On this day in 1945 American troops entered what is now known as South Korea. Troops from the Soviet Union had entered what is now known as North Korea on 9 August 1945. The US and Soviet troops occupied Korea as part of the Yalta Agreement signed on 11 February 1945. At the Yalta Conference, the Allies agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan three months after the defeat of Germany. The Germans had surrendered on 8 May 1945 and Stalin honored his promise to enter the war. That promise was welcomed by US President Roosevelt who wanted the Soviet Union to intervene in order to divide Japanese forces when the US invaded the country to end the war. As part of the Yalta Agreement, the Soviet Union was promised territorial gains to redress the losses it had suffered in its surrender to Japan in the Russ0-Japanese War of 1904.
Circumstances, however, had changed by August. Roosevelt was no longer the President–he had died and Harry Truman took his place and Truman was significantly more suspicious of the Soviet Union than Roosevelt had been. Second, the US tested an atomic bomb on 16 July 1945 which held out the promise of ending the war with Japan without an American invasion. The US dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the Soviets declared war against Japan on 9 August, and the US dropped its second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki on the same day. On 10 August Japan offered to surrender.
The occupation of Korea by US and Soviet forces was supposed to be temporary, as was the division of Germany and the future division of Vietnam in 1954. There was a US-sponsored election in the South in 1948 but the Soviets refused to allow an election in the North. The United Nations then recognized South Korea as the legitimate government of Korea, laying the legal basis for a possible reunification of the two sectors along the lines of the government of the South. The US removed its troops from South Korea in June of 1949, leaving only 500 soldiers to train the South Korean military, but Soviet troops did not leave the North. In June of 1950, forces from North Korea invaded South Korea and the Korean War began. US troops re-entered the South under the auspices of the United Nations and the war lasted until an armistice was signed in July of 1953. North and South Korea are still technically in a state of war as no peace agreement has ever been signed between the two states.
The European Court of Justice has rejected a plea from Slovakia and Hungary to not enforce the European Union’s requirement that its members accept a quota of refugees. Since 2015 more than 1 million refugees have arrived in Europe and the reaction to them has varied from country to country. Slovakia and Hungary argued that the forced acceptance of refugees violated their sovereignty and that the EU had not followed the proper procedures to implement the relocation of refugees. The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, was quoted in Reuters as saying:
“The whole issue raises a very serious question of principles: whether we are an alliance of European free nations with the Commission representing our joint interests, or a European empire which has its center in Brussels and which can issue orders”.
The Pew Research Center has compiled some detailed information about Asian-Americans and immigration from Asian countries. The report finds that
“The U.S. Asian population grew 72% between 2000 and 2015 (from 11.9 million to 20.4 million), the fastest growth rate of any major racial or ethnic group. By comparison, the population of the second-fastest growing group, Hispanics, increased 60% during the same period.”
The countries with the largest representation within this immigrant group are China, India, and the Philippines. Asian-Americans on the whole do quite well in the US. According to the study: “The median annual household income of households headed by Asian Americans is $73,060, compared with $53,600 among all U.S. households.” But the income levels vary widely among the 19 different countries of origin studied.
Catalonia, the northeastern region of the country of Spain, has a referendum on independence scheduled for 1 October. The Catalans believe that they give more to the central government of Spain than they receive in benefits and that Catalonian culture is distinctive and constitutes a separate nation. Spanish authorities have declared the referendum illegal and the Spanish Supreme Court will rule on its legality. But Catalonian authorities have declared that they intend to go ahead with the referendum raising the possibility of a serious constitutional crisis in Spain.
Chetan Peddada is a former officer in the U.S. Army and he has written an article for Foreign Policy based on his impressions of the many war games the US military has run on potential conflicts with North Korea. War gaming is a complex undertaking as the military runs scenarios of conflicts based upon a number of different alternative conditions. Peddada’s analysis is understandably complicated, but unless one is interested in the intricate military details, it is sufficient to skim the article to appreciate his conclusion:
“We’ve never been closer to a conventional North Korean attack on South Korea, and I can attest that the U.S. military knows how devastating the consequences would be. We can expect a massive humanitarian crisis, enormous loss of life, and economic disaster. There’s almost no doubt that the North would lose — but in going down Pyongyang could take much of the Korean Peninsula with it.”
Turkey and the European Union have been negotiating the possible entry of Turkey into the Union since 2005. Those negotiations have been stalled over a variety of issues: Turkey’s control over parts of the island of Cyprus; its commitment to democratic principles, and; the issue of migration and the treatment of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is campaigning to remain Chancellor and in a recent debate she argued that the accession negotiations should cease. Other members of the EU, Finland, Lithuania, and, most recently, France, have resisted the call to end the negotiations. The decision will not be easy for the Union.
