Diplomacy & Crisis News

Michael W. Charney

Politics, South Asia

Military control of the government is nothing new for the Burmese people. In one way or another the military has controlled the country since 1962.

The military once again hold the reins of power in Myanmar. Citing constitutional provisions that give the military control in national emergencies, army officers detained government leaders in the early hours of February 1 2021, including state counsellor and popular national leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

An announcement on military television said the move was in response to “fraud” during last year’s general election. A spokesman said power had been handed to the army’s commander-in-chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, who would hold power for one year, after which there would be new elections.

Military control of the government is nothing new for the Burmese people. In one way or another the military has controlled the country since 1962. The post-independence civilian government got off to a bad start in 1948. In July 1947 the charismatic nationalist leader General Aung San, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi, was assassinated and leadership was inherited by the less politically agile U Nu.

Civil War broke out in 1949 between the government and an array of different insurgent forces, including communist and ethnic armies. As the civil war waged on and national politics became increasingly divisive, the military came to see itself as the only force that could hold the country together.

General Ne Win, who took power in a military coup, took the country economically and politically down a road informed by a new ideology that mixed together Buddhism and Marxism, known as the “Burmese Way to Socialism”. It brought an end to democratic institutions and civil liberties. Nationalisation of the economy and the forced sales by farmers of produce to the government removed private incentives and ruined the economy, leading to mass protests in the rainy season of 1988.

These displays of pent-up frustration including hundreds of thousands of protesters in the streets forced Ne Win to step down. This brought to the fore Aung San’s daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi and a new political force, the National League for Democracy (NLD). Another military takeover followed, overtly to “restore order”, with the promise of new general elections in 1990.

When Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD swept the elections, the military cried foul and arrested her, preventing the NLD from taking power.

Military motivations

During nearly six decades in power, the military has been guided by several motivations. Chief among them are the army’s majoritarian nationalism dominated by the Burmese-speaking, Budhdist, Bamar ethnic group and the fear of any open democracy in which ethnic minorities, roughly 30% or so of the population, might gain too much power.

But the most durable motivation is that keeping control of – or at least maintaining a secure veto – over civilian government is a permanent necessity for the Burmese military. The upper echelons of the military and their families have used their control to enrich themselves, largely at the expense of pre-existing political and social elites. The continued wealth of their families would be threatened by any new government that could punish the corruption, reverse the land transfers and demand transfer of foreign bank accounts whose existence explains in part why most Burmese are so poor.

The military has followed a pattern of controlling the government for as long as it can in one guise and then, when a crisis hits, reinventing the official purpose for its continued control under another guise – and another name. So the Revolutionary Council in 1962 gave way to the Burma Socialist Programme Party government in 1974. This gave way to the State Law and Order Restoration Council in 1988, followed by the State Peace and Development Committee in 1997, which in turn was replaced in 2010 by the Thein Sein interim government.

What had been touted as a true democratic transition when the 2008 constitution was implemented, actually set up a system whereby the military still maintained enough power, through its veto power and control of a 25% block of parliamentary seats, to block any reforms that would lead to real change. This was particularly the case given they had banned NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president.

But this changed in 2016 when the NDL, having won won an earlier round of elections in 2015, created the office of state counsellor for Aung San Suu Kyi. The move allowed to take her place as de facto leader, with Win Myint as the figurehead president.

Strange allies

In 2017, the Myanmar military launched a brutal assault on the Rohingya ethnic group in the province of Rakhine in Western Myanmar. Thanks to social media campaigns on platforms such as like Facebook, the majority Bamar Budhdist population had been whipped up into an anti-Islamic frenzy. Aung San Suu Kyi did not oppose the military’s actions as the military had hoped, which would have lost her a great deal of popular support.

Instead she denied the military’s culpability, joined in the military’s political game of not recognising the Rohingya as a nationalist cause, supported the arrest of journalists who had discovered evidence for the military’s actions and even defended the military, most recently in 2019 in the International Court of Justice. These actions were the reason she has lost the human rights halo she once held in the eyes of the world.

But rather than win the military’s favour, army leaders were perturbed that their actions had not cost her and the NLD Burmese public support. Her continued popularity was demonstrated in November 2020 when the NLD swept the elections. The military’s fear that it was losing the nation, and that Aung San Suu Kyi might use this support to force constitutional changes, override the military’s control and bring their game to an end, meant that something had to be done.

The current military front party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), claimed election fraud – perhaps drawing a lesson from Donald Trump in the United States. On January 28, Myanmar’s election commission rejected these claims and validated the NLD victory.

Planning for the takeover of the government evidently began immediately. I have been told privately that there were two days of Chinese-brokered negotiations between NLD leaders and the military that came to naught when Aung San refused to budge to military demands. The military moved the next morning and Burmese woke up to yet another version of military control.

