The US is planning to build an air base for drones in northwest Africa–most likely Niger. The base is designed to aid efforts to contain the extremists who have threatened the government in Mali and to support the French intervention there. Such a base would require the stationing of US troops, so it signals the beginning of a US ground commitment in yet a new venue of world politics.
There is a long standing campaign against the Hazara minority in Pakistan. The campaign has received very little media attention but the persecution certainly qualifies as a genocide. The Hazara is a Shia Muslim sect in the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Pakistan. The lack of attention by the rest of the world is largely explained by the geopolitical concerns about Pakistan itself which make the domestic issue seem less important.
There are reports of a worrisome escalation of violence in the Syrian civil war. The Israelis have apparently attacked a convoy of weapons moving from Syria into Lebanon. The Israelis have publicly worried about the transfer of chemical and other advanced technology weapons from Syria into the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and have apparently decided that a strike on Lebanese territory would be less explosive than an attack on Syrian soil. We’ll watch to see what the Iranian response to this attack might be.
Hypocrisy is a well-known phenomenon in world politics, but every now and then, one is left breathless by the mendacity of some states. Russia has just made a statement that it has “never” supported the Syrian President Assad. Apparently the fact that Syria buys about 10% of Russian arms sales and that the Russian fleet regularly docks at a Syrian port does not qualify as support. One wonders what Russian opposition to a regime would look like.
The London-based Arabic daily, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, conducted an interview with Muhammad Al-Zawahiri, brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri on the situation in Egypt. If you would like a good insight into a non-liberal view of politics in Egypt, I would highly recommend that you read the interview.
There is a stealth argument emerging in discussions about the global economy: the end of the cheap labor era and the consequences for future economic growth. No one has really developed the idea in any detail, but the argument is that as labor costs rise in India and China, producers will turn to robots and artificial intelligence instead of using human beings for labor. It is a very difficult argument to test empirically, but more and more hints are being dropped as jobless rates in the world remain stubbornly high.
The US Treasury Department has approved large compensation packages for executives of companies that were bailed out by the US Government in 2008. The issue is a lingering one from the Great Global Recession of 2008-09, and one that affects Europe, Japan, China, and the US. The compensation packages reflect the growing income inequality that is becoming an intrinsic part of the global economy.
The French are realizing limited successes against the Malian rebel forces, but the rebels are destroying many valuable manuscripts that the rebels regard as un-Islamic. These manuscripts are hand written records of the history of North Africa and are simply priceless. But they refer to a history before Islam spread to the region and are therefore considered dangerous by the rebels.
Iran has launched a missile carrying a monkey into space, signaling its capability to develop a ballistic missile capability. Like the earlier North Korean satellite launch, the test is both scientific and military. Iran’s adversaries are clearly worried about the growing military power of Iran, and the launch itself could be a violation of an earlier UN Security Council Resolution barring such tests. Its symbolism aside, the test is also a clear testament to Iran’s scientific and technological capabilities.
The protests in Egypt have escalated, more dramatically after death sentences were handed down against individuals who had participated in a soccer riot last year. The protesters don’t have a single platform or set of demands, but the various groups are all frustrated by the slow pace of liberalization and the fear that President Morsi is too sympathetic to those in Egypt who would prefer a more theocratic and less secular democracy. The government has responded harshly to these protests, so it is not likely that they will die down soon.
The Obama Administration may be moving in a very different foreign policy direction over the next four years. his two appointees, Sen. Kerry for the State Department and Sen. Hagel for the Defense Department, are both Vietnam veterans who have developed deep suspicions over the efficacy of military force. This change may signal a more cautious use of force and a much more limited American involvement in foreign affairs. We’ll see–the first term was filled with people who had more ambitious foreign policy objectives.
The CEO of Shell Oil has written an interesting essay on the likely stresses on natural resources in the next 30 years. The projections are sobering, but Peter Voser’s possible solutions are counterintuitive from what one would expect from the CEO of a large corporation.
The Chinese and Japanese are holding meetings in an effort to reach some sort of agreement on the status of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. The dispute flared up last year after the Japanese purchased the islands from private Japanese hands and there has increasing military activity by both sides in the region. The initial reports about the meetings do not suggest that much progress is being made, but the simple fact that there are talks going on is in itself a good sign.
The civil war in Syria seems to be reaching a critical point in its 22-month history. The Syrian army has reorganized, emphasizing more loyal troops from the Alawite sect, and is gathering to make a sustained push against the rebels near the town of Daraya. If successful the Syrian army would prevent the rebels from establishing a contiguous corridor of rebel controlled territory and deal the rebels a serious psychological blow. Since there are few journalists in the country right now, we’ll have to watch carefully for how the battle unfolds.
There have been large protests in Egypt on the second anniversary of the initial uprising that led to the overthrow of the Mubarak dictatorship. The protesters believe that progress toward full democratization of the political system has been too slow and ineffective. Several people have died in the protests and it isn’t clear how long-lived the protests will be.
