World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Spiegel has published an article on US President Trump’s strategy in pursuing what looks like a trade war with both the European Union and China.  The article uses game theory to reveal the US strategy prior to Mr. Trump’s election and how he wishes to undermine this strategy with bilateral trade agreements.

“This development isn’t without irony. It was largely the United States that initiated the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) after World War II and later the WTO. It enabled the U.S. and other countries to escape a dilemma they were facing. ‘It’s the prisoner dilemma that explains the existence of the WTO,’ says Gabriel Felbermayr, director of the ifo Center for International Economics in Munich.

“Under this game theory model, two prisoners who have been accused of a crime committed jointly are interrogated separately. If neither says anything, then they are both convicted and sentenced to shorter jail sentences for smaller, provable offenses. If only one confesses, then that prisoner is freed and the other receives the stiffest sentence. If both confess, then both get stiff sentences, but not the stiffest. The dilemma for the prisoners is that they are unable to coordinate their responses. That’s why the rational decision is for both to confess to avoid the maximum penalty. But the two would be in a better position if they had been able to cooperate with each other.

“It may also be just as rational for two countries to protect their own economies through tariffs, but if both of those countries make the same decision, then both will fare worse economically than they would have if they had cooperated in ways that could have benefited both.”

Mr. Trump prefers the game of chicken to the prisoner’s dilemma game.  In chicken, one eschews the possibility of cooperation with any others other than the principal target.  In chicken, one either chooses to concede or die.  In such a game, then bluster becomes an essential tactic to intimidate the possible trading partner.

Prisoner’s Dilemma

The trade talks with China did not go very well.  Had they gone well, many analysts had expected that Chinese President Xi would meet with the US negotiators.  No meeting took place–the Americans simply left Beijing with little fanfare.  The US negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, is a well-known hardliner on the issue of trade, and the US position reflected that hardline.  According to The Economist:

“The American demand that made the most headlines was that China should cut its massive bilateral trade surplus by $200bn by the end of 2020. That would amount to a roughly 60% reduction in China’s surplus within three years, which is far from credible. But numbers are at least negotiable. More troubling from China’s perspective were demands focused on its economic policy. The Americans asked China to stop providing subsidies to a range of sectors that the Chinese government has deemed strategic, from robotics to electric vehicles. They demanded that Chinese tariffs on American products be no higher than American tariffs on Chinese products. And they told China to open its market much more widely to foreign investors, setting July 1st as a deadline.”

These demands are non-starters, and it is not unusual for opening negotiating positions to be extreme.  But, given that the meeting was in Beijing and that Lighthizer led the delegation, the Chinese likely did not interpret the US position as a bargaining gambit.  More likely, they interpreted it as an insult.  The judgement of The Economist was: “Taken in its entirety, though, the American position amounts to a demand for a new economic model in China.”

Diplomacy is often a matter of paying excruciating attention to the specific culture of the interacting parties.   There have been some stunning faux pas in recent history/  In 2000 German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, guided by Israeli PM Ehud Barak.  There is an eternal flame burning at the memorial in honor of the millions killed in the Holocaust.  Schröder turned the switch in order to make the flame higher.  Unfortunately, he turned it the wrong way and extinguished the flame.  Efforts to relight the flame failed until someone came with a cigarette lighter.  The tables were turned in the recent visit by the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, to Israel.  He was hosted by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at a dinner that was, by all accounts, fabulous.  Until dessert.  The dessert was put into a shoe designed by renowned artist Tom Dixon.  Unfortunately, anyone who knows Japanese culture knows that shoes are forbidden in the house and putting a shoe on the dinner table was a gross insult.  It is time for Netanyahu to get a new protocol officer.

As we move close to 12 May, the deadline for US President Trump to certify the Iranian nuclear agreement (The Joint Comprehensive Program of Action–JCPOA), we should ponder the alternatives available toMr. Trump.  Philip Gordon has an excellent article in The Atlantic which outlines why preserving the agreement does not prevent Mr. Trump from pursuing his other goals vis-a-vis Iran: “Trump has three grievances with the deal. They include sunsets for several provisions, restrictions on which military sites inspectors can demand to see and the deal’s failure to cover other Iranian activities like its ballistic missile program or support for terrorist groups.”

