Russia, Turkey, and Iran are negotiating the fate of Syria and have pointedly excluded the US, the UN, and the European Union from the discussions. All three have an intense dislike of Daesh (the Islamic State) and two of them (Russia and Iran) strongly support the rule of Syrian President Assad. Turkey has apparently decided that its fear of Kurdish independence outweighs its reservations about Assad. The three states have de facto formed an alliance against Sunni Muslims in the region, raising fears in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States that Iran’s dream of extending its Shiite influence all the way to the Mediterranean will be realized with control of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon within its grasp. Israel will certainly fear Iran’s dominance over Hezbollah and Hamas, sworn enemies to the state of Israel. And Western influence in the region will be limited to a much smaller range of states.
The cooperation seems to have allowed many Syrians to leave the besieged city of Aleppo but it is not clear how safe they will be. There are reports that Iranian militias are killing Sunnis, raising tensions with Sunni-dominant Turkey. Moreover, an end to the violence in Syria with Assad still in power will not relieve the migrant pressure in Europe since many Syrians were fleeing the Assad regime as well as the violence of the civil war. Finally, the costs of rebuilding Syria after all the destruction will be far beyond the means of the Syrian state and it remains to be seen how much financial assistance Russia, Iran, and Turkey can grant to Syria.
So the three states may have achieved a tactical victory in excluding the Western powers from the negotiations, they have also completely “owned” Syria. Syria has little to offer those three states in return for assistance, so blind allegiance will likely be the price for help.
Foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov (C) of Russia, Mevlut Cavusoglu (R) of Turkey and Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran
The Trump transition team has announced that Peter Navarro will lead the new White House National Trade Council. Navarro is an economist from the University of California-Irvine and has written extensively against Chinese trade practices. Not much is known about Navarro, but the Chronicle of Higher Education has a good backgrounder on him. Navarro’s book on China was turned into a documentary and the poster for the film communicates a great deal about his attitude toward China. Not particularly subtle.
Moreover, much of Navarro’s thinking about trade is idiosyncratic. Matthew Yglesias has written an essay on Navarro’s approach which suggests that the underlying basis for his thoughts on trade policy are flawed.
For the second winter in a row, temperatures in the Arctic are expected to rise above 0°C. The temperature rises are closely associated with the loss of sea ice cover and are part of a positive feedback loop that suggests even greater sea ice loss next year. The polar vortex North America is experiencing this winter are due to the fact the the diminished temperature gradient between the usually cold Arctic and the warmer temperate regions are contributing to a weakening jet stream (hyperbolically suggested in the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”).
As Russian-Turkish relations go through yet another difficult phase, Ishaan Tharoor has written a short essay on the history of those relations. Needless to say, the relations of close neighbors is often quite difficult, but the tension between the emerging Russian Empire and the declining Ottoman Empire in the 19th century was deep and enduring. The struggle was over control of the Bosporus and the Black Sea, but was also amplified by the religious tension between the Muslim Ottomans and the Eastern Orthodox Russians. Somehow, those tensions have never gone away.
Surprisingly, US-Russian tensions have undergone a dramatic transformation. Yochi Dreazen has written an essay for Vox on the troubling questions surrounding the Russian role in the US presidential election and what it suggests about President-elect Trump’s relations with Russian President Putin. In the article, Dreazen posts an interesting graph which suggests that Republicans now have a more positive view of Vladimir Putin, a massive change from the traditional Republican view of Russia.
The carnage in Berlin caused by a truck driven into a crowded Christmas market is causing havoc in the German political system. Chancellor Merkel addressed the German people in terms that suggested that Germany needs to adhere steadfastly to its liberal values. But other politicians are suggesting that German politics needs to change dramatically. Horst Seehofer, the head of the Christian Social Union, the party allied with Merkel’s Christian Democrats, made an ominous speech after the tragedy: “We owe it to the victims, their families and the entire populace to rethink and readjust our entire immigration and security policies.” It is difficult to predict the direction of German politics in the near term.
The US is likely to respond to the charges that Russia was involved in leaking hacked computer materials in order to influence the recent Presidential election. It is hard, however, to determine what the best response might be since the US is more vulnerable to computer hacking than is Russia. Tim Weiner is a journalist with a long track record of ferreting out information about the US CIA and he has written a fascinating essay on how the US might respond, looking at a previous cyberwarfare effort in the 1980s.
