One of the difficulties in coordinating sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Crimea is that Europe and the US are unequally dependent on Russia oil and gas exports. The US is coming close to being self-sufficient in both (and may start exporting them at some point). Europe, however, is very dependent on Russian exports. Here’s a breakdown of European dependence.
Under these circumstances, the European states fear Russian retaliation for harsh sanction. It is also notable how some of the former Soviet states are vulnerable, although they are the ones most worried about additional Russian moves. Worryingly, shots have been fired in the Crimea as Russia has taken over a Ukrainian military base. Once blood is shed, nationalist sentiments are easily stoked.
The situation in Venezuela continues to deteriorate. Inflation has reached 57%, and the right and left wing parties are escalating their protests and counterprotests. It does not appear as if President Maduro is interested in any sort of reconciliation, but has chosen the path of confrontation. Under such circumstances, it is very difficult to see any resolution in the immediate future.
Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, has accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in East Jerusalem. Falk pointed out that since 1996, about 11,000 Palestinians have lost their right to live in the city. Israel rarely grants building permits in the city to non-Jews and often revokes residency rights of Palestinians who have lived in the city for many years. The Israeli government did not immediately respond to the charge.
I’ve commented in earlier posts about the middle class nature of many of the protests going on in the world. This characterization seems to accurately describe the protests in Venezuela. The poor in Venezuela generally supported Hugo Chavez and have yet to desert his successor, Maduro. The protests in Venezuela seem to be populated mostly with people who are better off, and their primary concern seems to be on the accountability of the government. The protests appear to have become less violent, but the discontent seems to be ongoing.
As Prime Minister Erdogan fights corruption charges in Turkey, he has become increasingly belligerent. His most recent tactic was to ban Twitter which he claimed was spreading malicious lies about him. It does not appear that his fellow citizens thought highly of the move, as Twitter usage exploded in Turkey as work-arounds the ban were quickly disseminated. We continue to ponder the political effects of social media as it becomes more pervasive.
This is not world politics, but I cannot resist noting that the National Weather Service is predicting a “Nor’easter bomb” for next Tuesday night. Bad karma.
I have posted many articles on the very large number of protests that have occurred in the world since 2011, and have noted that many of these protests are middle-class. One of the great mysteries of this phenomenon is how short-lived these movements seem to be. Zeyneb Tufecki has written a very insightful op-ed for The New York Times which suggests that social media is not only responsible for the large number of protests, but also for their fleeting nature. The essay is highly intriguing and I will have to ponder its insights–it raises huge questions about the nature of political participation and the meaning of democracy.
After the annexation of Crimea, the big question is whether Russia has any designs on other parts of Ukraine. The former Russian Empire (before the creation of the Soviet Union) actually controlled about 85% of Ukraine, as well as substantial parts of other nation-states that currently exist. There are huge hypothetical spaces that Russia could claim, a possibility that raises great concern in those areas.
There have been productive talks between Iran and the P5+1, and the negotiations have recessed until early April. Nonetheless, there are reports that Israel continues to allocate substantial moneys (nearly $3 billion) to prepare for an armed strike to attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. The negotiations have been somewhat rattled by Russia’s statement that the West’s sanctions against the annexation of Crimea may cause it to change its position on Iran’s nuclear program. Given the recent Israeli strikes in Gaza and the Golan, it seems clear that the situation remains highly delicate and fragile.
Ukraine has announced that it will withdraw its troops from Crimea. Such a decision is incredibly difficult for a sovereign state, and Ukraine is to be applauded for not taking actions that would only make the life of its citizens much worse. The decision accepts the fact that Russia now controls the territory and the violence would only give Russia an excuse to take similar actions in other parts of Ukraine. The decision is radically different from the decision the Melians made in the Peloponnesian War. Now the Ukrainians can step back and work out a long term plan to recover its territory under more favorable circumstances.
A British newspaper, The Independent, got a leaked copy of a UN report on climate change that is due to be released next month. The report emphasizes the international dimensions of climate change which are likely to be violent and very difficult to manage. The underlying dynamic of these dislocations wil likely be the migration of millions of people who cannot survive under the circumstances of climate change. The mass movement of peoples is more than likely to precipitate violence as resistance to the migrations will be intense and nasty.
There has been a rapid uptick of violence in the Middle East, between the Israelis and the Gaza as well as the Israelis and Syria in the Golan Heights. The negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians seem to be breaking down over a variety of issues. But perhaps the most dangerous development is the growing movement in the Israeli Knesset to exert control over the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem. The Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam, and is supposed to be under the protection of Jordan. If the Israelis try to exert sovereign control over the Mosque, the dispute will become much more significant than a regional conflict.
Humanitarian intervention remains one of the most problematic policies in the current world order: it is often difficult to separate humanitarian from imperial motives. Moreover, humanitarian interventions often fail to realize their stated objectives and sometimes the end result is worse than the situation that was supposed to be rectified. Michael Doyle and Camille Strauss-Kahn offer some guidelines for making such interventions more effective in the future.
The Russian press is well aware of the West’s reaction to the annexation of Crimea. The Russian Times gives a thorough synopsis of the negative reactions. The sanctions leveled by the West seem unlikely to impose heavy penalties on Russia, so now the focus shifts to Russia’s intentions in other areas. The West is somewhat hamstrung by the strength of a strongly nationalist party in Ukraine, Svoboda, with an unsavory background that finds support from other right-wing parties in Europe such as the National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany.
Reporters without Borders has published its index of journalistic freedom in the world. According to its index, Finland has the freest press; Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Eritrea has the least free. The US, despite its rhetoric concerning freedom, came in at 46th.
