World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

One of the most interesting aspects of American foreign policy is the extent to which there is a persistent theme among the general population that the US is an “exceptional” country.  That belief existed from the founding of the Republic, as the population genuinely believed that the creation of the United States was a new and different moment in human history.  And there is no question that the geographic circumstances of the United States are quite different from most countries in the world with its vast expanse of fertile but underpopulated land.  For some in the US, particularly among what are called the neoconservatives, the exceptional character of the US also gives it a special voice in world affairs–a point of view most certainly not shared by the rest of the world.

When President Obama first took office, he held a very limited view of American exceptionalism.  On 4 April 2009, US President Obama held a press conference in Strasbourg, France in which there was the following exchange between a reporter and the President:

Newly elected Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has decided to keep the oil portfolio for himself rather than allocate it to someone else.  Buhari has served on the Petroleum Trust Fund and was the oil minister in the 1970s, and he takes the role of oil in the Nigerian economy very seriously.  Buhari is not a strong supporter of Western conceptions of human rights, but he has a reputation for financial rectitude.  The move is a very hopeful sign that perhaps Nigeria’s incredible riches will be used to serve the interests of the people as a whole.

Dominic Tierney has written a fascinating essay entitled “Why Has America Stopped Winning Wars?”  The question resonates strongly with those of us who grew up in the Cold War:  the major wars of that period, such as Korea and Vietnam, proved to be inconclusive in the traditional sense of winning a war.  Tierney’s argument is best captured in this passage:

“In Korea, the United States spent two years negotiating a truce, even as brutal attritional fighting continued. In Vietnam, peace talks lasted for five years, with little to show for them. It took 21 days to capture Baghdad in 2003 and 3,174 days to leave. U.S. forces seized Kabul in November 2001—and they’re still there.”

It is a question that Americans need to consider more thoughtfully as conflicts around the world threaten to involve American interests.

There have been a very large number of popular protests in Africa since 2011–virtually every country on the continent has experienced some level of political dissent and some of those protests have been quite violent.  In many respects the discontent mirrors the same issues as reflected in the Arab Spring and the protests in Europe.  The rate of economic change in many African states is quite high, and it seems clear that in many countries citizens are demanding much more of their governments than has been the case in the past.

The internet has opened up a huge variety of new sources of information, some of which tap into the genius of ordinary minds.  One such site is bellin¿cat.com which is a citizen’s resource for investigative journalism.  The site has done a review of the claims that Russia was responsible for the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner, MH17, which crashed in Ukraine 0n 17 July 2014.  Russia has strenuously denied any involvement in the crash and offered up satellite images to prove its claim.  bellin¿cat did its own search of satellite images using open sources (Google Earth) and found the Russian claims to be false.  The virtue of such a finding is that it does not involve evidence provided by a state (such as the US or other NATO states)  that may have its own reasons for presenting misleading evidence.

The US has some form of defense relationship with 69 countries and these countries make up around 75 percent of the world’s economic output.  These alliances commit the US to some degree in defending 25%  of the human population.  This information comes from Michael Beckley, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Tufts University, who has recently published an article entitled “The Myth of Entangling Alliances“.  The article is quite sophisticated in its analysis and is definitely worth a read.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the latest in the efforts by market capitalist economies to pursue a truly global market.  It is being pushed by US President Obama and the Republicans in Congress as a significant boost to economic activity.  Many Democrats do not share this enthusiasm.  The Economist, one of the strongest supporters of free trade in the world, analyzes parts of the trade pact to see how much it would boost economic activity.  Its conclusions are cautiously positive, but raise some interesting questions about the overall benefits of the pact.

A factory in Guangdong province of China has opened what it considered to be the first “zero-labor” factory.   Everwin Precision Technology Ltd is starting up a factory that will create products primarily by robots with humans only being used to manage the activities and to run software.  The shift to robots reflects a growing labor shortage in China as migration patterns change and as the population ages.  The local government intends to push for roboticizing manufacturing processes as much as possible.

US Secretary of State broke his thigh bone in a bicycle accident in Switzerland and has therefore left the talks with the P5+1 and Iran.  Yet, apparently, the US and Europe have reached an agreement with China and Russia on what would happen if Iran broke its commitments to the agreement.  According to Reuters:

As part of the new agreement on sanctions snapback, suspected breaches by Iran would be taken up by a dispute-resolution panel, likely including the six powers and Iran, which would assess the allegations and come up with a non-binding opinion, the officials said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would also continue regularly reporting on Iran’s nuclear program, which would provide the six powers and the Security Council with information on Tehran’s activities to enable them to assess compliance.