What will Trump do on 12 May?

Trump is trying to damage the people who negotiated the agreement.  The Guardian reports that “Aides to Donald Trump, the US president, hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to orchestrate a “dirty ops” campaign against key individuals from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, the Observer can reveal….People in the Trump camp contacted private investigators in May last year to “get dirt” on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obama’s top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, as part of an elaborate attempt to discredit the deal.”

If he fails to certify that Iran is in full compliance with the JCPOA.

Option 1.  Do nothing

Then the question is what will Iran do? The other parties will likely maintain current positions and if they openly support the continuation of the agreement then Iran will continue to comply.  That situation might satisfy Mr. Trump’s domestic political base, but will have no practical effect on the status quo.

Option 2.  Renegotiate the Agreement

Iran says that it will not renegotiate the agreement.  According to the BBC: “In remarks carried live on Iranian state television on Sunday, President Rouhani said: “If America leaves the nuclear deal, this will entail historic regret for it.”  He warned Iran had “a plan to counter any decision Trump may take and we will confront it”.

For the Europeans a safe option.  It allows them to agree with the US without serious consequences.  That proposal would take years.  Even if Iran refuses to negotiate, as long as no new sanctions are imposed, the status quo would rest in limbo.

Option 3.  Reimpose sanctions

National Public Radio describes the very unusual sanctions framework for the JCPOA: “If U.S. officials believe Iran is violating the deal, they would bring the allegation to the Security Council. At that point, sanctions would be imposed automatically — the first unusual twist in the deal. If members of the security council — Russia, China or others — rise to Iran’s defense, they can block the new sanctions only by passing a new resolution….That could be stopped by a U.S. veto. The U.S. is one of five permanent council members — including Great Britain, France, Russia and China — with veto power….In other words, instead of making sanctions vulnerable to a veto by the five permanent Security Council members, the deal flips that around, and gives the U.S. (or others) power to stop any attempt to block the imposition of sanctions.”

What will the US do?  That likely depends on the British, French, and the Germans who oppose breaking the agreement.  Russia and China will not wish to reimpose sanctions and will probably ignore any call to do so.  Neither do the Europeans, but the US is leaning on them.  Mr Trump may dangle trade deals in front of them to secure their cooperation.  Such a move would be very tempting for the Germans and the British, but the Swiss and the Italians have already re-established strong economic links with Iran, so the issue would be  Europe-wide discussion (Switzerland is not part of the European Union.  Reimposing the sanctions will take a long time and much depends on which ones would be reimposed and how strictly they will be enforced.

There will also be collateral damage to such a move as the North Korea negotiations would be affected.  The credibility of the US would be damaged and the most significant rule of the liberal world order–the Non-Proliferation Regime–would come under serious stress.

Option 4.  Provoke Iran

This is the spookiest alternative.  It already been foreshadowed by Israeli actions in Syria which have sharply escalated military conflict with Iranian units.  Additionally, Netanyahu’s speech about Iranian duplicity on nuclear weapons, although consisting largely of old and already-known news, suggests the very hard line of Israel toward the agreement.  Furthermore, most of Mr. Trump’s advisers–Bolton, Pompeo, Guiliani–are fiercely opposed to the agreement and have replaced the advisers, McMaster and TIllerson, who favored keeping the agreement.  The three new advisers are notorious hard-liners on the JCPOA.  Guiliani also has strong contacts with the MEK –the People’s Mujahedin of Iran–which is a well-heeled anti Iranian cleric group once listed as a terrorist organization supported by Saddam Hussein.  The MEK could be the tip of the spear in any military conflict with Iran.  It has some support within Iran, but I sincerely doubt that that support is significant.  But the belief that an exiled group was a profound motivating rationalization in both the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 in Cuba as well as in the failed invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The objective would be to create some sort of confrontation with Iran which would arouse nationalist sentiment in the US to support military action in support of an Israeli attack on Iran.  It is unclear how closely the US public has been following the Iranian issue, but there remains significant anti-Iranian sentiment in the US from the hostage crisis which persisted between 1979 and 1981.  But the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have taken place in the mean-time and there may not be much support for another war in the Middle East.  But a nationalist inspired crisis would certainly divert attention away from the Russian meddling/Stormy Daniels stories currently dominating the media.

