Last October protesters forced the President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, from extending his 27-year rule over the country. An interim government has ruled in his place until a military coup d’etat ended that promising beginning of democracy. The coup will likely prevent the elections that had been promised for this coming 11 October. Burkina Faso had emerged as a hopeful sign to other countries in Africa that citizens could overcome the tyranny of a long-standing dictator. Those hopes were dashed by the coup.
Bills to change Japan’s military posture in world affairs appear ready to pass the Japanese Parliament despite large protests on the streets and within Parliament itself. The change proposed by Prime Minister Abe is not a fullscale repudiation of Japan’s disavowal of projective military power. The main bill gives Japan the right to come to the aid of Japan’s allies (presumably the US) if those allies are acting in defense of Japan’s interests. Nonetheless, many, both inside and outside of Japan, interpret the move as a slippery slope in a return to Japan’s militarist past.
The Syrian government has begun to use new weapons supplied to its army by Russia. Very little is publicly known about the weapons but they are an index of Russia’s renewed commitment to supporting President Assad. Using the new weapons, the Syrian has begun to attack the city of Raqqa which has been held by the Islamic State for some time. Not coincidentally, Raqqa is a frequent target of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State. So the US and Russia are de facto allies in the civil war, even though the US continues to insist that Assad must go. At some point, actions speak louder than words.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has indicated that his government is negotiating with the extremist group, Boko Haram. The group has been terrorizing many parts of Nigeria in its pursuit of an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, and has kidnapped over 200 Nigerian girls. The group, whose name means “Western education is a sin”, has been difficult to control and has destabilized the economy of Nigeria to a considerable extent. Buhari has made bringing the group under control one of his top priorities. Nigeria’s progress on this matter has been difficult to assess.
Sri Lanka endured a 26-year civil war between the dominant Sinhalese and the minority Tamil on the island which finally ended in 2009. The end of the civil war was bloody and raised all sorts of questions about the conduct of the war. The UN has finished an investigation into the conduct of the war and has issued a report which asserts that many war crimes and crimes against humanity occurred. The report does not name any particular individuals involved in the crimes but the implications of the report suggest that the former President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, was involved in the commission of the atrocities. Sri Lanka now will wrestle with whether a domestic court of inquiry is an acceptable alternative to the suggested international court.
11 September marked the end of the ice melting season in the Arctic, and the amount of ice recorded was the fourth lowest since satellite monitoring began in the 1970s. The lowest level ever recorded was in 2011, followed by 2007 and 2011. The trend seems unmistakable: Arctic sea ice is diminishing and the likely cause if global warming. The prospect of an ice-free Arctic in the summer months could potentially be destabilizing in world politics and states compete for what are believed to be significant oil and gas resources in the region.
Hungary has mobilized its army to control its border with Serbia. The leader of Hungary, Viktor Orban, believes that it is Hungary’s task to defend what he calls “Christian” Europe against the “invasion” of Muslims. Orban is distinctive, but not unique, among new leaders and movements in Europe. The National Front in France, the Golden Dawn in Greece, the True Finns in Finland, and the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands have all adopted similar rhetoric. There are terrifying parallels to what happened in Europe in the 1930s and what is happening today. We can only hope that the European Union is strong enough to defuse this trend toward fascism.
Four weeks ago China claimed that it had stopped dredging in the South China Sea in its efforts to claim soveriegnty over certain reefs. However, on the eve of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington, DC, evidence has surfaced that the build-up of the reefs has continued. The news will no doubt strain the meeting between Obama and Xi which was already suffering from accusations about cyber spying and the continued hacking of US government sites by what Washington believes to be Chinese military units. We will see how the parties navigate these tensions during their negotiations.
Tensions have been rising for several weeks over the status of what Jews call the Temple Mount and what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary in the city of Jerusalem. The site exists in Old Jerusalem which was controlled by Jordan until the 1967 war after which has been controlled by the Israelis. Since 1967, Israel has prevented Jews from praying on the site in deference to the tradition giving access to Muslims to the al Aqsa mosque. Recently, however, some Jews have insisted on praying on the site and violence has broken out between those Jews and the Muslims defending the mosque. Rumors are swirling that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to change the rules to allow Jewish prayers as a matter of course. Such a change would likely precipitate a harsh reaction from Muslims all over the world.
There seems to be a consensus emerging among many of the outside powers involved in the Syrian civil war that the only solution to the slaughter is to line up behind President Assad. With Iranian support consistent and likely to increase once Iran is able to sell its oil again and the Russians building a military base to support Assad, it seems as if Assad’s position is assured. The Europeans are more or less deciding that ending the civil war as quickly as possible is the only way to staunch the flow of refugees. And the Americans, although rhetorically opposed to the Assad regime, is in fact supporting Assad by attacking the Islamic State. In the end, it seems as if the cruel logic of realism will prevail: better to deal with the butcher who appears most likely to win.