As so many times after so many coups and “corrective moves” made before, the future of the country is in the military’s hands. Sooner or later military rule in Myanmar will assume yet another guise – with another claim that it marks the beginning of a real transition. But only until it threatens to actually lead to real change. Then Myanmar is likely to see the cycle repeated again. Politics moves slowly in Myanmar – the military likes it that way.

Michael W. Charney, Professor of Asian and Military History, SOAS, University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Bradley Bowman

Security, Americas

The events last month in D.C. demonstrate the National Guard's value and suggest decision makers should think twice before withdrawing U.S. ground forces abroad from key locations at the frontiers of freedom.

The failure to protect the U.S. Capitol from an insurrectionist attack on January 6 is understandably dominating headlines. Leaders and investigators are right to ask how such a horrible breach of security happened—and what must be done to ensure it never happens again. There are also serious concerns about the role of veterans in the attack last month.

But as vital investigations and reforms proceed, Americans should not miss the other lessons on display. Foremost among them is the extraordinary role the U.S. National Guard played in securing the constitutional transfer of power and how properly positioned ground forces can provide powerful deterrence.

Most Americans appreciate that governors lean heavily on their Guard units to deal with both natural and man-made crises in their respective states. Many may also know the Department of Defense could not have completed its missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere over the last two decades without the National Guard's essential contributions.

Until last month, however, many Americans may not have fully appreciated the importance of the Guard here at home.

Following the January 6 attack, Americans should consider the role the National Guard played, once it was called upon, in standing between insurrectionists and our Constitution.

It is worth remembering that members of the armed forces swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

For this commitment and the sacrifices associated with military life, members of the National Guard deserve our respect and admiration.

At the same time, members of the military, including the Guard, are not super-humans. They are us. They come from every county in our country. Their backgrounds are diverse, and they struggle with the same challenges and maladies as those who do not serve in uniform.

That is what makes what transpired in Washington after January 6 so impressive.

Once assistance from the National Guard was finally requested, the D.C. Guard arrived at the Capitol Hill complex within hours, followed quickly thereafter by units from Maryland and Virginia. Guard units from other states followed, ultimately creating a force of 25,671 troops.

That is essentially a force the size of an Army corps. To put that number in perspective, the United States currently has fewer than 6,000 service members in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—combined.

In addition to deployments in Washington, governors used an additional 7,102 activated Guard members to protect 26 state capitals.

All 54 state and territory governors mobilized their National Guards in support of state or national requirements.

These mobilizations included Army and Air Guard members, for example, from military police, engineer, infantry, transportation, explosive ordnance disposal, chemical, and civil support units.

Out of the 25,671 troops who deployed to D.C., the Pentagon, as a precaution, proactively pulled 12 Guard members out of duty—12 out of 25,671.

Our nation was tested, and members of the National Guard honored their oaths, maintained the peace, and enabled the constitutional transfer of power.

But it is not surprising to those who understand the American military’s deep institutional commitment to country and Constitution.

The coup this week in Burma demonstrates what can happen when a military puts power over democratic principles. 

Of course, that is not to say that there are no problems within the ranks of the American military. But as we seek to address those problems, we should take a moment to appreciate the Guard’s performance in defending the seat of our democracy and the constitutional transfer of power.

And what was the result of that Guard deployment in Washington, DC.?  With only a few exceptions, the insurrectionists did not even show up in D.C. once the National Guard arrived.

That brings us to the second lesson on display—the role of ground forces in deterrence.

Our nation is currently engaged in a debate about what military forces the United States must deploy abroad to secure our homeland and our interests. Within that discussion, there is also a lively policy debate—with important budgetary implications—regarding the role of the U.S. Army relative to the other services.

America certainly needs a larger Navy and Air Force. But the role of the U.S. Army remains vital in Europe, the Middle East, and yes, in the Indo-Pacific.

If America comes to blows with China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea, we will certainly need modernized air and naval forces with sufficient capabilities and capacities. But it would be better if those conflicts never happen in the first place.

The Guard's role last month in D.C. vividly demonstrates the potentially decisive deterrent value of American ground forces when properly equipped, trained, and positioned.

While there is certainly a difference between armed domestic violent extremists and nation-state adversaries abroad, Americans have seen the same deterrent benefits of forward-positioned forces abroad. In 1997, a high-ranking North Korean defector stated that U.S. military forces in South Korea were the only thing deterring North Korean aggression.

In Europe, Moscow has invaded non-NATO countries such as Ukraine and Georgia in recent years. But after more than seven decades, the Kremlin has never invaded a NATO member country. The presence of joint U.S. combat forces, including ground forces, in Europe, makes clear to Moscow that America and its NATO allies have the military capability to defend against an attack.