But a war with Iran suffers from the same problem with scrapping the JCPOA: there is no vision of what comes after either event.  Getting rid of something bad is only the right move when it can be replaced by something better.  I personally do not believe the JCPOA is not a “bad” agreement–it has accomplished its very crafted objectives and given the world plenty of time to work out a better relationship with Iran.  That the world has not taken advantage of that opportunity is not a failure of the agreement.

There were widespread protests against the inauguration of Vladimir Putin for his fourth term as President of Russia.  He was elected last March in an election that lacked effective opposition and the protests targeted his consolidation of power over the Russian state.  Over 1600 people were detained in the protests, including Alexei Navalny who has emerged as the leader of the opposition to Putin.  There were protests in over 60 cities, from Yakutsk to St. Petersburg to Kalinigrad,  under the banner “He is not our Czar”.

Alexei Navalny Being Detained

Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) at the measurement station at Mauna Loa in Hawaii for the month of April reached 410 parts per million for the first time in over 800,000 years.  According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego:

“This marks the first time in the history of the Mauna Loa record that a monthly average has exceeded 410 parts per million. This also represents a 30-percent increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the global atmosphere since the Keeling Curve began in 1958. In March, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego observed the 60th anniversary of the data series, the first measurements of which were 315 ppm.

“The Keeling Curve draws its name from its creator and the shape of its dataset, a seasonally seesawing trend of steadily rising CO2 readings that exceeded 400 ppm in air for the first time in human history in 2013. Prior to the onset of the Industrial Revolution, CO2  levels had fluctuated over the millennia but had never exceeded 300 ppm at any point in the last 800,000 years.”

In does not appear as if the world has made any progress in reducing emissions of CO2 which, according to the World Meteorological Organization, makes “the planet more dangerous and inhospitable for future generations.”

Lebanon is holding a national election tomorrow and it is unlikely that the election will determine anything.  Lebanon has long been governed under a system of “confessionals” which allocate political power on the basis of presumed religious representation.  According to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems:

“Lebanon’s internal politics seek to balance the interests of its numerous religious groups, or ‘confessions,’ until the ‘basic national goal,’ as enumerated in the Constitution, of the abolition of political confessionalism can be achieved. Although not included in the Constitution, by long-standing agreement the president is a Maronite Christian, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim, and Parliament’s speaker is a Shi’a Muslim. As will be discussed in more detail below, following the Taif Accord in 1989, the Constitution requires that Muslims and Christians have equal numbers of seats in Parliament, and the election law distributes seats in constituencies among the various confessions.”

The Washington Post has a very nice article describing the different parties competing in the elections.  Stratfor gives a detailed description of the structure of the Lebanese government which outlines its extraordinary complexity and its intent of avoiding sectarian conflict.   Al-Arabiyah examines the outsized influence of Hezbollah in Lebanese politics which frightens the Saudis and emboldens the Iranians.  The elegant proportionality of the system is undermined by the fact that the ratios are determined by a census conducted in 1932–a new census has never been held out of fear of disrupting the balance agreed upon over 70 years ago.

I always want to make sure that the readers of this blog are always up to date on the latest acronyms in world politics.  Everyone should remember “CVID”.  This gem comes to us from the US State Department Briefing on 3 May 2018:

QUESTION: Secretary Pompeo yesterday during swearing-in ceremony said that he seeks permanent, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s WMD. He actually said this several times during his nomination hearing, when he was in Jordan with the Japanese foreign minister. So this is quite different from the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement, so is this a higher bar for North Korea, or is it essentially the same?