The Brazilian economy recently fell into a recession (two quarters of negative economic growth), its bond rating was lowered to junk status, and the popularity of its President, Dilma Rousseff, is in single digits. Now the country has to go through painful fiscal austerity. It has increased taxes and reduced subsidies to infrastructure and poor families in an effort to balance its budget. No one knows if the austerity will ultimately prove to be successful, but the initial shock of austerity will be very difficult for most Brazilians. The global economy continues to weaken.
We sometimes talk about the “hard” and “soft” power of a state in the international system. Hard power is defined as those assets that are tangible and can be used to directly influence the decisions of other states. Soft power is less concrete and is made up of attributes that make the influence of a state attractive to others. For example, much of American influence in the world comes from the fact that many in the world enjoy American culture: rock and roll, jeans, McDonalds. For a long time, the liberal systems embraced by the West (representative democracy, market capitalism, and human rights) were viewed by others as a desirable objective. Steven Erlanger of The New York Times suggests that the attractiveness of those liberal systems is waning in world affairs.
Timothy Snyder is the author of an important book, The Bloodlands, in which he chronicles the land between Germany and the Soviet Union during the Second World War and how both regimes unleashed genocidal forces on the populations living there. He has written an op-ed for the New York Times in which he parallels the desire of states for agricultural land in the expected process of climate change and how those desires will lead to similar genocidal forces. Unfortunately, most of the “available” arable land is on the continent of Africa, and there is plenty of evidence that countries such as China are attempting to access that land.
Although Germany has indicated that it is willing to take up to 800,000 refugees from war-torn countries, making it one of the most open countries in Europe, it just announced that it is implementing emergency border controls that appear to be inconsistent with the open borders promised by the Schengen Plan of the EU. The two positions are not necessarily inconsistent, it is clear that any slowdown in processing the refugees will leave many of them trapped in openly hostile countries like Hungary. The flood of refugees is an unprecedented crisis (the most dramatic movement of refugees since World War II) and governments are clearly unprepared to deal with the crisis. The US remains an incredible laggard in the crisis, promising only to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees.
Denmark historically has had a reputation for being one of the most open countries in Europe. Since the election of Lars Løkke Rasmussen of the Venstre Party, a center-right party, the country has changed its attitudes toward immigrants and refugees. Many refugees are now leaving the country for Sweden which has maintained its policy of openness. Last week Denmark halted all train traffic through Germany in an effort to stop the flow of refugees. Denmark’s policies are not as harsh as Hungary’s policies, but the message to refugees is unmistakable.
Congressional Republicans have not given up on their effort to prevent the Iranian nuclear agreement from coming into force. Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, indicated that he will bring the same legislation disapproving the deal back to the floor. House Republicans have indicated that they will try to impose controls over the money that can be used to implement the agreement. The debate over the agreement is also working through the Iranian legislative process.
Venezuelan politics was rattled by the conviction of Leopoldo López, the opposition leader. López was convicted of inciting violence in the elections held in 2014 that led to the administration of Nicolás Maduro. The trial was conducted in secret and no defense witnesses were allowed, even though there were more than 100 witnesses for the prosecution. López was sentenced to 14 years in prison, an extraordinarily harsh sentence. The opposition parties have called for protests on 19 September. The Venezuelan economy is in chaos with very high inflation and shortages of most goods, and the situation is very unstable: it is hard to predict where the protests might lead.
The UN General Assembly has voted on a resolution to protect countries who are experiencing pressures for repaying debts from unreasonable demands for reforms and budget cutbacks that harm the general citizenry. All countries have the sovereign right to repudiate debt but the consequences for such defaults is usually that the country is frozen out of international credit markets for an extended period of time. Short of that right, countries are generally hostage to laws that overwhelmingly favor the creditors to demand whatever reforms they deem appropriate. The General Assembly resolution is designed to limit the scope of those demands. Unfortunately, General Assembly resolutions are not binding (only Security Council resolutions are binding). The vote, however, was overwhelmingly in favor and it does send a political message.
It now appears as if US President Obama will be able to begin lifting sanctions against Iran in order to implement the Iranian nuclear agreement. Analysts will be pondering Obama’s success in getting the agreement passed over the strenuous objections of the Israeli government. Jeffrey Goldberg argues in The Atlantic that it was Prime Minister Netanyahu’s strategy that ultimately led to the willingness of the Democrats in the US Senate to side with the President.