The events last month in D.C. demonstrate the National Guard's value and suggest decision makers should think twice before withdrawing U.S. ground forces abroad from key locations at the frontiers of freedom.

Bradley Bowman is senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

This article first appeared on RealClearDefense.

Image: Reuters

Alexander Kurov

economy, The Americas

Some have portrayed GameStop as a David vs. Goliath story. According to that narrative, the big guys on Wall Street have been getting rich gambling on the stock market for years. What’s the problem when the little guy gets a chance?

Shares of GameStop and other companies or assets that shot up in value in recent weeks are now dropping like stones. While I feel sorry for the many investors who will likely lose a lot of money, the stocks’ return to Earth is actually a good thing – if you want to avoid financial meltdown to the long list of crises the U.S. is facing.

The reason has to do with what financial markets are – and what they are not – as well as what happens when prices of stocks and other securities become untethered from the fundamental value of the assets they’re meant to represent.

As a finance professor who does research on how markets respond to new information, I believe it is important to maintain a close link between security prices and fundamentals. When that stops happening, a market collapse may be not far behind.

Capital markets aren’t casinos

Some have portrayed GameStop as a David vs. Goliath story. According to that narrative, the big guys on Wall Street have been getting rich gambling on the stock market for years. What’s the problem when the little guy gets a chance?

The first thing to keep in mind is that markets aren’t a big casino, as some seem to believe. Their core purpose is to efficiently connect investors with companies and other organizations that will make the most productive use of their cash.

Accurate market prices, meant to reflect a company’s expected profits and overall risk level, provide an important signal to investors whether they should hand over their money and what they should get in return. Companies like Apple and Amazon simply would not exist as we know them today without access to capital markets.

The more jaundiced view of markets focuses on episodes when markets seemingly go crazy and on the speculative gambling behavior of some traders, such as hedge funds. The GameStop saga feeds into this storyline.

But GameStop also illustrates what happens when stock prices don’t reflect reality.

The GameStop bubble

GameStop fundamentals are, to put it mildly, lackluster.

The company is a brick-and-mortar chain of video game stores. Most video game sales now take place as digital downloads. GameStop has been slow to adapt to this new reality. Its revenue peaked in 2012 at US$9.55 billion and had dropped by a third as of 2019. It hasn’t earned a profit since 2017. Put simply, it is a money-losing company in a competitive and quickly changing industry.

The recent speculative frenzy, however, increased the GameStop stock price from under $20 in early January to as high as $483 in a little over two weeks, driven by retail investors on Reddit who coordinated their buying to harm hedge funds – costing the professionals billions of dollars.

It is clearly a speculative price bubble and has some characteristics of a Ponzi scheme. Many small investors who “get on the train” late and buy at the inflated prices – especially those attracted by the extreme price moves and media coverage – will be left holding the bag.

And sooner or later, the stock price will likely come back to Earth to a level that can be supported by the fundamentals of the company. Before midday on Feb. 4, shares were trading near $70 for the first time since Jan. 25.

The problems begin when that doesn’t happen until too late.

Bubbles are made to pop

Financial markets are made up of people. People are imperfect, and so are markets. This means market prices are not always “right” – and it’s often hard to know what the “right” price is.

That is true when it comes to the price bubbles in individual stocks like GameStop. But it’s also true on a much bigger scale, when it comes to a market as a whole.

Price bubbles and crashes are good for neither Wall Street nor Main Street. When the dot-com bubble popped in 2000 – after prices of dozens of tech stocks soared exponentially in the late 1990s – an economic recession followed soon after. The bursting of a housing bubble in 2008 triggered a global financial crisis and the Great Recession.

Too much momentum

So markets fail sometimes, and we need sensible regulation and enforcement to make such failures less likely.

Taken in isolation, the GameStop craze is unlikely to trigger a disruption to the overall stock market, especially if its price continues to fall more in line with the company’s fundamental value. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated case. Nor was GameStop the first sign of problems.

In recent days, Reddit users have also driven up the prices of silver and companies such as BlackBerry and movie theater giant AMC Entertainment. Popular trading apps like Robinhood have made trading easy, fun and basically free.

The share price of Tesla, for example, skyrocketed 720% last year, in large part when investors bought the stock because it was already rising. This is called momentum investing, a trading strategy in which investors buy securities because they are going up – selling them only when they think the price has peaked.

If this continues, it will likely lead to more financial bubbles and crashes that could make it harder for companies to raise capital, posing a threat to the already limping U.S. economic recovery. Even if the worst doesn’t happen, large price movements and allegations of price manipulation could hurt public confidence in financial markets, which would make people more reluctant to invest in retirement and other programs.

Warren Buffett once said about stock market behavior: “The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing at yellow.”