MS NAUERT: We’re calling it CVID now. So because the State Department, the government likes acronyms so much, we’ve got a new one: CVID – complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization. That is our policy and that is the policy of Secretary Pompeo.

Okay. Let’s —

QUESTION: Wouldn’t that be PVID? You add another addition of PVID.

MS NAUERT: Yeah, I don’t have anything on that for you. I don’t have anything on that for you today.

QUESTION: You don’t have – what’s the difference, CVID and PVID? Permanently —

MS NAUERT: I think our government policy has been very well known and explained a lot of times on how we are approaching negotiations with North Korea, the importance of that. Look, we would not be at this place where we are today without the maximum pressure campaign. If anything, if there’s – I’ve spoken more about our maximum pressure campaign than anything else in the past year-plus since I’ve been doing this job.

QUESTION: PVID means permanently —

MS NAUERT: We are seeing tremendous progress. We’ve gotten to this point where we can sit down and have conversations – we certainly hope and are looking forward to it – between the President of the United States and Kim Jong-un. And we are looking forward to what they have pledged, which is exactly that, denuclearization. Let’s move on to something else.

No matter what the acronym, the idea that North Korea would agree to CVID/PVID absent a complete disengagement of American troops and alliances in the Korea peninsula is lunacy.

But President Trump has often talked about removing US troops from South Korea, even before he ran for office.  He is not the first US President to think about the matter:  President Carter make reductions in the troop levels and President George W. Bush removed some troops to use them in the invasion of Iraq.   Mr. Trump believes that the troops are not necessary to maintain the peace on the peninsula and that South Korea and Japan should pay for the troops if they wish an American presence.  The New York Times is reporting that Mr. Trump has ordered the Pentagon to conduct a study on possibly removing some of the troops.   The South Korean government is sending mixed signals about such as move.  Moon Chung-in, a special adviser to the South Korean President for unification, foreign affairs and national security remarked that if a peace treaty were signed between North and South Korea, US troops would no longer be necessary.  Later, another official, Cheong Wa Dae, made this statement: “The government’s position is that the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) is playing the role of a mediator between major powers surrounding the country, such as China and Japan. It is the government’s stance that the USFK is needed.”

US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, said on Friday that Mr. Trump is not considering a draw down of troops.   The New York Post is quoting Bolton on the matter: ““The New York Times story is utter nonsense. The President has not asked the Pentagon to provide options for reducing American forces stationed in South Korea.”  The Military Times is reporting that Chief of Staff, John Kelly, is also opposed to troop reductions in South Korea.  Troops reductions are only one of the contentious issues likely to come up in the summit between Trump and Kim.  There are also matters of a potential peace treaty between North and South as well as the status of the current sanctions against North Korea.  It is difficult to believe that all these issues could be resolved simultaneously.  They are likely only to be conducted in a series of iterated steps over a very long period of time.  That process might have a high chance of success but whether it is something that could be politically sustained without a certain outcome for an extended period seems unlikely to work in the US political system.

US Bases in South Korea                                                                                                                     US Military Bases Near North Korea

Maj. Danny Sjursen (US Army) has written a critique of the legislation being proposed by Senators Corker (R-TN) and Kaine (D-VA) to replace the current hodgepodge of Authorizations to Use Military Force (AUMF) that have been passed to legitimate US troops engaged in combat missions in what was once called the “War on Terror”.  These AUMFs are ersatz versions of the constitutional requirement of a Declaration of War which needs to be passed by both Houses of Congress and subject to a veto by the President.  Sjursen describes the legislation:

“It would essentially rubber stamp the president’s authority, for instance, to continue the ongoing shooting wars in at least seven countries where the U.S. is currently dropping bombs or firing off other munitions. Worse yet, it provides a mechanism for the president to declare nearly any future group an “associated force” or “successor force” linked to one of America’s current foes and so ensure that Washington’s nearly 17-year-old set of forever wars can go on into eternity without further congressional approval.”

