The quiz on 25 April 2012 will be on the news articles from 20-23 April and the Defense Department Report on Climate Change, Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 22-74.
Archive for the ‘World Politics’ Category
Quiz for American Foreign Policy on 25 April 2012 Leave a comment
22 April 2012 Leave a comment
The first round of the French election seems to have gone to the Socialist candidate, Hollande. President Sarkozy came in a close second, but the pollsters are suggesting that the second round vote (between only Hollande and Sarkozy) will lean toward Hollande. The far-right candidate, Le Pen, came in very strong with nearly 19% of the vote. The only strategy available to Sarkozy is to appeal to the far right in the second round–a strategy that will only strengthen the right wing in the near term.
We all tend to think of China in terms of its total population: it is, and remains, the most populated country in the world. But how the ages of that population are distributed has important effects on the economic growth of the country, and China is looking at a serious drop in the number of working young people. How this may affect China’s future role in world affairs, is a topic addressed by The Economist.
The politicization of the Syrian violence has been going on for some time and the Washington Post, upped the ante with a news report that the rebellion is being infiltrated by Islamic jihadists. If one reads the article carefully, there are only references to “reports” and a small number of known individuals of only rumored political affiliation crossing the border. There is, of course, always the possibility that more radical elements are moving into the country, but this report is clearly politically driven by sources who wish to heighten the fears of the West for what is happening in Syria. We should keep an eye out for more substantive reports.
21 April 2012 Leave a comment
The UN has approved sending 300 additional observers into Syria. It’s hard to figure out the decision since the 30 observers already there have witnessed serious breaches in the “cease-fire.” I suspect it is a signal that the Security council is serious about the cease-fire, but the UN should not commit itself to a course of action unless it is prepared to back it up. There is a possibility that back-room deals have been made between the Assad government and the UN, but it’s hard to figure out what they may include. We’ll continue to monitor the situation.
The economic crisis in Europe is beginning to affect the formerly strong northern European states. The situation in the Netherlands, once considered a country on a par with germany, is going through a difficult budget process as it tries to make sure that its budget deficit remains within the 3% EU rule. The right-wing parties once again seem to be critical to a possible coalition. We’ll see what happens in France on Sunday–that election will determine much about the future of Europe. The Czechs are also expressing great discontent.
Many people are trying to develop algorithms that can predict civil war. The effort is at least a century old, but recent quantitative techniques are making the process more reliable and usable. For those of you who are interested in a more scientific and quantitative approach to the study of world politics, this field should be of great interest.
20 April 2012 2 comments
In a sign of how seriously it regards the deterioration of the European economy, the IMF has agreed to increase the size of a financial fund that might be necessary to bail out the larger European countries in case they face an imminent default. It’s not clear that any amount would persuade some bond investors that a default can be avoided, but it does give great support to less aggressive financial institutions. At the G20 meeting it also seems as if the emerging market countries are going to get greater representation within the IMF voting structure. It is an overdue move, but better late than never.
India has tested a new long-range missile which has a range that includes China. Strangely, there was little comment from most of the world, including from the Chinese, in direct contrast to the furor over the failed test of a similar missile by North Korea. The different reactions are a strong testimony to how regular some nuclear expectations are, and how resistant to change the nuclear regime is. The lesson cannot be lost on the Iranians.
The Economist ran an interesting graph on the change in military spending globally between 2002-2011. I won’t ask any quiz questions on the chart, but there are some striking outliers. What’s up with Azerbaijan?
16 April 2012 Leave a comment
The national security implications of climate change are difficult to assess. It does seem, however, that many nations are preparing for political and military competition in the Arctic as the evidence mounts that the polar seas are melting. One would hope that with the likely lead time before any real competition can be established the nations of the world could come up with a cooperative approach to sharing the likely resources of the Arctic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as if an enlightened approach is forthcoming.
