According to a recent NBC New/Wall Street Journal poll, almost half of the American people believe that the US should reduce its role in world affairs. The poll reflects a steady decline over several years in support for an activist foreign policy. You can access the poll results here.
But the University of California is testing a new 3-D printer that can “contour” print a full-sized house. This is a mock-up of the printer:
It will be some time before these houses hit the market, but just think what the effects on the construction industry will be.
European scientists have conducted surveys of the Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, as well as the Mediterranean Sea, and have found that human litter is pervasive in every site. The most common form of human debris is plastic, but the amount of junk found is comprehensive. We have no idea what the long-term consequences of these wastes might be, but the evidence proves that no part of the planet is immune from human activity.
Over the last thirty years, China is one of the most extraordinary examples of economic growth in human history. Its economic growth has led to a dramatic fall in poverty, and there is little question that from an economic point of view, many Chinese are much better off. Yet, China has not escaped the process of income inequality that has plagued most every other country in the world. The most recent study indicates that income inequality in China now is worse than that in the United States which had been the most extreme case to date. The study merely confirms what polls in China have indicated is a pressing concern for most Chinese citizens.
Most citizens do not think much about foreign aid. Many believe that aid is granted for humanitarian reasons; others believe that the money is simply wasted because of corruption in recipient countries. The more pragmatic realists condone foreign aid as a fairly direct way to secure the support of allies or potential allies. There are some, however, who believe that foreign assistance is a more insidious form of imperialism–a way of insinuating influence at a relatively low cost. Mark Varga has written a provocative essay supporting those nation-states that refuse to accept foreign aid.
In the nine months of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, Israel approved about 14,000 new settler homes in the Occupied West Bank according to the Israeli peace group, Peace Now. As we have noted in earlier posts, the Geneva and Hague Conventions forbid any permanent movement of people in or out of occupied territories. These moves simply make any possible peace agreement more difficult to forge since the land remaining for a Palestinian state continues to shrink beyond viability.
US President Obama has completed a 10-year military agreement with the Philippines. The agreement does not include any leases on military bases (a sore subject for the former US colony), but there is little doubt that the American presence in the region will be unmistakable. The agreement is part of Obama’s “pivot” from Europe to Asia, and reflects the anxiety of many of the countries in Southeast Asia about the growing Chinese naval power. The Chinese clearly are not pleased about the agreement, but it reflects the balance of power theory in action.
Thirty-five distinguished jurists in international law have published a letter to the British newspaper, The Guardian, arguing that the United Nations has the authority to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria even if the government of Syria does not give its consent to such aid. The letter argues that 9.3 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, and that the UN’s unwillingness to provide aid reflects “an overly cautious interpretation of international humanitarian law.” I doubt that the UN will follow this advice, but the argument is a powerful challenge to the traditional conception of state sovereignty, and it extends the logic of the responsibility to protect.
US Secretary of State Kerry, in remarks before the Trilateral Commission, used language rarely used by US diplomats to describe a possible outcome to the collapse of the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Referring to the horrific distribution of power in South Africa where a small minority of whites once ruled over the black majority, Kerry said that the failure of the two-state solution to could lead to a situation where the Israelis would have to rule over the larger population of Palestinians. If a unitary state emerged, Israelis might have to create two classes of citizens in order to preserve the essential nature of Israel as a Jewish state. Such language reflects the frustration of a sustained, but failed, attempt to broker a peace agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that there will be no peace talks with the Palestinians as long as Hamas is part of the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s position is that Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and therefore there is no reason to hold any further negotiations. Interestingly, one of the members of Netanyahu’s government, Naftali Bennett, who holds a senior cabinet position, once told David Remnick of the New Yorker: “I will do everything in my power to make sure they never get a state,” he says of the Palestinians. No more negotiations, “no more illusions.” Consistency is not a strong characteristic of world politics.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned of “incalculable consequences” if the situation in Ukraine is not resolved. There still is no talk whatsoever of a Western military defense of Ukraine, even if the Russians were to invade. But the US has announced that it will initiate new sanctions against Russia and is working on yet a third round of sanctions if the crisis does not end soon. Russian has recalled its United Nations Ambassador back to Moscow for urgent consultations.
A new coronavirus, called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, has spread beyond its initial site of its discovery, Saudi Arabia, to a large number of countries. The virus was only identified in 2012, and it has a relatively high rate of lethality. The virus is similar to the SARS virus that was detected several years ago in China. Health officials, however, are becoming increasingly concerned as the virus has spread and because there has been a recent spike in the number of diagnosed cases.
The response of the Russian people to the activities of their country in Ukraine has been incredibly supportive–Spiegel reports that polls indicate that over 80% of the Russian people support President Putin’s positions and actions in Ukraine. In many respects, the enthusiasm in Russia reminds me of the support that President George W. Bush received from the American people in the “War on Terror.” Such nationalist sentiments are easy to understand in some respects, but the critical question is how long-lived the sentiment can burn at such high heat. It took about two years for the American people to begin to question the war in Iraq, and intense nationalism is always troublesome in the short run.
Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine have taken representatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) hostage. The OSCE had sent in military observers in order to determine whether Russian-speaking Ukrainians were in fact being ill-treated by Kievan authorities. The hostage-taking raises the stakes for Europe in Ukraine as it is a direct challenge to European authority on matters of peace-keeping. US President Obama has been pushing for tougher economic sanctions against Russia, and several European states were reluctant to take such steps. The Russian challenge to the OSCE may force the hand of the Europeans.