Moreover, the language of the legislation is especially terrifying for civil liberties in the US.  Jon Schwarz, writing for The Intercept, examines the loophole which may allow the President to designate at will any group he or she decides is “associated” with terror groups:

“Here’s how it works: The Corker-Kaine AUMF codifies an expanded list of entities against whom the president is authorized to use force. They are “the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and designated associated forces.” The associated forces designated by the bill are Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; Shabab; Al Qaeda in Syria; the Haqqani Network; and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

“Then when the bill is passed, the president is invited to designate additional “associated forces” to the list. And going forward, the president can add more at any time. All he needs to do is inform “the appropriate congressional committees and leadership” that he’s doing so.

A dust storm hit the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in India, killing more than 100 people.  Dust storms are not unusual at this time of year, but the high death toll is striking and suggests that the storm was intense.  There was widespread destruction caused by the storm with power outages and disrupted travel.  The Washington Post quoted Hemant Gera, secretary for disaster management and relief in Rajasthan:  ““I’ve been in office for 20 years, and this is the worst I’ve seen.”

Saeed Kamali Dehghan has written a very insightful article for The Guardian on the likely effects of a US pull-out from the Iranian nuclear deal.  He provides a history of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s alarms over the likelihood of Iranian nuclear weapons:

“Others find it hard to take Netanyahu seriously: he has been warning that Iran is close to acquiring nuclear weapons for more than 20 years. In 1992, he said the country would have a nuclear bomb in three to five years. In 1993, he predicted it would happen by 1999. He made similar remarks in 1996, 2002, and many times since, as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has pointed out. Not only are his warnings repetitive, they are hypocritical. Ordinary people I talk to are shocked when they realise Iran does not have a single bomb and has been a party to the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons since 1970. Israel, in contrast, has never signed it (meaning that the International Atomic Energy Agency has no inspection authority there) and is estimated to have more than 200 nuclear warheads. Let’s be clear: Netanyahu’s files did not show that Iran has violated the agreement. The IAEA has verified 10 times, most recently in February, that Tehran has fully complied with its terms.”

Dehghan points out that if the US does pull out of the agreement, the move would likely embolden the hardliners in Tehran who would unquestionably argue that no detente with the US is possible and that Iran should simply forge its own course in the Middle East.

CNBCis reporting that over the last 30 days China has installed  anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three of its artificial islands in the South China Sea.  The report, if true, comes on the heels of reports that China has also placed communications jamming equipment on those artificial islands.  Such islands are not recognized as soveriegn territory under international law and the US, as well as many Southeast Asian nations, have lodged protests about the militarization of the South China Sea.  China, however, has claimed that recent map discoveries prove Chinese control over the entire South China Sea. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying responded to the reports:

“China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands [the Chinese name for the artificial islands] and its nearby waters. It is needed to protect the sovereignty and security of China, and justified for China as a sovereign nation to carry out peaceful development activities and necessary defense constructions. The related deployment is not directed at any country.”

The spokesperson for the US White House, Sarah Sanders, made this statement in response to the reports:

“We’re well aware of China’s militarization of the South China Sea. We’ve raised concerns directly with the Chinese about this and there will be near-term and long-term consequences.”

Ms Sanders did not specify what those consequences might be, but US B-52 bombers are on patrol in the South China Sea.

The “New Map of the People’s Republic of China” Made in 1951

One of Mount Holyoke’s finest, Jenna Ruddock, has written an article on the Venezuelan refugees that are taxing the resources of many of Venezuela’s neighbors.  The refugees are fleeing an economic system that has totally collapsed, leaving many on the brink of starvation and without sufficient medical supplies.  Ruddock describes the crisis:

“A crippled health care system, critical food shortages, and hyperinflation are driving Venezuelans across their country’s borders en masse, many bearing only what they can carry on foot. According to recent reports from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), nearly one million people have fled Venezuela in the past two years. Venezuela’s immediate neighbors are now facing a migration crisis comparable in scale to the flight of Syrians to western Europe. Nearly 600,000 Venezuelans have sought refuge in neighboring Colombia alone.”