The Economist ran an article assessing the value of learning another language. In business terms, being multilingual is quite valuable, and studies have been done assessing the economic value of different languages. Unfortunately, the article only assesses the value of European languages. I would the economic premium on non-European languages would be substantially higher.
The recent Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been centered on Israel’s demand that it be recognized as a Jewish state. That demand is unlikely to be satisfied by the Palestinians. The Christian Science Monitor sheds light on how contentious that issue is.
The rules governing recognition of a secessionist movement are somewhat murky. The right of self-determination is well-recognized, but is constrained by whether other states in the system believe that self-determination is really the motive for a new state. That constraint is necessary because there are other possible interpretations of an independence movement, such as external support for independence that overrides what the people in the new state actually want; in short, possible imperial actions. Such was the case in the independence of Kosovo in 2008. In the West, Kosovar independence was necessary because of the fear of Serbian hostility to the people of Kosovo which might have resulted in crimes against humanity (occasioned by the violence that characterized the fight against Bosnia by the Serbs in the 1990s). Many states now recognize Kosovar independence, but Kosovo is not a member of the United Nations. The referendum in Crimea is not, however, a vote for independence–it is a vote on whether Crimea should rejoin Russia. So there will not be a “means test” on the vote. States will not withdraw their recognition of Russia because of the referendum and they will not recognize Crimea as an independent state.
The early results from the Crimean election indicate strong support for secession. According to the BBC, 95.5% of the voters voted to join Russia. Now the matter goes to the Russian Duma to decide whether to accept Crimea into the Russian Federation. While the outcome of the election is clear, what is not clear is what percentage of the Crimean population voted. The Tatars said they would not participate in the election, and we don’t know how many non-Russian Ukrainians may have boycotted the election as well. Those numbers will suggest how legitimate the election actually was.
Austerity policies generally affect taxes and government spending. In Greece, however, austerity policies imposed by the IMF, the EU, and the European Central Bank have forced the government to consider selling historic national sites. One can imagine how Americans would react to a demand from an international organization to sell the Statue of Liberty, or how the French would react to a demand to sell the Eiffel Tower. The loss of heritage sites may be the political last straw for many Greeks.
Most analysts believe that the referendum in Crimea tomorrow will favor union with Russia. Russia has already occupied Crimea, so the vote is in many respects pro forma. The question now is to determine how much Russia will gain from the move. Reports of scattered fighting in other parts of Ukraine suggest that Russia may have additional objectives, but much depends on how easily Crimea can be assimilated into Russia and how the West responds to the takeover in the long run. Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution declaring the referendum invalid. Interestingly, China abstained on the resolution.
One of the interesting dimensions of the large number of protests in the world is that the governments threatened by the protests almost invariably blame “Western powers” for the turmoil. The charge is often made by autocratic governments that believe that their legitimacy is not accepted by the liberal powers. This growing divide between the established and the emerging powers is a destabilizing element in the emerging world order.
Israel and the group, Islamic Jihad, have been exchanging military attacks in the Gaza and southern Israel. The Islamic Jihad, the group firing rockets into Israel, is a group in the Gaza which competes for political control with Hamas. Israel, however, holds Hamas responsible for any activity in the Gaza which threatens Israel. Right now, the exchanges seem to be limited to tit-for-tat, but there is always the danger that violence might escalate.
The rhetoric over the Crimean referendum has become incredibly heated–almost to the point of incomprehension. The Asia Times has published as essay by Pepe Escobar who is usually a very articulate critic of US policy. There are parts of the essay which are very insightful, but also parts that are incoherent:
Would the Khaganate of Nulands [a reference to the Mongol Golden Horde rule in the region (1241-1259) conjoined with a reference to Victoria Nulands, a US State Department official] gang in Washington have the balls to force Obama to sanction “communist China” because they illegally occupy Tibet and Xinjiang, without the consent of their original Tibetan and Uighur inhabitants, which will never be offered even the dream of a referendum?
The interesting thing about Escobar’s analysis is that no one in their right mind believes that China would allow a secessionist referendum in either Xinjiang or Tibet. Perhaps if that possibility were more genuine in the world some would take the possibility of such a referendum in Crimea more seriously. With such wild rhetoric flying around, it is difficult to keep a clear head.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has published a study on the historical patterns of the rise and fall of civilizations that concludes that our current industrial civilization is likely to experience a similar pattern. The study identifies the critical variables that may lead to the collapse of a civilization: Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy. In many respects, the conclusions are remarkably similar to the conclusions of the Limits to Growth study conducted in the early 1970s by Dennis and Donella Meadows.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) requires a review of all signatories every five years. The US signed the Treaty in 1992 and 2014 is one of its review years. Its record on human rights was sharply criticized by the UN panel for a variety of human rights failings. The panel cited the US for human rights abuses that included “everything from detention without charge at Guantánamo, drone strikes and NSA surveillance, to the death penalty, rampant gun violence and endemic racial inequality.” The panel is not empowered to impose any sanctions on states, but the US record is humiliating to a country that prides itself on its human rights protections.
The Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, vigorously defended Crimea’s right to hold a referendum on whether Crimea should join with Russia. The Russian position is that the referendum is an exercise in the right of self-determination. There is some legitimacy to this position, but it is hard to accept uncritically as long as there are Russian troops positioned within Crimea. One should ask a simple counterfactual question: How would Russian respond to a proposal for a referendum in Chechnya?
The CIA hacked into the Senate computers? I’m shocked!
The Jon Stewart Show
World Politics News 