The US candidate for President of the World bank, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, has been elected to the position, pushing back challenges from candidates from Nigeria and Colombia. I am conflicted about the appointment. I would have liked a non-American to have been selected. On the other hand, Kim is not an economist, but rather a public health expert. Such a shift in emphasis on the Bank’s activities might be a salutary corrective to traditional aid patterns. We should hope for Kim’s success.
The economic signals from Europe suggest that the calm after the Greek storm is abating. Spanish bonds are selling at very high interest rates–close to the 7% level that would likely suggest a high chance of default. The economic conditions in Europe seem to be worsening and, if Europe slips back into a recession, could quickly infect other parts of the world.
American foreign policy quiz for 18 April 2012 Leave a comment
The quiz on 18 April will be on the blog articles from 12-16 April and the following readings from the syllabus: Grier, Simon, and the Leveretts.
15 April 2012 Leave a comment
The Chinese have announced a wider trading band for their currency, the yuan. Previously, the Chinese had not allowed their currency to change more than 0.5% in either direction. Now they will allow fluctuations of 1.0%. The change is not highly significant, but it will disarm some politicians who wish to label China a violator of world currency rules. The net effect will be to make imports into China a little cheaper, and exports from China a little more expensive. So China’s trading partners will find a little less money flowing out and a little more flowing in.
President Obama was in Colombia for a summit meeting of Western Hemisphere states. Once again, the US (and Canada) tried to pass a resolution condemning Cuba, but the Latin American states were adamantly opposed to the resolution and none was passed. The US has had an economic embargo on Cuba since 1961 and it ranks as history’s most futile diplomatic action. It has caused great misery in Cuba, but the regime has outlasted every American Administration since Eisenhower (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama). I would say that it is long past time to change policies.
The world’s newest state, South Sudan, has had an uneasy relationship with the state from which it seceded, Sudan. The relationship is extraordinarily complicated, but the recent fighting erupted over control on an oil field on the border. It’s unclear whether the fighting has stopped as of now, but an open war would be devastating to both sides. The people of that region have suffered tremendously over the last decade, and the oil reserves have been the reason why the outside world has helped both sides to carry on the fighting. Another example of the curse of oil.
14 April 2012 Leave a comment
Russia and China voted in favor of sending 30 unarmed observers from the UN to monitor a “cease-fire” in Syria. Fighting is still going on in Syria, but there seems to be some sort of an agreement to declare an end to the shooting. I’m not sure what the observers will be able to accomplish, but it is way past time for the UN Security Council to acknowledge its responsibility to address the slaughter going on.
The economic situation in Spain is beginning to cause serious worries in Europe. The recent actions of the European Central Bank relieved some of the pressure on Spanish bonds, but, now that the ECB lending program is over, the yields (interest rates) on the bonds are going up again. Spain’s economy is significantly larger than Greece’s economy, so it will be difficult to bail out Spain in the same way Greece was bailed out. It appears as if a Spanish default is probably inevitable. The world’s major banks will be seriously affected if such a default occurs.
Supporters of the Palestinian people had planned a “fly-in” to the West Bank. Israel has decided that these 1,200 individuals will not be allowed to show their support for building a school in the West Bank. The Israeli response will be to send the protesters back immediately, or to prevent them from flying into Israel.
13 April 2012 Leave a comment
Hard economic times often leads to right-wing politics. This development seems to be happening in Greece. From the New York Times:
RACHEL DONADIO and DIMITRIS BOUNIAS, “Hard Times Lift Greece’s Anti-Immigrant Fringe,” April 12, 2012,
ATHENS — On a recent morning in the upper-middle-class neighborhood of Papagou here, members of the Greek ultranationalist group Golden Dawn stood at an outdoor vegetable market campaigning for the coming national elections.
“This is our party’s program, for a clean Greece, only for Greeks, a safe Greece,” Ilias Panagiotaros, the group’s spokesman and a candidate for office, said as he handed out leaflets.