Economic hard times often lead to right-wing politics, and no where is that tendency more obvious than in Greece. Greece has been in a sustained depression for the last five years and it has gone through three debt bail-outs which have only made the economic situation worse. In this climate it is no surprise that a new political party, called Golden Dawn, has emerged. The party is powerfully anti-immigrant and has adopted a swastika-like image as its political symbol. As with most right-wing parties, it places a strong emphasis on the historical narrative of the nation–in this case, the battle of the Spartans against the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.E.
A Flyer From One of the Most Historically Inaccurate Films Ever Made–the 300
There are more reports of violence between Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels, and these reports include evidence of attacks on civilians. The violence was in the town of Cizre, a primarily Kurdish town in the southeastern part of Turkey. The town has been under a seven-day, twenty-four curfew, and life for the people of the town has been miserable. It is likely that other Kurdish strongholds have undergone similar attacks, but information about those attacks is difficult to obtain. The US supports Turkey and relies upon Turkish support for the continued use of the military base at Incirlik. But tje Kurds have been the most reliable ground force against the Islamic State. At some point, the US is going to have to decide which of those priorities is more important to its strategic objectives.
In a 119-8 vote, with 45 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly approved the flying of both the Vatican and the Palestinian flag at UN headquarters. The vote recognizes the nonmember observer state status of both and is a significant symbolic victory for what the UN now recognizes as the “State of Palestine.” The US opposed the move, arguing that it does nothing to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which it believes can only be solved through direct negotiations between the parties and not through the intervention of the UN.
Germany has been one of the most welcoming to the refugees coming to Europe from Syria, Eritrea, and other countries experiencing serious dislocations. This attitude has been true despite the adamant opposition of some anti-immigrant groups, located primarily in some of the smaller towns and villages of Germany. The reason for this attitude is that Germany is undergoing a rather dramatic demographic shift and is suffering a shortage of younger workers. The refugees offer an effective way to remedy that shortage–the refugees are generally eager to join the work force.
Russia is apparently building a new military base along its border with Ukraine. The new base suggests that Russia clearly intends to maintain the ability to provide assistance to Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine. The base likely spells the death knell of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty that was signed on November 19, 1990 in an effort to minimize the likelihood of a conventional war in Europe. The Treaty has been subject to a variety of revisions since 1990 and the breakup of the Warsaw Pact and the expansion of NATO into some of the eastern European and Baltic states has made precise interpretations of the Treaty difficult.
The back story to the flood of refugees rushing into Europe is quite dark. Smugglers are responsible for making many of the arrangements for the refugees, but show little or no responsibility toward their well being. One smuggler, portrayed in an article in Speigel was responsible for leaving refugees trapped in a truck in Austria, ultimately leading to the death of everyone in the truck. The trip from Syria to Europe will cost a refugee €2,500, a price that many have to sacrifice everything to afford. These smugglers have made about €16 billion since 2000, profiting off human misery.
Myanmar is beginning an election cycle which is an important step forward for a country that has existed under martial law for far too long. There are 92 political parties vying for power and over 6,200 candidates. There is, however, a serious problem: there is not a single Muslim party or candidate in the election, even though Muslims constitute the second largest minority group in the primarily Buddhist country. Unfortunately, that omission is true even for the National League of Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate. One could have hoped more from her after her 15-year house imprisonment and her intimate understanding of what it means to be excluded.
The violence between Kurdish groups and the Turkish government has escalated. Elements of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed 14 Turkish policemen in response to bombing by the government against PKK strongholds. At one time Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan was quite committed to ending the long-term conflict between the government and Kurdish parties. But after the recent elections in which the Turkish parties secured sufficient seats in Parliament to deny Erdogan’s party, the AK, a majority of seats, Erdogan reversed his cooperative stance and seems intent on using anti-Kurdish sentiment to regain the majority in Parliament.
There are currently about 4 million Syrian refugees in the world (not counting the Syrians who are still in Syria but who have left their homes). While the media has paid the most attention to the refugees who are trying to get to Europe, the vast majority of those refugees are in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan (one in 4 people in Lebanon are Syrian refugees, although I suspect that the number is closer to 1 in 3). The Los Angeles Times has a breakdown of where the refugees are.
In response to reports that Russia is building a military base in Latakia, Syria in order to help maintain the power of President Assad, Bulgaria has closed its airspace to Russian planes. The Russians clearly regard the move as unfriendly and deny that there are Russian soldiers in Syria. It is more than likely that Bulgaria made the move at the request of the US.
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