The danger of private economic interests overriding national interests became quite apparent in the decision of the US Senate not to renew the “STAND for Ukraine” Act. The bill would have made the sanctions against Russia for its intervention in Ukraine in 2014 stand for another five years. ExxonMobil lobbied hard against the bill since the company has a long-standing license agreement with Russia to pump oil from the Arctic. With the defeat of the bill, the new Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson the CEO of ExxonMobil, can have the sanctions overturned with just an executive decision by President Trump. In 2016, ExxonMobil spent $8,840,000 on lobbying expenses in Washington, DC. The money was well spent since ExxonMobil has more land under its control in Russia than it does in the US:
“Exxon boosted its Russian holdings to 63.7 million acres in 2014 from 11.4 million at the end of 2014, according to data from U.S. regulatory filings. That dwarfs the 14.6 million acres of rights Exxon holds in the U.S., which until last year was its largest exploration prospect.”
The Russian Ambassador to Turkey was shot and killed in Ankara. The Ambassador, Andrey Karlov, was speaking at a photographic exhibit when a 22-year old riot policeman shot him in the back. The assassin shouted out “Don’t forget Aleppo! Don’t forget Syria! As long as our brothers are not safe, you will not enjoy safety”. The incident comes at a point when Turkish-Russian relations were improving although both sides are diametrically opposed on the question of whether Syrian President Assad should remain in power. I have long wondered at how long it would take before Russia was being blamed for the slaughter of Muslims in Syria. Russia needs to be careful since almost 15% of its population is Muslim and it is the fastest growing part of the Russian population.
Michael Klare is our colleague at Hampshire College and he has written extensively on world affairs, particularly on the role of resource constraints on politics. His most recent essay is an examination of President-elect Trump’s energy plan. It is based largely on the campaign promises made by Mr. Trump, so we cannot be sure that these policies will actually be followed. But the incoherence of the plan is made clear by Klare. In his words: “In other words, Trump’s plan will undoubtedly prove to be an enigma wrapped in a conundrum inside a roiling set of contradictions.” But following even a few of Mr. Trump’s policies will move the US far away from its promises to avert climate change.
I am not sure what to make of the phenomenon known as “fake news”. It is a current buzzword, but I sincerely doubt that there was ever a time when false stories were not circulated by those who wished to muddy political waters. Some of the stories are truly unbelievable as is the current story circulating around Venezuela that the US is taking 100 Bolivar bank notes out of Venezuela in order to stimulate inflation and overthrow the government of President Maduro. The 100 Bolivar note is now worth around 2 US cents and Maduro has announced his own intention to take the notes out of circulation in January and replace them with 500 Bolivar notes. With an expected inflation rate of about 500% next year, the Venezuelan economy has already passed the point of collapse.
Joseph Kabila has been President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the last 15 years and Monday is supposed to be his last day in office. But it does not appear as if he is prepared to step down, and his refusal to stand aside could trigger off violent protests. The DRC is no stranger to violence: between 1997 and 2003 almost 5 million people were killed in political violence. Since its independence in 1960, the DRC has never experienced a peaceful transfer of power.
Visual Capitalist has a beautiful visual graphic of international trade. The graphic shows trade flows between countries and color codes the content of those flows. If one clicks on a particular country, the graphic will show only the flows in and out of that country. One can also zoom in and out of particular regions of the world. Not surprisingly, the dominant flows are between countries in the northern hemisphere.
The Law and Justice Party in Poland has been slowly increasing the powers of the Polish state. Last year it passed laws restricting the powers of the constitutional court and limiting the ability of protesters to assemble freely. Protesters have surrounded the Parliament building to voice their concerns over the growing authoritarianism of the government. The European Union has voiced its concerns over the loss of freedoms in Poland, but the Law and Justice Party refuses to change the laws.
James Fallows has written a very well-informed short essay on the US-China relationship and how President-elect Trump’s cavalier tweets about China are compromising a very delicate relationship. His conclusion is somewhat encouraging, but the tone of resigned disappointment rings true:
“I do not believe the United States and China are likely to go to war. There are too many buffers on each side; too many many positive linkages; too much awareness on the Chinese side of U.S. relative military advantages—and on both sides of the potential risks.
“But if historians and citizens look back on our era as the transition point, when 40 years of relatively successful management of U.S.-China gave way to a reckless focus on grievances and differences, and a cavalier approach to a showdown, tweets like the one today will be part of their sad record.”