He approached an older woman, who recounted how a relative had been robbed of about $800. “They threw her on the ground, they took the 600 euros she had withdrawn from the bank to pay for her husband’s nursing home,” the woman said. “She was even a Communist, and she told me, ‘I’m going to Golden Dawn to report this.’ ”
The exchange was a telling sign of how the hard-core group — better known for its violent tangles with immigrants in downtown Athens and for the Nazi salutes that some members perform at rallies — has been trying to broaden its appeal, capitalizing on fears that illegal immigration has grown out of control at a time when the economy is bleeding jobs.
Many polls indicate that in the national elections scheduled for May 6, Golden Dawn may surpass the 3 percent threshold needed to enter Parliament. The group has been campaigning on the streets, something that mainstream politicians have avoided for fear of angry reactions by voters who blame them for Greece’s economic collapse.
But even if Golden Dawn fails to enter Parliament, it has already had an impact on the broader political debate. In response to the fears over immigration and rising crime, Greece’s two leading parties — the Socialist Party and the center-right New Democracy Party — have also tapped into nationalist sentiment and are tacking hard right in a campaign in which immigration has become as central as the economy.
Experts say the group is thriving where the Greek state seems absent, the most virulent sign of how the economic collapse has empowered fringe groups while eroding the political mainstream, a situation that some Greek news outlets have begun comparing to Weimar Germany.
“Greek society at this point is a laboratory of extreme-right-wing evolution,” said Nicos Demertzis, a political scientist at the University of Athens. “We are going through an unprecedented financial crisis; we are a fragmented society without strong civil associations” and with “generalized corruption in all the administration levels.”
With what critics say is a poorly policed border with Turkey, Greece is seen as an entry point for illegal immigrants, some of them asylum seekers but most intent on moving to more promising economic terrain in Northern and Western Europe. But many of the immigrants remain in Greece or are returned there after being deported from other countries in Europe. This has stoked fears here of an onslaught of illegal immigrants, who economists say bear little or no responsibility for Greece’s economic troubles but who make easy scapegoats for politicians across the spectrum.
The Socialists, who were in power when Greece asked for a foreign bailout, have seen their popularity plummet, and they are desperate for a way to reconnect with voters. This month, Greece’s public order minister, Michalis Chrisochoidis, a Socialist in the interim government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, said Greece would set up detention centers for illegal immigrants. And the Socialist health minister caused a stir when he said that Greece would require illegal immigrants to undergo checks for infectious diseases.
But the established parties are also warning of the dangers of extremism. Last week, Evangelos Venizelos, who is running in the national elections as Socialist Party leader, warned that “Parliament cannot become a place for those nostalgic for fascism and Nazism.”
Golden Dawn is unabashedly nostalgic for both. Founded in the early 1980s by sympathizers of the military dictatorship that governed Greece from 1967 to 1974, Golden Dawn has always espoused a neo-Nazi ideology. Its symbol clearly resembles the swastika, and copies of “Mein Kampf” and books on the racial superiority of the Greeks are on prominent display in its Athens headquarters.
In the early 1990s, it capitalized on widespread opposition to the use of the name Macedonia by a former Yugoslav republic; a Greek region shares that name. And in recent years, Golden Dawn has muted the neo-Nazi talk and focused on anti-immigrant actions in downtown Athens, where the number of illegal immigrants, most from South Asia, Albania and Africa, has exploded.
The group has fostered grass-roots “citizens’ groups” that it says are intended to protect Greek citizens from crime by immigrants but that critics say are just vigilante squads.
In a high-profile episode last May, a Greek man was stabbed to death in Athens as he walked to his car to take his pregnant wife to the hospital. In response, Golden Dawn and other extreme-right-wing groups went on an anti-immigrant rampage that lasted for several days.
“Up to now, Golden Dawn was not politically dangerous but actually dangerous,” said Tassos Kostopoulos, an expert on Greek politics. He and others said Golden Dawn had historically had ties to the Greek state, especially the police. In a television interview last year, Mr. Chrisochoidis, the Socialist public order minister, said that when he took office in 2009, “guys from Golden Dawn and a number of fascist types were participating in actions that assisted the police.”
