World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The recent heat wave is perhaps a hint of our future.  Climate change has been discussed for many years, but very little has been done to avert the process.  Bill McKibben has a sobering essay in Rolling Stone about the dynamics behind the process, and it is definitely worth reading.  One of the implications of his analysis is that the only way to avert a global catastrophe is to prevent hydrocarbons from being burned; but the immense wealth associated with those hydrocarbons almost assure that those resources will never be expropriated.

The protests in Spain against austerity programs on Saturday were quite large and loud.  Der Spiegel assesses the impact of the protests and how Spaniards interpret the German role in their economic slowdown.  The article contains some great quotations from a diverse set of German newspapers.  In addition, reports are beginning to circulate that the IMF will no longer provide aid to Greece.   That action would virtually assure that Greece will have to leave the eurozone.

Meanwhile, tax havens are slowly becoming huge–perhaps holding as much as $32 trillion, out of a total world gross product of around $70 trillion.  The important point about this money is that it evades taxation, depriving many communities of needed money.  Additionally, by and large, that money is not available for productive investment.  That money is not performing its expected role in the global economy.

The eurozone is entering another crisis phase as Spanish bond yields (interest rates) rise dramatically.  The euro fell to one of its lowest levels in quite some time on Friday as investors begin to think that the Spanish government will have to be bailed out. in order to prevent the collapse of its banking system.  Large protests are scheduled for today in Spain, and it appears as if Germany is very reluctant to intervene to address the crisis in confidence.   The markets will be wastching what happens in Spain this weekend very carefully.

The weakening of the Assad regime continues and the world is now beginning to worry about what comes after him.  We have a very slim idea of the configuration of forces in the Syrian opposition, but we do know that, in a situation of disarray, the most organized group usually wins power, regardless of its strength on the ground.  The balance of power in the Middle East hangs in the balance, and Iran has the greatest amount of power to lose (followed by Hezbollah).  Thus, we would expect Iran to exert the greatest effort in supporting the alternative to Assad.  Israel has the most to lose from an Iranian success.

We will all have to update our vocabulary to include the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands (along with the Falklands/Malvinas) as Japanese/Chinese tensions increase over control of the islands.  The Japanese are exercising some interesting diplomatic tools to assert their control over the islands, but the Chinese don’t seem to be buying the tactic.

Source: The Economist, 14 July 2012

Russia and China both vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution today that would have laid out consequences for Syrian President Assad if civilians continue to be killed.  The veto comes after close Assad advisers were killed in an attack that clearly indicated that a person or persons in Assad’s inner circle were conspiring against him.  Russian and Chinese support for the clearly weakened Assad suggest that the game now has less to do with the Syrian regime than it relates to the larger balance of power in the Middle East, most likely support for Iran.  Given the attack on Israeli citizens in Bulgaria yesterday and the high likelihood of Israeli retaliation against Iran, we have climbed another notch on the escalation ladder.

Violence against immigrants in Greece has risen sharply as the Greek economy has continued its deep recession.  The cause and effect are easy to discern and it is a common phenomenon in sharply contracting economies.  Anti-immigrant violence is increasing all over the world, and will likely worsen until the global economy begins to recover.

Many American colleges and universities have expanded abroad in attempting to establish a global presence.  Such expansion is fraught with danger for traditional liberal arts institutions since many countries do not share the values of free expression.  Yale University was slammed by Human Rights Watch for its campus in Singapore and its decision to not allow students on that campus to form political groups.  We are far from sharing universal values.

Iran has been preparing for the oil embargo as well as a possible attack on its facilities.  The Middle East Media Research Institute has prepared a summary of these efforts put together from sources within Iran.  It is a long report, but well worth the effort, since it gives a great perspective on how the Iranians are interpreting the threats against it.

I doubt that I have to tell anyone in the US that it is hot in the US (some parts of the world are experiencing wetter and cooler conditions than normal).  Indeed, it is miserably hot in South Hadley.  These conditions will have serious international consequences, particularly if the accompanying drought continues.  The international dimensions of climate change are vastly underreported.

A tour bus with a number of Israelis on board was blown up today in Bulgaria.  The Israeli government immediately blamed Iran and vowed that retaliation would come.  This incident comes as the most recent event in a strong of escalating tensions between Israel and Iran (via Syria).  The escalation raises fears of a wider war.

As most of you know, Secretary of State Clinton has been making a whirlwind tour of the Middle East.  While in Israel, she made a very strong statement about “preventing” Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  This statement is a little stronger than the language the US has used in the past concerning Iran and nuclear weapons (which is generally “not taking anything off the table.”)  Needless to say, the new language was welcomed in Israel.