North Korea has issued some of the most bellicose rhetoric against the US that we’ve heard in years, asserting that its nuclear weapons and missile tests are targeted against the US. The rhetoric followed the issuance of new sanctions against the North Korean weapons program. It’s difficult to assess how serious the threats are, but they were convincing enough to provoke the Chinese to condemn the North Korean rhetoric.
The economic situation in several European states is dire, and perhaps the country suffering the most from the economic recession is Spain. It is difficult to imagine the economic hardships the Spanish people are enduring, but The Atlantic has a short piece that gives some perspective on how desperate the situation is. Some of the Spanish statistics are significantly worse than those of the Great Depression.
The French intervention in Mali seems to have stemmed the immediate threat of the extremists, but such interventions are always difficult over time. The French have had some experience with such interventions in the past (Algeria, 1954; Vietnam, 1954), and none of those cases worked out well for the French. There may be some special circumstances in Mali that may favor the French intervention, but it’s hard to see a success if the intervention lasts a long time.
Things are often not what they appear to be in world politics. Over the past few days I have been posting brief snippets of information about the French intervention in Mali and the spillover of that operation into Algeria. I never suspected that there was any US involvement in Mali. A financial blog, however, named Zero Hedge, has unearthed some information which raises some questions about US operations in Mali. The blog references articles in Bloomberg and The Washington Post, both highly reputable news organizations. The inferences from that information, however, is all speculation. I will try to follow this trail and see if I can find any corroborating sources. In the meantime, we should keep a closer eye on Mali.
Preliminary results from the Israeli election suggest that Prime Minister Netanyahu will win a third term. But the actual likely coalitions in the Parliament are cloudy. Some early reports suggest that Netanyahu’s party will actually lose a considerable number of seats in the Knesset to both more centrist and more rightist parties. We will have more solid information over the next few days, but it seems as if Israel’s foreign policy could become more hawkish over the next few months.
The South China Sea is potentially a huge oil reserve, but there are six countries that claim parts of the sea as part of their national territory. The contested claims have led to several naval engagements over the last few years, and the Philippines has decided to bring China to court. In this case, the court is a tribunal set up under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It is not clear that China will allow itself to be judged by the tribunal–its response to the case will be interesting to analyze.
The global economic slowdown is having an effect on unemployment in the world. Unemployment rates seem to be increasing in virtually every region of the world. It is hard to figure out when economic activity might pick up given the absence of any increase in demand. Somehow the governments of the world have to figure out how to break this downward cycle.
The Council on Foreign Relations has published a very nice essay on UN rules and the possibilities for humanitarian intervention in Syria. It is a very good backgrounder on a very controversial and complicated issue.
Foreign Policy has published an article on how the settlement movement has affected Israeli politics. The domestic forces in favor of a two-state solution are clearly losing power in Israeli politics and the rise of those who wish to annex the Occupied Territories is quite dramatic. We will know how powerful this movement has become as we get the results of the election tomorrow.
In what can only be described as an unfortunate choice of words, the French Defense Minister asserted that France would accept nothing less than the “total reconquest” of Mali from Islamic extremists. The French intervention in the former French colony of Mali was designed to stop the spread of al-Qaeda in Mali, and has led to the hostage crisis in the former French colony of Algeria. We still have very little solid information about the hostage crisis, but some of the confused reports suggest that the death toll from the rescue attempt was very high.
The territorial conflict between China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands has escalated from the sea to the air, a riskier form of challenge. The US has also been insinuated into the conflict by the Chinese belief that the US is siding with Japan (a true assessment of the American position). It is probably impossible for the US not to side with Japan, but the Chinese know this alliance is rather fixed; the Chinese would be better off insulating the conflict from American interests by pointedly ignoring the US.
Oxfam has issued a report that suggests that the combined wealth of the 100 richest individuals in the world ($240 billion) would be more than enough to end global poverty four times over. The headline is certainly provocative (and in absolute terms, true), but the real issue is the extraordinary degree of income inequality in the world. How long this economic inequality can persist without leading to political unrest is unknown.
Income inequality is trending to be the distinctive feature of the modern globalized economy. This development suggests that the traditional division of the world into rich and poor countries is misleading; the true division is between rich and poor people regardless of where they live. This shift is incredibly important because it creates more possibilities for effective action than has been true in the past. But recognition of the shift is slow-coming.
Israel’s election is scheduled for 22 January. There are 120 seats open in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) and there are 34 political parties competing in the election. Right now it appears as if Prime Minister Netanyahu will retain his position, but the number of possibilities for coalitions is huge. We’ll see how the election turns out in a few days.
The Algerian hostage situation remains murky. The estimates for the number of hostages ranges from 150 to 600 and the number dead in the Algerian counterattack is unknown. The situation seems to have mobilize the radical elements in North Africa and there certainly will be additional repercussions.
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