Let’s hope that President-elect Trump becomes a little more disciplined in this crucial relationship.
China seized a US underwater research drone in international waters about 50 miles off the coast of the Philippines. The drone had been launched by the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic research vessel. When the Chinese took the drone, they were challenged by the Bowditch but the Chinese vessel did not respond to demands that the drone be returned. The US has filed a formal protest, but the incident seems like another chapter in the continuing showdown between the Chinese and the Americans on the status if the South China Sea.
USNS Bowditch
President-elect Trump has indicated that he intends to appoint David Friedman as the next US Ambassador to Israel. Mr. Friedman is a bankruptcy lawyer who has worked with Mr. Trump in his legal affairs in Atlantic City but he has no diplomatic experience. Mr. Friedman is on record as supporting the total Israeli annexation of the West Bank and to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Both positions conflict with US policy since 1967 and the appointment is additional evidence that the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is no longer a viable option.
Russian President Putin and Turkish President Erdogan are calling for negotiations on the future of Syria without the participation of either the US or the United Nations. The two countries are an odd couple: Russia favors Syrian President Assad and Turkey wishes Assad to be removed. But the gambit reflects the growing confidence of both parties to fill perceived vacuums created by American disengagement from the conflict. Whether the two countries can come up with a plan is doubtful. But at this point, anything that could stop the slaughter in Syria would be welcome.
Last September, Chinese President Xi pledged to US President Obama that “China does not intend to pursue militarization” in the reefs it has built up in the South China Sea. Photographs of those “islands” clearly show that that promise has not been kept. The photos clearly indicate that anti-aircraft defense systems have been built up and that runways have been built that can accommodate any plane in the Chinese arsenal. The Obama Administration has quietly challenged the Chinese claims of sovereignty by navigating near the islands in an assertion of the freedom of the seas. These new weapons systems will make similar acts by the US significantly more dangerous. It is unlikely that Obama will try to challenge these moves, instead leaving the issue for President-elect Trump.
Johnson Reef
US President-elect Trump’s cabinet appointments clearly suggest that he is likely not to support the sanctions regime against Russia that have been in place since Russia annexed the Crimea. It also appears as if there is strong sentiment in Europe for dropping the sanctions as well. As the year ends it appears as if Putin’s gambits in Ukraine and Syria will result in, at least, short-term victories. We will have to see how strong Russian support for maintaining such a vigorous foreign policy can persist over the long-term.
The Pew Research Center has done another study on international migration. According to the study:
“If all of the world’s international migrants (people living in a country that is different from their country or territory of birth) lived in a single country, it would be the world’s fifth largest, with around 244 million people. Overall, international migrants make up 3.3% of the world’s population today.”
The countries that send out the most migrants are India, Mexico, Russia, China, and Bangladesh, countries with relatively large national populations. The flows are dynamic: Mexico used to send a lot of migrants to the US, but the flows now are actually negative, with more leaving the US for Mexico.
Scientists have calculated the impact of a one-foot sea level rise on the New York City tri-state region would be very serious. According to Scientific American:
“Without additional protection measures, 1 foot of sea-level rise will inundate nearly 60 square miles of the tri-state region. That’s about 19,000 people in 10,000 homes, in places where about 10,000 people work. It could happen as soon as 2050 if emissions aren’t curtailed, the report found.”
The study indicates that specific areas within the region are most susceptible and that steps have to be taken as soon as possible to protect the 3,700 mile coast line of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
There are new ideas floating around about the affinity between the supporters of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The historical animosity of American conservatives toward Russia is apparently being overcome by an attraction to Putin’s strong views on the character of the Russian nation and state. According to the Washington Post:
“Soon, governments in Washington and Moscow will be both led by figures who embrace a similar brand of right-wing nationalism, one that harps on the primacy of national sovereignty, invokes myths of a greater past, trumpets Christian values and rejects multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. Their ideological brethren have also found firm footing in parts of Europe and threaten to rewind decades of liberal integration on the continent.”
This ideological realignment will be interesting to watch if it continues.
As Aleppo crumbles, Iran is claiming victory. We tend to think almost exclusively about the alliance between Russia and Syria, but the Iranian militias proved to be the decisive element in the ground attack upon Aleppo. The fear is that the Iranian Shiite forces will take retribution against the Sunnis involved in the fighting around the city. At some point, Iran, Syria, and Russia will have to figure out their real interests in the Middle East, and I suspect that sorting out those interests will be quite difficult.