The US has forces all over the world, and it is engaged in a number of activities, some of which are loosely connected.  David Vine refers to the US strategy as a “Lily-Pad” strategy.  His perspective is fascinating and pulls together a number of different elements of American interests and objectives.  For those of you interested in American foreign policy, this essay will be of great interest.

The sanctions against Iran have significantly disrupted the Iranian economy, but it is too soon to assess how complete the oil embargo has been.  India announced a deal with Saudi Arabia which signals a major shift on India’s part.  More importantly, both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have announced the opening of new pipelines that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, limiting Iran’s ability to disrupt oil supplies in the case of war.

Source: Financial Times, 16 July 2012.

The Red Cross has declared that the conflict in Syria is now a civil war.  The line between civil violence and a civil war is always difficult to draw, and I think that the Red Cross declaration fails to take into account that the opposition in Syria has yet to congeal into an organized opposition.  Nonetheless, the declaration now means that the laws of war now apply to the conflict and that Assad and the Syrian military could be considered war criminals if they failed to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants.  http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0716/Syria-Civil-war-engulfs-Damascus   Russia remains adamantly opposed to UN intervention in the conflict, so the point is moot for the helpless civilians right now.  But it could harden Assad’s determination to stay in power. 

I posted too soon.  Yesterday I noted that relations between China and the Philippines had calmed down a bit in the South China Sea.  Today, the BBC reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18842839)  that a Chinese naval frigate was stranded on one of the disputed shoals.   The same article gives a nice map of the disputed territories.

UNCLOS refers to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas.  As you can see, the Chinese claim, based on Chinese history is quite different from International Law as it is presently understood.  To be fair to the Chinese, however, there are many similar claims by many other nations as well.

A legal commission in Israel, appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, has decided that Israel is not an “occupying power” in the West Bank.  The commission based its conclusions on many grounds, but it essentially argued that too much time has passed since 1967 to regard Israeli control as “external.”  Stephen Walt, a longstanding critic of Israel’s occupation, has an important critic of this position in Foreign Policy. (http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/12/the_veil_falls)

I have posted several articles in the past about the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.  The situation between China and the Philippines has calmed down a bit, but the disputes between China and Vietnam have heated up.  The most recent ASEAN meeting tried to address the issues, but apparently little was accomplished.   http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0713/South-China-Sea-meeting-ends-in-stalemate    Nonetheless, it is a step forward that there is a forum for such discussions and that ASEAN has acknowledged a role as a mediator.

There has been another massacre in Syria and the world continues to wring its hands and do nothing else.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/13/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8610SH20120713?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29  Russia and China still oppose anything that smacks of “regime change.”  The opposition stems largely from the policy change in the Libyan intervention by NATO which went from simply protecting civilians to actually ousting Qaddaffi.  It appears as if the Russians and the Chinese refuse to forget that shift.

The Pew Foundation has issued its report on a public opinion survey on how people perceive the economic situation in their own country.  http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/12/pervasive-gloom-about-the-world-economy/?utm_source=Pervasive+Gloom+About+the+World+Economy&utm_campaign=Economic+Conditions&utm_medium=email

The striking thing about the poll is the extraordinary pessimism that seems to pervade most respondents.  Germany is a clear exception to that trend.  Don’t tell the Greeks.

Vietnam is one of the emerging markets that captivated a large number of investors–after labor costs started rising in China, many turned to Vietnam as the next place for manufacturing. Unfortunately, the situation in Vietnam has deteriorated rapidly, and the Vietnamese economy is not doing well.  http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/11/the_end_of_the_vietnamese_miracle

The Russians have sent seven warships into the Mediterranean, led by an anti-submarine destroyer.  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/07/u-s-and-russia-send-numerous-warships-to-middle-east.html  The Russians have a naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus, a long-coveted warm water port for the Russian navy.  The US, in the meantime, apparently ordered a third aircraft carrier group, the USS Stennis, into the Persian Gulf, to join with the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Enterprise.  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/third-us-aircraft-carrier-returning-unexpectedly-mideast-ahead-schedule  The Stennis move was not expected, but one can deduce that the Americans fear the enhanced Russian presence in the region.  So a new stand-off is emerging:  the Russians, the Syrians, and the Iranians vs. the Americans, the Israelis, and the Saudis.  Where the Chinese stand in this matter is unknown–the Chinese are sympathetic to the Syrians and the Iranians, but may not wish to support the Russians.  Nonetheless, anything that takes the US eye off of East Asia is a welcome move for the Chinese.