Unfortunately, the US response to the refugee crisis has been non-existent: “For the first time in 2017, more Venezuelans sought asylum in the United States than citizens from any other country. Yet the Trump administration’s message to migrants seeking refuge in the United States has consistently been a hostile one.”  The international community needs to take note of this humanitarian crisis, one which is incomprehensible given the potential richness of Venezuela.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released its annual report on global military spending.  According to the press release:

“Total world military expenditure rose to $1739 billion in 2017, a marginal increase of 1.1 per cent in real terms from 2016, according to new figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). China’s military expenditure rose again in 2017, continuing an upward trend in spending that has lasted for more than two decades. Russia’s military spending fell for the first time since 1998, while spending by the United States remained constant for the second successive year.”

Some of the developments in 2017 are quite revealing.

• China made the largest absolute increase in spending ($12 billion) in 2017 (in constant 2016 prices), while Russia made the largest decrease (–$13.9 billion).
• Military expenditure in South America rose by 4.1 per cent in 2017, mainly as a result of notable increases by the two largest spenders in the subregion: Argentina (up by 15 per cent) and Brazil (up by 6.3 per cent).
• Military spending in Central America and the Caribbean fell by 6.6 per cent in 2017, largely due to lower spending by Mexico (down by 8.1 per cent from 2016).
• Military expenditure in Africa decreased by 0.5 per cent in 2017, the third consecutive annual decrease since the peak in spending in 2014. Algeria’s military spending fell for the first time in over a decade (down by 5.2 per cent from 2016).
• Seven of the 10 countries with the highest military burden are in the Middle East: Oman (12 per cent of GDP), Saudi Arabia (10 per cent of GDP), Kuwait (5.8 per cent of GDP), Jordan (4.8 per cent of GDP), Israel (4.7 per cent of GDP), Lebanon (4.5 per cent of GDP) and Bahrain (4.1 per cent of GDP).

The Pakistani city of Nawabshah recorded a high of 50.2ºC (122ºF) on Monday.  That temperature is the highest temperature ever recorded in the month of April anywhere in the world, and suggests that this coming summer could be brutal in Pakistan.  The record joins a number of record-setting high temperature events in the last few years.  According to The Nation:

“The record-setting 122.4 degree reading in Nawabshah adds to a long list of international hot weather extremes since 2017, which includes Spain’s and Iran’s highest temperatures ever recorded last summer. In May 2017,  the western town of Turbat in Pakistan hit 128.3 degrees, tying the all-time highest temperature in that country and the world-record temperature for that month, Weather Underground’s Jeff Masters reported.”

Recent research suggests that poor countries will experience a disproportionately high number of such events if climate change is not addressed.  The Washington Post ran a graphic on the temperatures in South Asia yesterday.

Happy First of May  (Labor Day for most of the world)!!!!  The Wobblies Live!  If you do not know who the Wobblies were, you should!

The Armenian Parliament has rejected the bid by Nikol Pashinyan to become the country’s next Prime Minister, even though Pashinyan ran unopposed.  Pashinyan was defiant as he called for a general strike to oppose the Parliament’s decision:

“We will block the streets, the airports, the metro, the railway, everything that can be blocked….If everyone participates in a total act of civil disobedience, this will be a total victory of the people of Armenia. Our struggle is a struggle of non-violence, it is a peaceful act of civil disobedience.”

Pashinyan’s party, Yelk (“Way Out”), only has nine seats in the Parliament of 105 seats, so he is bargaining from a weak technical position.  But sentiment in the streets of Armenia seem to favor him overwhelmingly.  We will see if the dominant Republican Party (which has 58 seats in the Parliament) will cede power.  If not, then a snap election must be called in seven days according to the Armenian constitution.