If Iran was found to be in non-compliance with the terms of the deal, then U.N. sanctions would be restored.

The cumbersome nature of the agreement can only be interpreted as a victory for Russia and China which have opposed any “automatic” reinstatement of the sanctions.  It is also a victory for Iran which will not have to be subjected to arbitrary findings by the P5+1.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wrote an article for Le Monde which blasted the troika for the difficulties in resolving Greek sovereign debt.   In the article, Tsipras outlines all the steps the Greek government has taken to meet the terms of the troika and asks the question why the troika remains unsatisfied:

So, let’s be clear:

The lack of an agreement so far is not due to the supposed intransigent, uncompromising and incomprehensible Greek stance.

It is due to the insistence of certain institutional actors on submitting absurd proposals and displaying a total indifference to the recent democratic choice of the Greek people, despite the public admission of the three Institutions that necessary flexibility will be provided in order to respect the popular verdict.

What is driving this insistence?

His answer raises a very serious question about the intentions of the troika:

My conclusion, therefore, is that the issue of Greece does not only concern Greece; rather, it is the very epicenter of conflict between two diametrically opposing strategies concerning the future of European unification.

The first strategy aims to deepen European unification in the context of equality and solidarity between its people and citizens.

The proponents of this strategy begin with the assumption that it is not possible to demand that the new Greek government follows the course of the previous one – which, we must not forget, failed miserably. This assumption is the starting point, because otherwise, elections would need to be abolished in those countries that are in a Program. Namely, we would have to accept that the institutions should appoint the Ministers and Prime Ministers, and that citizens should be deprived of the right to vote until the completion of the Program.

In other words, this means the complete abolition of democracy in Europe, the end of every pretext of democracy, and the beginning of disintegration and of an unacceptable division of United Europe.

This means the beginning of the creation of a technocratic monstrosity that will lead to a Europe entirely alien to its founding principles.

Tsipras is invoking the specter of 1984 and casts the international institutions as Big Brother.  His claim will undoubtedly resonate with many of the nationalist movements in EUrope today.

There have been two bomb blasts in Saudi Arabia for which the Islamic State has taken credit.  The IS’s claim to be the caliphate rings hollow without control of both Mecca and Medina (and Jerusalem), so it is clear that ISIS would like very much to control Saudi territory.  But the bombings suggest that Saudi internal control is less solid than the Kingdom claims.  That the Islamic State is capable of launching such attacks is worrisome to the overall stability of the Middle East and should raise questions for the US about its alliance with the Kingdom.

The heat wave in India continues and the death toll is nearing 2,000.  Those that have died are largely children and poor workers who are working outside in strenuous conditions.  The heat wave may be a harbinger of what the world might be like if global warming continues.   The rich will be able to adapt–air conditioning can make such temperatures tolerable.  But those who cannot protect themselves because they cannot afford to make such adaptations will surely suffer.

Turkey has parliamentary elections on 7 June and President Tayyip Erdogan is making a strong push on behalf of his party, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party).  The AK Party is pro-Islamist and Erdogan has been largely responsible for moving Turkey away from the strongly secular path endorsed by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.  The election is predicted to be a close one, and the outcome seems to be dependent on the support given to the Kurdish parties in the election.

The rate of change in the world has accelerated far beyond anything imagined 30 years ago.  The McKinsey Global Institute has published a book entitled No Ordinary Disruption which analyzes these changes and is reviewed by John Yunker.  Its four major trends according to Yunker are:

1. The age of urbanization, creating massive new cities in emerging economies. By 2025, 48 of the largest 200 cities will be in China. This is resulting in a shift in the earth’s economic “center of gravity” back towards Asia. The center of gravity used to be centered over India and China and now it’s headed back again.
2. Accelerating technological change. It used to take a very long time for a technology to reach “scale” — but now, driven in large part by mobile penetration of smartphones, an application can go from one to 500 million users in less than a year.
3. Aging populations, placing a greater economic burden on fewer workers. China is a lot like the US in facing a future with fewer workers relative to the number of elderly.
4. Greater (and more complex) interconnectedness. We’re all more tightly connected than ever before, which is nice if you want to sell your product anywhere in the world, but uncomfortable when you realize anyone else in the world is now a potential competitor.