Climate change is most obvious in the polar regions and changes in the Arctic Region have been better documented than those in the Antarctic. One of the least obvious changes in the northern polar regions has been the melting of permafrost–the “layer of frozen soil that covers 25 percent of the Northern Hemisphere.” Scientists fear that as the permafrost melts, thousands of tons of carbon dioxide and methane will be released, aggravating the process of global warming. Additionally, some fear the release of ancient microbes to which modern humans have lost immunity.
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Aung San Suu Kyi is a hero of the human rights movement. She was under house arrest for years by the military junta that ruled Myanmar (Burma) but steadfastly held her ground in defense of democracy and won the Nobel Peace Prize for her courage. She is now the leader of Myanmar but finds herself under serious criticism for her inability to protect the Royingha, a Muslim minority located in the Rakhine district of the country. The Royingha are considered illegal immigrants by the primarily Buddhist population of Myanmar. Increasingly, violence is being used to drive the Royingha out of the country and the Royingha are beginning to fight back. Suu Kyi is now arguing that the information about the persecution of the Royingha is “fake” news.
Anti-Royingha Protest
Gauri Lankesh, a prominent Indian journalist highly critical of the emerging Hindu nationalism in India was shot dead outside her home in Bangalore. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, India is a dangerous place for independent journalists. The murder of Lankesh is a sign of how intense the spirit of Hindu nationalism has become in India–a worrying sign for a country dedicated to liberal freedoms.
Gauri Lankesh
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, gave a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in which she argued that the nuclear agreement with Iran was flawed, laying the groundwork for scrapping the agreement. The agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was forged between the 5 Permanent Members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States), Germany, and Iran. It is a ten-year agreement limiting Iran’s ability to process uranium into fuel for a nuclear bomb and was signed on 14 July 2015. Every six months the International Atomic Energy Agency and the signatories must verify that Iran has adhered to the agreement, and the agreement has been verified twice. US President Trump, however, argued as a candidate and as President, that the agreement is not in the US national interest because it does not limit Iran’s support for organizations such as Hezbollah and Iran’s development of missile technology.
Those issues, however, are not part of the agreement and it is doubtful that the other signatories to the agreement will pull out of it because of US concerns. If the US does drop out of the agreement and imposes sanctions on Iran, then Iran will undoubtedly pull out of the agreement. Given the policies taken by the US vis-a-vis North Korea, Iran would most likely pull out of the Non-Proliferation Agreement and perhaps restart its weapons program. That course of action would be a disaster for the world.
Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities
Hurricane Irma appears to be the strongest Atlantic storm ever recorded and the Caribbean will likely suffer terribly from the storm. The Washington Post has some extraordinary videos of the storm, showing detail in the structure of the storm that I have never seen before. I really wish I could separate events like Irma from my apprehensions about climate change–there really is no scientific basis for a connection–but I fall into the trap too easily.
Russian President Putin has indicated that Russia will not support additional sanctions against North Korea, signaling the end of unanimity on the UN Security Council which had, up to this point, supported sanctions against the country for its nuclear program. The shift in Russian policy will most likely be paralleled by China. The US therefore can no longer rely on the support of the Security Council for any additional actions against North Korea. If, as anticipated, North Korea conducts a missile test this coming Saturday, the US will need to figure out an alternative response to the perceived threat.
The media continue to focus on the North Korean nuclear test, and it is hard to figure out the dynamics of the crisis. The US has issued a number of warnings, first from US Secretary of Defense Mattis, who warned that any threat to “the United States or its territories including Guam or our allies will be met with a massive military response”. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley followed this warning in a statement to the UN Security Council that argued that North Korea was “begging for war”. The rhetoric has been fierce, but much remains ambiguous about US policy since the rhetoric has remained constant since President Trump’s statement promising “fire and fury” on 9 August despite three missile and one nuclear test since that date.
There are also some confusing elements to US policy. President Trump has delayed talking with South Korean President Moon Jae-in until today and the US currently does not have an Ambassador to this important ally. Moreover, President Trump has indicated that he wishes to end the trade agreement with South Korea despite the US reliance on South Korea in its confrontation with the North. Indeed, President Trump has indicated that he may stop trading altogether with states that continue to trade with North Korea, and presumably that includes China from which the US imports $40 billion of goods and services every month. The Chinese have labeled this policy as “unacceptable”, and the threat is not at all credible.
