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After his record landslide victory on 18 March, Russian President Vladimir Putin likely knows he cannot rest on his laurels. With oil prices unlikely to rise anytime soon, national economic stagnation, a still heavily State-and-oligarch-controlled economy and an ever-growing shadow of confrontation with the West, Putin has his work cut out for the next six years.

The turmoil of the Skripal case and the flurry of tensions with the ‘common West’ did not break the spirit of Vladimir Putin’s supporters. Thousands gathered at Manezhnaya Square to celebrate their champion’s historic victory (76.7 %, an increase of 13.1 percentage points since 2012).

But for Russia, nothing has ever been as uncertain as it is today. The question is whether Putin is ready to implement important economic reforms, at the expense of a minority that has backed him since the beginning. In addition, Putin must consider the global ramifications of Russia’s more assertive foreign policy. Finally, with the constitutional limit of two non-renewable terms, the question of Putin’s succession is on everyone’s mind.

Stagnation versus Reform and the limits of ‘Putinomics’

However much of an election or, rather, a referendum of public confidence that this presidential ballot was, it will not hide Russia’s stark economic reality. In spite of impressive progress since the Cold War, Russia remains crippled by economic stagnation. The still substantial power of the State apparatus and its enfeoffed oligarchs has led to an undiversified economy, low wages and endemic corruption.

There is no doubt that Putin has achieved substantial success in restoring order over the Russian economy. He has pursued privatization in a much less opaque way than predecessor Dmitry Medvedev, while maintaining control over key industrial and financial sectors. Since 2000, Russia’s GDP per capita has grown by 13%, generating significant improvements in living conditions. Russia’s debt-to-GDP ratio was just 12.6% in 2017, down from a massive 92.1% in 1999. Since the chaotic immediate post-Cold War years in the 1990s, there have been significant improvements in crime rates and public health.

Despite these successes, investment risks remain high. Corruption is still prevalent (with the recent tragic fire in Siberia providing a stark reminder) and remains a serious hindrance to foreign investment. Foreign firms frequently face expropriation, and this lack of long-term legal visibility and security deters investors. The current crisis with the ‘common West’ – as the phrase goes in Moscow – from Ukraine to the Skripal affair, will not help improve the situation.

With low FDI on the one hand, and contained oil prices on the other, stagnation is here to last. In many ways it was precisely through this scheme of economic stagnation, coupled with macroeconomic and political stability, that Putin consolidated his power. For many Russians, no Putin would mean a return to the 1990s, when shops were empty and people queued miles to buy daily essentials.

However, this stagnation/stability dichotomy is increasingly irrelevant. With its worrisome demographic situation, Russian politicians likely understand the need for reforms: the limits of ‘Putinomics’ have been reached. Whomever is appointed Russia’s new Prime Minister, the most probable short-term scenario is an increase in corporate tax (currently just 20%, four points below the OECD average) and personal income tax. Should new economic sanctions be imposed on Russia, a further devaluation of the ruble, albeit softer than Russia’s last devaluation, cannot be excluded either.

A more assertive foreign policy

Putin’s re-election sparked a mixed international reaction. Unsurprisingly it was met with tepid response from the West, persistently vocal in its criticism of Moscow’s obstinate behavior on the world stage. But within Europe, the rift between pro-Russia and Kremlin-wary countries is still wide. Not all of Europe joined the UK in its diplomatic retaliation to the Salisbury attack: only fifteen EU member-states decided to expel Russian diplomats. Recent visits to Moscow from Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel likely influenced both countries to stay neutral. This shows how divided Western countries can be when dealing with Putin, an aspect he can continue to exploit.

Though Putin knows the age of the liberal order may not be over, it is solidly challenged in every corner of the world by authoritarianism and ‘democratorship’ (to quote Swiss academic Max-Liniger Goumaz). China and Turkey, two countries whose leaders have recently consolidated their power, were unsurprisingly the first two countries to congratulate Putin on his re-election. Both will hope for tightened relationships with Russia in the years to come. And with a recent comeback in Africa – an old Cold War battleground – that hasn’t gone unnoticed, Russia must believe that current winds blow in its favor.

Most strikingly, Russia has been wearing down the global system of multilateralism that it has claimed to defend. Russia has long upheld the tradition of multilateralism, which has served its national interests well since 1945. But the 2008 Georgian war (later referred to as Europe’s first war of the 21st century), and later the intervention in Ukraine, reflected a significant departure in this regard. The most likely reason for this departure is nostalgia – not so much for the Soviet Union but for the two-player game.

In a world in which Russia’s ancestral enemy, the US, is still in the game, it is likely not bearable for the Russian elite to step aside, wearing the placard of historical loser. Therefrom, things that were unthinkable some years ago (like the so-called annexation of Crimea) became serious policy considerations. Putin is likely not done yet, having signaled his revived interest in solving Moldova’s Transnistria problem. But what is certain is that despite all of Putin’s flamboyant declarations on the modernisation of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, the West’s concern will lie more in Russia’s serious hybrid and high-tech war capabilities, for which development will surely stand at the top of Putin’s priorities for the next 6 years.