Protests in Armenia

There have been many visits by military advisers from Israel to the US in recent weeks, and last week Gen. Joseph Votel, Commander of US Central Command, made a visit to Israel and met with Israel’s General Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot.  It was a curious visit since Israel falls into the US European Command, not US Central Command.  But Votel went on to visit Syria and unquestionably he met with Israel’s military commanders to assess Iran’s growing influence in Syria and Iraq.  The visits, coupled with Israeli attacks on Iranian military bases in Syria and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech on the Iranian nuclear program, suggest that something is brewing.  The Iranians have stated that they will respond to any Israeli “aggression” against Iranian interests in Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a Powerpoint presentation outlining what he termed were Iranian “lies” about it nuclear program.  The Prime Minister claimed that Israeli agents raided a warehouse in Tehran last January which contained “55,000 printed pages and 183 compact discs” dating back to 2003.  We do know that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program from 2003-2007 even though it was a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  The NPT does not, however, ban research on nuclear weapons, merely the possession of nuclear weapons, and the Iranian weapons program was stimulated by the US invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.  Prime Minister Netanyahu did not produce any evidence that Iran had violated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which committed Iran to end its enrichment program in 2015.  All evidence, including the assessments of the US Departments of State and Defense, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency, have certified that Iran has been in full compliance with the JCPOA.  The presentation was clearly an attempt by the Prime Minister to influence US President Trump’s decision whether to de-certify the JCPOA on 12 May.  Netanyahu’s presentation followed an air strike against Syria on Sunday that actually registered as a 2.6 magnitude earthquake.  The strike was against a munitions depot and a number of Iranians and Iraqis were killed.  No state has claimed responsibility for the strike, but most analysts believe that Israel conducted the attack.

Thirty days ago, US President Trump announced tariffs on imported aluminum and steel but gave affected countries 30 days to negotiate better terms on their trade with the US.  That deadline expires at midnight tonight (I hope to be fast asleep at that time).  South Korea agreed to renegotiate, but all other countries rejected the US demand, including important US allies in Europe.  So tomorrow morning I will wake up to find out whether a trade war has begun.  Europe has been quite emphatic that it will retaliate if the tariffs are imposed, and their threatened tariffs are carefully selected to affect politically sensitive products exported from key US states.  Late News:  The Washington Post has published an article stating that Trump will defer his decision until 1 June.  No trade war tomorrow.

Jeff Tollefson has written a remarkable review of current climate change policies for the journal Nature.  He examines a variety of different policies with respect to energy alternatives and acknowledges that the world has been making remarkable strides toward the development of renewable energies.  But economic growth in many emerging economies is still dependent on fossil fuels and Tollefson notes that

“So it was in 2017, when, after staying relatively flat from 2014 to 2016, carbon emissions grew by about 1.5% (see ‘A brief lull’). All it took to create that spike was a small rise in economic growth across the developing world, according to a final estimate released in March by the Global Carbon Project, an international research consortium that monitors carbon emissions and climate trends.”

The trade-off between economic growth and climate change still seems to be weighted in favor of increased carbon emissions since it is unlikely that states will forego economic growth voluntarily.  That relationship has to change if the world is to avoid serious climate change. 

The Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) has announced that it will not nominate a candidate for Prime Minister, leaving the post open for Nikol Pashinyan who led the protest movement against a bid to keep the RPA’s candidate, Serzh Sargsyan, in power for an illegal third term.  Russia, which is always a factor in Armenian politics (Armenia was once part of the former Soviet Union), was favored by Sargsyan and, even though Pashinyan has tried to remain neutral on relations with Russia, it is highly likely that Russia fears a significant loss of influence in the country.  Pashinyan has called for Parliamentary elections on 1 May to form a new government.

Protests in Armenia

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has invited outside inspectors to visit the Punggye-ri test site to verify that it will be closed down.  Kim announced that the testing facility would be closed down prior to a formal agreement with South Korea and the US, a rather astonishing move.  The Punggye-ri site was used for all six of North Korea’s nuclear bomb tests, but it is widely believed that the site is seriously damaged and may no longer be usable.   But there have been reports of activity at the site which suggests that the government may be trying to rehabilitate the site.   It is very difficult to tell what the significance of the North Korean announcement may be.