The confusion over the situation has led some to question the effectiveness of the policy of confrontation with North Korea.
North Korea has conducted its sixth nuclear bomb test and it has asserted that it was a hydrogen bomb. The difference is crucial since a hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb is significantly more damaging than an atomic (fission) bomb). It is hard at this stage to verify the North Korean claim, but the evidence suggests that at least American officials believe it to be true. The record of US-North Korean relations since the election of President Trump offers little hope for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. It is clear that President Trump believes that his overwhelming imperative is to prevent North Korea from developing the capability of launching nuclear missiles against the American homeland. That, indeed, is this most important priority.
But that priority is not only obtainable by attacking North Korea. American Presidents have faced similarly armed adversaries–Russia and China. At one point, some in the US believed that the US should have launched a preventive war against the Soviet Union before the Soviets developed their own atomic weapon and while the US had had an atomic bomb monopoly (1945-49). Phillip Meilinger recounts that early debate:
“LeMay’s predecessor, Gen. George C. Kenney, seconded LeMay’s belief. In a letter to the Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Kenney stated that he was ‘worried about the time elapsing from the day that the whistle is blown before we can launch our first atomic strike.’
“He feared a surprise attack would greatly reduce US war-making capability. ‘It is going to be so difficult to shorten the time before we can start effective retaliation that this in itself constitutes another argument for re-examining our national attitude toward fighting what has been wrongly termed a preventive war,’ said Kenney. ‘It would not be a preventive war, because we are already at war.'”
Fortunately, American Presidents ignored this advice, and defended the US by employing the tactic of deterrence. Now China is one of America’s largest trading partners, and yet President Trump has now threatened to cut off trade with China unless the North Korean threat is eliminated.
In a remarkable move, the Kenyan Supreme Court has nullified the recent presidential election, citing irregularities in the voting, and has ordered new elections in 60 days. The independence of the Kenyan Supreme Court is a solid sign of the strength of Kenyan democracy, and President Kenyatta indicated that he would obey the ruling, although he also criticized the decision. The upcoming campaign will be carefully scrutinized by both Kenyans and the international community.
Kenyan Supreme Court
Unfortunately, the civil war in Syria has not received much attention in recent weeks. It seems clear that Daesh(the Islamic State) has suffered serious setbacks in the country, and those reversals have strengthened the hand of Syrian President Assad. Assad’s advantages are also benefits to his allies, Russia and Iran. Indeed, Iran seems to have gained significant leverage in the country, and its presence presents difficulties for Saudi Arabia and Israel, both US allies.
Negotiations have started in Mexico City on a possible reworking of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The agreement among the US, Mexico, and Canada was first implemented in 1994 and has been credited with a massive expansion of trade. The agreement, however, has come under serious criticism, most recently by US President Trump. Renegotiating the treaty would be a massive undertaking and ending it would disrupt the economies of all three countries to a substantial degree.
The US has sent its most advanced fighter planes, the F35B Lightning II stealth fighters, to the Korean peninsula, and, for the first time, they flew a joint mission with B-1B Lancer bombers. The planes flew along side fighter planes from South Korea in a massive show of military force. The US Pacific Command “executed this mission to emphasize the combined ironclad commitment to the defense of Allies and the U.S. homeland.” On the other hand, the North Koreans likely interpreted the mission as a clear threat of invasion and probably reinforced their decision to develop nuclear weapons to deter such an attack. The relationship between the US and North Korea is a classic case of the Security Dilemma–the situation where one side believes it is acting defensively and the other side believes that the actions are aggressive.
B1-B Lancer Bombers and F35B Lightning II Stealth Fighters
I do not usually post op-ed pieces, but Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, has written one for the Washington Post entitled “Why Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should resign”. One should read the piece to assess the current state of the State Department and not necessarily to ponder the question of whether Tillerson should resign. There are legitimate concerns about the health of the State Department which desperately need to be addressed by Tillerson or someone else. The unilateral disarmament of the diplomatic arm of one of the great powers in the world should be of concern to everyone, including non-US citizens.
I know that it is inappropriate, but I cannot help but think about Hurricane Harvey and climate change. It is a serious mistake to link weather to climate, but the immensity of Katrina, Sandy, and Harvey, as well as the monster storms in Asia–Haiyan, Nina, Lionrock, and Nepartak–make it a difficult link to ignore. Climate change will force more moisture into the atmosphere, rendering some places wetter and some places much drier. If there is indeed a link, then we must figure out better ways to address the phenomenon of monster storms in our future.