There’s an old word that is quickly achieving a great deal of attention. The word is oligarchy and many are using it to describe the American political system. Perhaps the best example of an historical oligarchy is 14th Century Venice. There was literally a list of familial names that signified those who participate in economic activities in the city. As long as the book was open to new names, Venice thrived as the economic center of Europe. Once the list was closed, Venice began a slow decline that was never arrested. The wealth inequality in the US has reached such concentrated levels that the word oligarchy is becoming increasingly more plausible as a description of the American political system.
The war of words between the US and Russia sharply escalated as both the US and Russia made threats over the continued violence in Ukraine. US Secretary of State Kerry accused Russia of “distraction, deception and destabilization”–strong words in diplomatic language. The Russians claimed that their actions had stopped “regime change” in Russia. The Russians also started new military exercises along the Ukrainian border.
Israel has ended the peace negotiations with the Palestinians as Fatah, the Palestinian faction in the West Bank, and Hamas, the Palestinian faction in the Gaza Strip, announced that they had reconciled their differences. Israel refuses to deal with Hamas because it, unlike Fatah, has not acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. The reconciliation agreement is vague on the issue of Israel, although the Palestinians said that the renewed Palestinian Liberation Organization accepted the earlier decisions (at the Oslo summit in 1992) to recognize Israel’s right to exist. There is a lot of finger-pointing going on right now, but it is safe to say that the negotiations are dead for the foreseeable future.
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made a very strong call to get approval for the provision of humanitarian aid to 3.5 million Syrian civilians. The Secretary-General called the behavior of the fighting parties a “flagrant” violation of international law. The UN Security Council had previously approved the provision of aid to the trapped civilians, but the warring parties have not made it possible for the aid to be distributed. The matter is further complicated by the likely non-cooperation of Russia in the Security Council because of the tensions over Ukraine. The failure of the international community in Syria to discharge even the most basic aid to innocent civilians will forever be a blot on the reputation of the UN.
Russia has threatened to intervene in Ukraine if “Russian citizens” or “Russian interests” are threatened by Ukrainian police. The crackdown by Ukrainian authorities was sparked by the murder of a local politician who had tried to take down the flag of Russian separatists in the town of Horlivka. There are reports of 12 Ukrainian citizens being kidnapped by the separatists. Russian Foreign Minister continued to blame the US for the turmoil in Ukraine, saying that ““So I have no grounds not to think that Americans direct this show in the most hands-on manner….They have an excessive influence. Lavrov made the statement after the visit by US Vice-President Biden to Ukraine.
Scientists are predicting a high likelihood that a strong El Niño will develop in the Pacific later this year. If the prediction comes true, then most computer models suggest that 2014 and 2015 will be very warm years. The El Niño effect is strongly correlated with high rates of precipitation on the US West Coast (perhaps bringing relief to the current savage drought in California) as well as very high temperatures across the globe. The last major El Niño was in 1997-98 and 1998 was one of the hottest years on record.
The Guardian ran a very chilling story about US Federal Bureau of Investigation tactics to coerce Muslims to become informants to the Bureau. There are charges that individual Muslims are placed on “no-fly” lists which prevents them from traveling. They are then told that their names will be removed from the lists only if they agree to inform on suspicious activities in local Muslim communities with which they are familiar. If true, the tactic is an egregious abuse of state power. Being asked to be an informant is one thing; being coerced to become an informant is an illegitimate technique.
President Obama is on a tour in Asia, visiting Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The trip reflects Obama’s “pivot” from Europe to Asia, as the US tries to figure out how to juggle its pre-existing military commitments with the rising power of China. China is not a stop on the trip, but China will be on the agenda of every meeting Obama has with Asian leaders. The US has a very difficult balancing act as it tries to accommodate Chinese power without alienating its allies in the region. Given that there are outstanding disputes between China and US allies, the task is extremely delicate. But the commitment Obama has shown to the allies is undoubtedly welcome by them; one would suppose that there are back channels to China going on at the same time to ameliorate Chinese apprehensions.
Uganda has passed draconian laws against homosexuality and liberal societies have expressed disapproval of those laws. The World Bank has gone so far as to withhold funds from Uganda for the presumed violations of human rights of gays and lesbians. The disagreement raises a very delicate matter: is the West’s disapproval of Uganda’s laws an expression of support for human rights, or is it an expression of cultural imperialism?
The New York Times conducted a study of incomes in the United States and the data suggest that the Middle Class in the US is shrinking. The US middle class was in many respects the key to US economic activity as well as its political stability. The decline of the incomes of the middle class have been accompanied by a dramatic increase in the incomes of the very wealthy in the US, indicating that the flow of money has been from the less to the more wealthy–not the direction that is celebrated in what is usually referred to as the American Dream. The decline of the middle class raises some serious questions about the economic policies that have been purused by both the Republican and Democratic Parties over the last 40 years.
The rise of right-wing politics in Europe is a serious concern to liberal society. John Siadhail has written an essay on the right of right-wing politics in Britain, and the essay outlines the roots of the movement in the 21st century. In many respects, the right-wing movement resonates strongly with that of the 20th century, but there are some important differences.
There has been a paper circulating on the internet that suggests that the US is ruled by an oligarchy and is not the democracy it claims to be. The paper is suggestive, but after reading and re-reading it, I am skeptical that the evidence in the paper truly supports such a broad conclusion. John Cassidy of the New Yorker has written a great essay assessing the claims of the paper, and offers some worthwhile insights on how to interpret the claims of the paper.
We have solid evidence on how rapidly military tensions between China and Japan are escalating over territorial disputes. The chart below is disturbing–at some point there will likely be some misunderstanding about the intentions of a particular scramble.
World Politics News 