The rate of change can be demonstrated graphically by looking at the world’s economic center of activity.  Look at how fast it has moved in the last few years:

The US has finally removed Cuba from its list of states sponsoring terrorism.  Cuba has been on the list since 1982 when the US accused Cuba of supporting rebels in El Salvador.  Whatever Cuba did in supporting guerrilla groups in the world, those activities pale in comparison to the US efforts to overthrow Fidel Castro (including hiring the Mafia to assassinate Castro).  That the US supported terrorism in a series of activities called “Operation Mongoose” is beyond question.    Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General at the time, wrote these words in the White House in November, 1961:

“My idea is to stir things up on the island with espionage, sabotage, general disorder, run and operated by Cubans themselves with every group but Batistaites and Communists. Do not know if we will be successful in overthrowing Castro but we have nothing to lose in my estimate.”

Michael Klare is my colleague at Hampshire College and an astute critic of American foreign policy.  He has written an essay entitled “Delusionary Thinking in Washington, The Desperate Plight of a Declining Superpower”.   The essence of his argument can be found in this sentence: “Anyone who believes that the clock can now be turned back to 2002, when U.S. strength was at its zenith and the Iraq invasion had not yet depleted American wealth and vigor, is undoubtedly suffering from delusional thinking.”  The essay is definitely worth reading.

The most popular sport in the world, football to most, but soccer to American fans, has been roiled for many years by charges of corruption against its governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).  The US and Swiss authorities have arrested several high officials in the organization for taking bribes after years of non-action by other countries.  Many believe that the US is simply retaliating for losing out on the World Cup to Qatar, and it would be hard to deny the charge.  But it would also be hard to deny that the charges against FIFA are quite compelling.  Nonetheless, Russian President Putin believes that the US has gone too far in exercising its legal authority to bring these charges against non-Americans.

The US is not the only country to extend its laws abroad.  Spain is a country that claims universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity.  Accordingly, it has charged Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, with crimes against humanity in the case of an attack committed in 2013 in which a Spanish nun was assaulted.  Spain’s universal jurisdiction only operates when a Spanish national is affected by the crime.

A few days ago I posted about five large banks being found guilty of manipulating foreign exchange rates on a massive scale, essentially defrauding customers of millions of dollars.  No banker was found guilty, but the banks had to pay large fines.  Presumably the fines were intended to deter such behavior in the future.   Apparently, the fines did nothing.  One of those banks, JP Morgan Chase, sent a letter to its foreign exchange customers that reads in part:

“As a market maker that manages a portfolio of positions for multiple counterparties’ competing interests, as well as JPMorgan’s own interests, JPMorgan acts as principal and may trade prior to or alongside a counterparty’s transaction to execute transactions for JPMorgan…”

“JPMorgan is not required to disclose to a counterparty when the counterparty attempts to leave an order that JPMorgan is handling other counterparties’ orders or JPMorgan orders ahead of, or at the same time as, or on an aggregated basis with, the counterparty’s order.  JPMorgan is under no obligation to disclose to a counterparty why JPMorgan is unable to execute the counterparty’s order in whole or in part, provided that JPMorgan will be truthful if we agree to disclose such information.”

Essentially, the letter means that JP Morgan does not feel obliged to disclose to its foreign exchange customers when its own interests are in direct conflict with the interests of its customers, and JP Morgan does not need to disclose when it executes foreign exchange trades that undermine the financial interests of their customers.   As described by Pam and Russ Martens:

“According to the Bank for International Settlements, foreign-exchange trading reached an average $5.3 trillion a day in April 2013, making it the largest market in the world by far on a daily trading basis. It operates 24 hours a day across all time zones. Reuters reports that this past January 15, when Switzerland shocked markets by removing its cap on the Swiss Franc, $9.2 trillion in transactions occurred on that day alone. How could the largest trading market in the world not be regulated? The short answer is that five of the biggest banks control more than half of that trading…”

To make matters worse, evidence has surfaced that the central bank of England was aware of the exchange rate rigging scheme as early as 2007 and took no action to stop the illegal behavior.