Athanasios Kokkalakis, the Greek police spokesman, acknowledged episodes of racist violence in Athens but said that the police force had not verified ties between its members and Golden Dawn.
Golden Dawn has been running unsuccessfully in national elections since 1994, but it took a big step toward legitimization in 2010, when its leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, was elected to the Athens City Council. In an interview, Mr. Michaloliakos called the group “national socialists” and said it was concerned about crime and the financial crisis.
He said that the group opposed Greece’s agreement with its foreign lenders and that the country’s political leadership was too beholden to “international bankers.” The Nazi salutes by Golden Dawn members were not official policy, he said, adding that “we can’t control thousands” of people. (Soon after his election, Mr. Michaloliakos himself was captured on video doing a Nazi salute in the City Council.)
Asked if he believed that the Holocaust had happened, Mr. Michaloliakos said, “I think all history is written by the winners.”
Another leading Golden Dawn official, Ilias Kasidiaris, was more blunt. “The main view in Europe is that six million Jews were killed. History has shown that this is a lie,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Kasidiaris added that he believed that all illegal immigrants should be “deported immediately,” and that Greece should plant minefields along its border with Turkey “Not to kill the immigrants,” he said, “but to clearly define an area that would stop anyone from thinking of accessing the country.”
Although Golden Dawn is clearly still cozy with neo-Nazi ideology, it has also tapped into rising Greek nationalist sentiment, which is now anti-German. “It’s right to hate Germany, because it is still the leader of the banksters and the European Union,” Mr. Michaloliakos, the group’s leader, said, using a derogatory term for bankers.
It remains to be seen whether Golden Dawn is truly interested in transforming itself from a collection of street fighters into a political party. The group’s leaders repeatedly refused to allow reporters to attend their party meetings, saying it would violate members’ privacy. The leaders claim that the group has 12,000 members, but that figure could not be independently verified.
Back at the vegetable market, as Golden Dawn members handed out newspapers, a few South Asian immigrants who work there stood quietly off to the side. A founding member of Golden Dawn, Michalis Karakostas, gave a reporter his phone number.
“If Pakistanis squat your front door, call me, not the cops,” he said.
There appears to be turmoil within the ranks for the Chinese leadership. Characteristically, the media in China are silent about the fate of Bo Xilai, a leader from Chongqing, who has fallen from grace. But the microblogs within China are buzzing with all sorts of rumors about the events that lead to his downfall. The story actually reads like a spy novel, with reports of an American businessman allegedly poisoned after a soured business deal with Mr. Bo’s wife. There is, however, a deeper undercurrent that suggests a great deal of palace intrigue, and the prospect of political turmoil within China is troubling.
The North Korean missile launch was a highly visible failure. One cannot help but wonder why the North Koreans decided to stake so much prestige on such a difficult technological endeavor. It was all timed to celebrate the hundred-year anniversary of the birth of the founder of North Korea, so there were many other distractions for the North Korean people. We should expect the North Koreans to do something dramatic, like test a nuclear bomb, in order to demonstrate their technological prowess.
12 April 2012 Leave a comment
Nearly 22% of all Greeks are now unemployed as the government’s austerity measures begin to deepen. At this rate (nearly 50% higher than this time last year) the government will not be able to meet its budget requirements as set by the EU as more people will claim unemployment benefits and fewer people will pay taxes. The situation is virtually hopeless and it seems as if another default is inevitable. The government will hold elections in early May and we’ll see what the people demand.
As the economic crisis continues in Europe, it was likely that there would be a backlash against globalization and there is no more likely place for such a movement to take steam than in France. It appears as if President Sarkozy is riding such a sentiment as he prepares for the election he was predicted to lose. Perhaps the gambit will allow him to stay in office (I wonder what the German reaction to that outcome will be?)
North Korea appears ready to launch its satellite into space. It is currently waiting for the weather to clear (apparently Kim Jong-eun cannot control the weather as readily as his father). Whats is most interesting about this development is how little North Korea seems to care about the reaction of the rest of the world to its activities. The new government seems to be quite intent on proving its independence.
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