a terrific article on how Kenya is being affected by this revolution.
Robert Haddick published an essay in Foreign Policy which suggests that the US is not militarily prepared to defend its interests in the Persian Gulf. It is a provocative essay and one that deserves careful analysis and thought. There are a number of assumptions within the essay that are not fully spelled out (“In contrast with Jerusalem, Washington views Iran as a distant and manageable problem”–is the US and Israeli national interest exactly the same with respect to Iran? Should it be?). Read it carefully and ask questions as you do.
Nationalism plays a big role in world politics, and the issue of group identity, while well understood in some ways, remains an elusive one. An experiment conducted in the 1950s (The “Robbers Cave Experiment”) sheds some fascinating light on the dynamics of group identity.
No one really knows what the long-term consequences of globalization might be, but it is a process that has inspired some rich and provocative thinking (as well as some dreadful schlock). The BBC ran a short essay on work and globalization that raises some very interesting propositions. Definitely worth thinking about.
The European sovereign debt crisis is beginning to simmer again as it becomes increasingly clear that Greece will likely leave the eurozone and the possibility of a Spanish default becomes more likely. The European Central Bank has very limited powers (it is nothing like the US Federal Reserve Bank) but it is trying to avoid these catastrophes. The language of the ECB sounds promising, but there are serious doubts about whether the ECB will be able to solve the problems without some serious changes to its charter.
The US war against Iraq which began in March 2003 was predicated upon the assumption that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that US policymakers feared would fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. The world soon learned that these weapons did not exist and the initial assessments were regarded as massive intelligence failures. After 6 years, the CIA has finally released its assessment of those failures. You can skim parts of the report, but I will not be asking any questions about the report itself. It is so heavily redacted that it is difficult to follow the thread of the argument.
The Christian Science Monitor ran a very nice history of the status of the city of Jerusalem, currently a contested city and also a point of contention between Republicans and Democrats. The history is important: After the creation of a Jewish and an Arab area in the former British colony of Palestine, the UN declared the city of Jerusalem to be an international enclave, not within the sovereignty of either the Jewish or the Arab state. Israel took control of Jerusalem after the 1967 war with Jordan, Syria, and Egypt (the CSM story calls this war one provoked by “Arab aggression”–some analysts would disagree with this characterization), but few states have yet to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the city. The Republicans favor recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the city; the Democrats do not.
UPDATE: At 5 pm the Democrats voted to change their platform to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It was a weird event. The change required a 2/3 voice vote in favor. The Chair had to ask three times for a vote and finally ruled that the ayes had the 2/3s necessary. It certainly didn’t sound that way to me. Make your own judgment.
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