What he meant was that markets can turn on a dime and plunge. He saw these moments as opportunities to find deals in the market, but for most people they result in panic, heavy losses and economic consequences like mass unemployment – as we saw in 1929, 2000 and 2008.

There’s no particular reason it won’t happen again.

Alexander Kurov, Professor of Finance and Fred T. Tattersall Research Chair in Finance, West Virginia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

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Une posture proactive en Méditerranée

Au plan géopolitique, « la Turquie adopte une posture de plus en plus hostile aux pays occidentaux » dont son activisme en Méditerranée orientale et en Lybie est l’illustration, résume Jana Jabbour, enseignante à Sciences-Po, dans la revue Politique étrangère. Le titre de son article : « La Turquie, une puissance émergente qui n’a pas les moyens de ses ambitions ».

En adoptant une posture proactive et en s’affirmant comme puissance régionale dans cette région clé pour les équilibres géopolitiques mondiaux, Ankara entend accroître son poids sur la scène internationale pour devenir un État-pivot et un acteur-clé de la gouvernance mondiale. 

Jana Jabbour, Politique étrangère, n° 4/2020.

Accédez à l’émission dans son intégralité ici.

Retrouvez l’article de Jana Jabbour dans son intégralité ici.

Retrouvez le numéro 4/2020 de Politique étrangère ici.

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Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’hiver 2020-2021 de Politique étrangère (n° 4/2020). Julien Nocetti propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Samuel Woolley, The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth (PublicAffairs, 2020, 272 pages).

Les études sur la propagande et la désinformation sont traversées de nombreux chausse-trappes et néologismes. Dans The Reality Game, il n’est pas question de fake news ; pour l’auteur, l’expression, ultra-malléable, serait devenue un outil de diffusion massive des fausses informations elles-mêmes. Dans la foulée de travaux récents, Samuel Woolley, à la fois universitaire et think tanker, privilégie le terme de computational propaganda, qu’il estime refléter plus fidèlement les mutations technologiques en cours. Celle-ci consiste en la combinaison des usages des réseaux sociaux, des métadonnées (big data) et d’algorithmes d’Intelligence artificielle (IA) dans l’objectif de manipuler l’opinion publique.

Les illustrations abondent : recourir aux réseaux sociaux (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) pour attaquer anonymement des journalistes et les dissuader dans leurs enquêtes ; utiliser des serveurs vocaux interactifs imitant la voix humaine pour appeler simultanément des milliers d’électeurs et les désinformer ; utiliser l’IA et les bots pour fausser la communication humaine dans le but de piéger les algorithmes qui gèrent les nouvelles sur les moteurs de recherche et les réseaux sociaux en priorisant certaines par rapport à d’autres. L’idée derrière la computational propaganda est bien de permettre une propagande et une désinformation très personnalisées, tous azimuts, et difficilement maîtrisables pour la victime.

La propagande computationnelle a de nombreux effets bien réels, parfois physiques. Si Samuel Woolley livre des exemples concrets – l’affaire Jamal Khashoggi, les attentats du marathon de Boston en 2013 –, il souligne surtout la dérive technologique de la propagande et de la désinformation à l’ère du tout-numérique. Les vidéos deepfake, qui manipulent la réalité, deviennent de plus en plus crédibles grâce aux outils d’IA, créant un espace d’expression pour de nouveaux types de désinformation – peu coûteux – et présentant un risque élevé d’escalade, notamment dans des contextes électoraux.

Ces outils contribuent à élargir le cercle des acteurs pouvant influencer directement les opinions publiques, voire la prise de décision politique. La désinformation et la subversion « augmentées » à l’IA, moins statiques car diluant plus habilement qu’auparavant l’authentique dans la confusion, renouvelleront, selon l’auteur, les pratiques de guerre informationnelle.

Une autre difficulté majeure tient à l’alignement de facto des intérêts des principaux acteurs de l’« économie de l’attention » (les GAFAM), et de ceux produisant de la désinformation politique. Pour les États, l’un des défis consiste à agir sur le terrain politique en ne laissant pas aux grandes plates-formes le monopole de l’initiative technologique. Woolley n’élude pas la responsabilité des acteurs privés – dont YouTube, souvent « oublié » dans les débats –, qui préfèrent souvent se défausser derrière les promesses de l’IA pour éradiquer désinformation et propagande, au détriment de la prise en compte d’autres facteurs (conditions de travail et formation des modérateurs de ces plates-formes, interrogation sur le profil des consommateurs de la propagande computationnelle, etc.).

Enfin, un des messages de l’ouvrage – nous vivons à une époque où la quête pour contrôler la réalité devient ludique – aurait mérité d’être davantage approfondi, ce que l’auteur fera certainement dans de prochains travaux.

Julien Nocetti

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Retrouvez le sommaire du numéro 4/2020 de Politique étrangère ici.

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