Hurricane Harvey from the International Space Station
Americans are focused on the floods in Texas and Louisiana which have been devastating to the people there. But there have also been severe floods in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal and over 1,200 people have died in those floods. Flooding in South Asia is not uncommon as the monsoon season usually lasts from June to September, but this year the floods have been especially severe. The floods have destroyed thousands of hectares of agricultural land and clean water is very scarce. The city of Mumbai, home to 20 million people, has been profoundly affected by the floods.
Flooding in Mumbai, India
Widening income and wealth inequality has been a feature of globalization as it has unfolded since the 1990s. The inequality is not simply a feature of market processes–it also reflects political decisions that favor capital at the expense of labor. One of the key instruments in addressing inequality is the tax mechanism–higher taxes on higher incomes can have a redistributive effect, as the taxation rates for the 1950s and 1960s in the US prove. Doing that period, incomes and wealth were more equitably distributed in the US. Progressive taxation, however, has been eroded since the 1980s and the US is currently engaged in another round of tax changes which threaten to worsen income and wealth inequality even further.
A key argument for those who wish to lower taxes, specifically corporate taxes, is that lower taxes will lead to greater corporate investment and therefore more jobs. The argument makes intuitive sense, but it is not empirically justified. The Institute for Policy Studies has done research on the investment behavior of companies that only pay 20% or less of their corporate profits in taxes. The findings undermine the argument that lower taxes lead to lower jobs. The findings are stunning:
“To investigate this claim, this report is the first to analyze the job creation records of the 92 publicly held U.S. corporations that reported a U.S. profit every year from 2008 through 2015 and paid less than 20 percent of these earnings in federal income tax. Did these reduced tax rates actually lead to greater employment within the 92 firms? The data we have compiled give a definitive — and sobering — answer.
Key findings:
Tax breaks did not spur job creation
- America’s 92 most consistently profitable tax-dodging firms registered median jobgrowth of negative 1 percent between 2008 and 2016. The job growth rate over those same years among U.S. private sector firms as a whole: 6 percent.
- More than half of the 92 tax-avoiders, 48 firms in all, eliminated jobs between 2008 and 2016, downsizing by a combined total of 483,000 positions.
Tax-dodging corporations paid their CEOs more than other big firms
- Average CEO pay among the 92 firms rose 18 percent, to $13.4 million in real terms, between 2008 and 2016, compared to a 13 percent increase among S&P 500 CEOs. U.S. private sector worker pay increased by only 4 percent during this period.
- CEOs at the 48 job-slashing companies within our 92-firm sample pocketed even larger paychecks. In 2016 they made $14.9 million on average, 14 percent more than the $13.1 million for typical S&P 500 CEOs.
Job-cutting firms spent tax savings on buybacks, which inflated CEO pay
- Many of the firms in our sample funneled tax savings into stock buybacks, a financial maneuver that inflates the value of executive stock-based pay. On average, the top 10 job-cutters in our sample each spent $45 billion over the last nine years repurchasing their own stock, six times as much as the S&P 500 corporate average.”
We should keep this data in mind as the US Congress begins its debate on tax reform.
The Yale University Program on Climate Change Communication conducted a poll of Americans in May 2017 on their beliefs and attitudes on climate change. The entire report can be accessed here. The summary of the report contains some of the conclusions which are somewhat jarring. According to the summary, “Most Americans think global warming is a relatively distant threat” but they also believe that it is a serious “distant” threat:
“Few Americans are optimistic that humans will reduce global warming. Nearly half (48%) say humans could reduce global warming, but it’s unclear at this point whether we will do what is necessary, and nearly one in four (24%) say we won’t because people are unwilling to change their behavior. Only 7% say humans can and will successfully reduce global warming.”
Apparently the possible demise of the species is not enough to persuade many to change their ways.
The number of global natural disasters–defined as “earthquakes, storms, floods and heatwaves that either cause at least ten deaths, affect more than 100 people or prompt the declaration of a national emergency”–has quadrupled since 1970. Fortunately, however, the number of deaths associated with natural disasters, has been declining due to better predictions, safety measures, and improved building codes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank at which he declared: “We are here to stay, forever.” The statement is not new for the Prime Minister, but it is also an emphatic rejection of the official position of the European Union, the US, and the United Nations Security Council that the territories occupied in 1967 should be part of what is known as the “two-state” solution. The end of a promise of a Palestinian state would be a dramatic change in a policy that has been consistently upheld by most countries since 1967 and to which Israel agreed in the 1993 Oslo accords. There are now close to 500,000 Israeli settlers in the the West Bank.
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