It seems as if the Syrian government is close to taking control of the city of Aleppo. The news reports of the takeover are horrific. They include the summary execution of civilians and the refusal to allow children safe passage out of the city. According to The Guardian:
“We’re seeing the most cruel form of savagery in Aleppo, and the regime and its supporters are responsible for this,” foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, adding that his country was negotiating with Russia to implement a ceasefire. “The wounded are not being let out and people are dying of starvation,” he told a news conference in Ankara.
Confronted with what many have described as a “meltdown of humanity”, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, stated:
“We are tired of hearing this whining from our American colleagues in the current administration that we need to immediately halt military action.“
The complete breakdown of the international community to respond to this tragedy in Syria is comparable only to earlier failures in the Holocaust and in Rwanda in 1994. The shame can never be erased.
In the city of Aleppo, one day ago
The news about the Russian government deliberately releasing hacked emails for the specific purpose of damaging Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House has finally elicited a sense of outrage (I have no explanation why it took so long). But the question is how to prevent similar attacks in the future, particularly since there are suggestions that the Russians are interfering in the German upcoming elections as well. Fred Kaplan is an astute observer of strategic affairs and he points out the major difficulty of figuring out a suitable response: the fact that the US is probably the most vulnerable state in the system to cyberattacks. Any action taken by the US to punish the Russians would most likely elicit a counterattack that would damage the US more.
Antony J. Blinken is the current US Deputy Secretary of State and he has written an op-ed piece for the New York Times on the importance of the liberal world order to American foreign policy. He poses the possibility of a world order based on the more traditional balance of power rules and points out how disadvantageous that world order would be to US interests. The essay is an elegant statement of the world order the US attempted to create in 1945.
China flew a long-range nuclear-capable bomber along its “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea. It was the first time that China has sent the bomber that far into the contested region and its followed a statement by US President-elect Trump’s televised comment that:
“I don’t know why we have to be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade. …I mean, look … we’re being hurt very badly by China with devaluation; with taxing us heavy at the borders when we don’t tax them; with building a massive fortress in the middle of the South China Sea, which they shouldn’t be doing; and, frankly, with not helping us at all with North Korea.”
In addition, there is evidence that China is getting ready to deploy its Chinese version of the SA-21 surface-to-air missile system on the artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea. The anti-missile system is its most advanced defensive system against air attacks. An editorial in the China Times, which reflects official Chinese government opinion, asserted that Trump is “as ignorant as a child in terms of foreign policy”. It is hard to believe that Mr. Trump does not appear to understand how seriously China takes the “one China” policy–there are no higher cards in the Chinese card game.
China’s H-6 Bomber
The rumored pick for Secretary of State in the Trump Administration is Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil once had shared licenses with the Russian oil company, Rosneft, to explore oil fields in the Arctic. The company was forced to drop those licenses in 2014 as part of the economic sanctions after the Russian intervention in Ukraine. It now looks likely that those sanctions will be lifted even though Russian activities in Ukraine have not changed, and ExxonMobil will probably renew its relationship with Rosneft in Arctic drilling. Just recently, Russia sold parts of Rosneft to Qatar and the Glencore company, a commodities trading company, for $11.3 billion. The money for the sale of 19% of Rosneft will go directly to the Russian government, an infusion of money that the government desperately needs to cover immediate needs. But the sale also diffuses the distinctive “Russian” nature of the Arctic drilling aspirations which may make it easier for ExxonMobil to lessen the political sting of the dropped sanctions.
The second most important greenhouse gas is methane (CH4), a gas that is 28 times more powerful in terms of warming than carbon dioxide but which does not last nearly as long in the atmosphere as CO2. For a variety of reasons, little attention has been paid to methane, but that complacency is changing quite rapidly as levels of methane in the atmosphere have increased quite rapidly in recent years. According to the Washington Post:
“Overall, atmospheric concentrations of methane have grown from about 700 parts per billion in the preindustrial era to more than 1,840 parts per billion today. This suggests that much like with carbon dioxide, industrialization and modernization have had a long-term effect of unlocking large volumes of methane from the Earth.”
Fortunately, methane is short-lived, so effective measures to curtail methane emissions could have dramatic effects on the pace of climate change.
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