Peter Beinart has written an interesting article for The Atlantic which argues that even though Iran has not violated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the US has more than likely violated it.   The agreement calls on all parties to facilitate the reintegration of Iran into the global economy as the earlier sanctions against the country are lifted.  Beinart gives evidence that the US has not complied with these clauses and that the Trump Administration has in fact made it more difficult for Iran to interact with its trading partners for such commodities as aircraft parts.  Iran has always complained about US adherence to the agreement, but few countries have taken it seriously.

Military tensions continue to rise around the island of Taiwan.  China has been conducting military exercises around the island in order to send a message to the Taiwan authorities that any move toward independence will spark a crisis.  According to Global Times:

“Chinese aircraft including H-6K bombers and fighter jets flew around Taiwan recently after passing over the Bashi Channel and Miyako Strait, according to the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] Air Force. Wu Qian, Chinese defense ministry spokesman, warned if Taiwan independence forces continue to wantonly take rash actions, the PLA will take further steps.

“The live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Straits and the flights around Taiwan conducted by the PLA to specifically target Taiwan independence forces in recent days have shocked the island. Still some separatists attempted to embolden themselves by hyping their US support.”

The US has stepped up its activities as well.  It is sending out B-52 bombers to maintain a continuous presence in the South China Sea.  According to the US Air Force:

“The B-52Hs conducted training and then transited to the vicinity of Okinawa to conduct training with USAF F-15C Strike Eagles, before returning to Guam……Continuous Bomber Presence (CBP) missions are intended to maintain the readiness of US forces. The US Pacific Command’s CBP missions, which have been routinely employed since March 2004, are in accordance with international law.”

President Trump’s nominee for Commander of the Pacific Command, Admiral Philip Davidson, testified before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on 17 April 2018.  His view of Chinese military capabilities in the Pacific was sober:

“The outcome of war is never certain, and I have increasing concerns about the future. China has undergone a rapid military modernization over the last three decades and is approaching parity in a number of critical areas; there is no guarantee that the United States would win a future conflict with China….China will be able to extend its influence thousands of miles to the south and project power deep into Oceania. The PLA will be able to use these bases to challenge U.S. presence in the region, and any forces deployed to the islands would easily overwhelm the military forces of any other South China Sea-claimants. In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”

These rising tensions so far have not been linked by either side to either the North Korean issue or the trade issue.  But such compartmentalization could easily erode if Taiwan forces the issue.

Last July, India and China squared off over a piece of disputed territory called Doklam near the borders of Bhutan, India, and China.  But Indian Prime Minister Modi met with Chinese President Xi yesterday and they apparently worked out an arrangement that diffused the tension.  The Times of India described the meeting:

“Though the Doklam stand-off took place in Bhutanese territory disputed by China, it was an attempt to unilaterally change the status quo in violation of the understanding reached between India and China. India pointed out that the existing ‘tri-junction boundary points’ between India and China and any third party will be ‘finalised’ in consultation with the countries concerned”.

Xinhua also emphasized the cooperative outcome of the meeting, referring to statements by President Xi:

“He said, in developing relations between major countries, China upholds strategic autonomy as well as non-conflict and non-confrontation, and insists on building a new-type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation, which are in line with the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence jointly advocated by China and India in the 1950s.

“Xi stressed that in the next stage, China and India should jointly plan for all-round cooperation, carry out closer strategic communication, and timely conduct consultation on major issues of common concern, so as to take a firm hold of the general direction of bilateral relations and ensure the effective operation of their dialogue mechanism.”

Relations between India and China have been tense over the last few years, as India has become more apprehensive by China’s growing strength and ambitions in the Belt and Road Initiative.  This summit meeting was an important one for both countries, but the dynamics of Great Power rivalry will undoubtedly resurface again.

The US is mounting a drive to encourage its allies to impose sanctions on Iran for its missile program.  The Iranian missile program is not covered by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and Iran insists that its program is necessary for its defense.  The new US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is in Saudi Arabia making a pitch for additional sanctions, but Saudi Arabia does not trade at all with Iran so it is unclear what measures it could take.  The new sanctions campaign suggests that the US does not believe that its allies will stand with it in a bid to renegotiate the JCPOA.