One of the most contentious issues when the US goes to war is whether it should use a military draft.  In most wars, the US employed conscription but it always was associated with protests.   The draft ended in the US during the Vietnam war (although all male citizens are expected to register for the draft when they turn 18) and the US has relied on a volunteer army and private contractors to wage its wars since then.  Virtually no one wishes the draft to return (the military is especially averse to the draft), but hostility to the draft is perhaps the most compelling reason to use it.  The draft almost automatically ensures that citizens will ask serious questions about going to war.

China released its first public Chinese Military Strategy white paper outlining a new policy of “active defense”.   The document outlines a more active (some would use the word “aggressive”) use of naval power to protect Chinese national maritime interests.   Global Times, a newspaper representing the official Chinese government point of view, described the situation in these terms:

“….it warned of China’s maritime rights and interests. ‘Some of its offshore neighbors take provocative actions and reinforce their military presence on China’s reefs and islands that they have illegally occupied.’  It also warned that ‘some external countries are also busy meddling in South China Sea affairs [and] a tiny few maintain constant, close-in air and sea surveillance and reconnaissance against China.'”

The paper is a blunt warning to the countries of East and Southeast Asia that China intends to back up its territorial claims in the South china Sea with military power.  These countries are looking to the US to protect freedom of navigation in the Sea.

The IMF has issued a new paper which attempts to assess how much the world subsidizes the consumption of fossil fuels.  The IMF estimates are mind-boggling even for those of us who believed the subsidies were large. The key findings of the paper are as follows:

 Post-tax energy subsidies are dramatically higher than previously estimated—$4.9 trillion (6.5 percent of global GDP) in 2013, and projected to reach $5.3 trillion (6.5 percent of global GDP) in 2015.

 Post-tax subsidies are large and pervasive in both advanced and developing economies and among oil-producing and non-oil-producing countries alike. But these subsidies are especially large (about 13–18 percent) relative to GDP in Emerging and Developing Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP), and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

 Among different energy products, coal accounts for the biggest subsidies, given its high environmental damage and because (unlike for road fuels) no country imposes meaningful excises on its consumption.

 Most energy subsidies arise from the failure to adequately charge for the cost of domestic environmental damage—only about one-quarter of the total is from climate change—so unilateral reform of energy subsidies is mostly in countries’ own interests, although global coordination could strengthen such efforts.

 The fiscal, environmental, and welfare impacts of energy subsidy reform are potentially enormous. Eliminating post-tax subsidies in 2015 could raise government revenue by $2.9 trillion (3.6 percent of global GDP), cut global CO2 emissions by more than 20 percent, and cut pre-mature air pollution deaths by more than half. After allowing for the higher energy costs faced by consumers, this action would raise global economic welfare by $1.8 trillion (2.2 percent of global GDP).

Global Post published this graphic from the paper.

The Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, was sidelined after the dust-up with the troika in Riga.  But that has not prevented him from articulating his point of view.  He has written a very straightforward op-ed criticizing the austerity programs being forced upon Greece.  His most salient argument is that the austerity policies will do absolutely nothing to improve Greece’s ability to repay its debts.

Andrzej Duda won a 52-48 percent victory over incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski in the Polish Presidential elections.  His Law and Justice Party is socially conservative and less business-friendly than the former government and the outcome rattled Polish financial markets.  In many respects the outcome mimics much of what is going on in Europe: a distrust of traditional parties, a move toward a nationalist right-wing, and a protest vote against perceived corruption and growing economic inequality in the country.

Local elections in Spain indicate that anti-austerity parties are getting a big boost, complicating the outcome of national elections scheduled for later on.  Much of the support for these parties comes from people who are dissatisfied with the mainstream parties which opposed Greek calls for austerity relief.  The mainstream parties did so largely because they did not wish Greece to get a “special” deal from the troika.  Apparently, these voters think that Spain should ask for a special deal for itself.   We will have to see if this electoral outcome affects the way the IMF treats the Greeks when the debt payments are scheduled to be paid–the IMF may not wish to provoke an even greater backlash.

India has been hit by a severe heat wave that has killed about 500 people.  The majority of deaths have occurred in the south states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.  Temperatures have hit about 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit).  The heat wave in these states has actually been going on since mid-April, but most of the deaths have occurred in the last week.  The heat wave is expected to persist for at least a few more days.