Last term for the Czar, but no end of reign

However pressing the challenges ahead, with a constitutional amendment highly unlikely, this is almost certainly Putin’s last Presidential term. In 2024, after almost a quarter of a century in power, Putin may even be keen to step back – back, but not out. As a former top Russian diplomat and senior political analyst informed the author several weeks ago, the most plausible scenario would be that Putin’s successor will rule the country under his mentor’s close and sharp eye. The intelligence services will still report to Putin (like during Putin’s premiership under Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency). Moreover, leaving the Kremlin may not mean leaving an official leadership position. The recent revival of the Russia-Belarus Union State represents a possible way out for Putin, enabling him to become President of an even larger entity.

As hinted at previously, it remains unclear where Putin’s heir will come from. One possibility is from the old guard of siloviki (former top officials or men of influence from the Soviet apparatus who accompanied Putin to the top and helped him reinforce his grip on power). Another possibility is from an emerging generation of young and ambitious protégés that Putin has been breeding for some time now, including his former bodyguard. Other uncertainties remain: will they come from Moscow, or from the rural provinces? Will they have a military/intelligence or civil background? Perhaps more than any other science, Kremlinology is an inexact and often surprising one.

 

This article was first published on Global Risk Insights, and was written by Gregorie Roos.

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US and South Korean army soldiers pose on a floating bridge on the Hantan River during a joint military exercise in Yeoncheon, South Korea, in December 2015. (Photo by AP)

This year’s U.S.-ROK annual joint military drills kicked off on 1 April after a delay of two months caused by the astonishingly fast-forwarded bilateral thaws between the Koreas, U.S. and China. The first part of the drills, Foal Eagle, will involve a field training exercise of 11,500 U.S. and 290,000 ROK troops and the remaining part, Key Resolve, will involve a computer-based-simulation exercise of 12,200 U.S. and 10,000 ROK troops. Although both U.S. and ROK military press releases announced that the intensity of the drills will be similar to that of last year, the drills are expected to be low-key, cautiously reflecting the thaws. The duration of Foal Eagle has been shortened from two months to one, and Key Resolve from one month to two weeks. Plans for U.S. strategic asset deployment have also been altered as the deployment of large-scale nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines has been cancelled. Allegedly, however, such cancellation is offset by the deployment of other assets, including those crucial to the operation of ‘Decapitation Strike’, such as MC-130, as well as those that support marine landing in case of full-scale war, such as the amphibious assault ship group USS Wasp.

Contrary to last year, when he vociferously starred as President Trump’s evil counterpart, Kim Jong-un has remained silent since he expressed that he ‘understands South Korea’s stance’ on the drills during his meeting with President Moon’s convoys on 5 March. Once called ‘Crazy Fat Kid’, Kim Jong-un now appears on TV like any other ordinary global leader with complete disregard for the public’s willingness to accept such anomaly. The bizarre images of him awkwardly shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping and IOC President Thomas Bach credit this fashion terrorist with the egregious hairstyle with rational characteristics and the capacity to run a ‘normal state’. Kim Jong-un’s gawky debut in the global diplomacy theater prior to the end of April meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, followed by the May meeting with President Trump, are, nonetheless, carefully planned attempts to play soft-powered preliminary warm-up.

Many experts agree that Kim Jong-un’s recent pro-diplomacy moves reveal his disguised intent to strengthen negotiation leverage for the May meeting. It is predicted that Kim Jong-un will ultimately demand the withdrawal of U.S. forces and strategic assets from the Korean peninsula through the orderly steps of earning recognition as a normal state, signing the peace treaty with the U.S., restoring diplomatic relations with the U.S., and damaging the U.S.-ROK alliance throughout the process. Backward induction of these future strategic aims, in conjunction with Kim Jong-un’s common ground interests with China and Russia’s emphasis on ‘double-freeze’, also explains the reclusive leader’s real intent, well-observable in his first foreign trip to China. China, vexed with its dwindling influence on the Korean peninsula since the startling U.S.-DPRK thaw, warmheartedly welcomed Kim Jong-un’s visit, which restored China’s seven-year decoupled diplomatic relations with North Korea. In response, Kim Jong-un shared with President Xi his refusal to accept the Libyan denuclearization model and alternatively proposed a procedural, step-by-step model to maximize his stakes. Kim Jong-un’s seemingly desperate yet innately strategic outreach now engages China in potentially alleviating sanctions and enlarging the pie on the negotiation table of the soon-to-be held six-party talks. Such guileful outreach will extend to other stakeholders as well. A number of experts anticipate that Kim Jong-un will soon meet with Russian President Putin to discuss the May meeting.

Can South Korea Save Itself?

The South Korean Moon administration’s subtle predilection for temporary peace over Complete, Verifiable, and Irreversible Denuclearization (CVID) calls into question whether recent temporary thaws can truly evolve into perpetual peace, given the fact that South Korea cannot defend itself (but such a leftist position is sympathetically understandable considering the doomsday nature of the war with Kim Jong-un). For some Korean conservatives, the emotional aspect of the currently deepening inter-Korean rapprochement seems to blind the Korean people into realizing the realpolitik beneath the thaws, a situation reminiscent of the geopolitical conditions that led to Nixon’s pursuit of Vietnamization during the U.S.-China détente era. Unless South Korea in the divided Korean peninsula has credible capacity to defend itself, the risks involving the incremental approach toward reunification should always be managed with a keen, vigilant reciprocity-oriented mentality.

The Kim dynasty has always taken advantage of the uncertainties arising from frequent regime changes in competitive democracy between the U.S. and South Korea, while the U.S.-ROK alliance has ironically suffered from the certainty shown in the Kim dynasty’s consistent policy pursuit of WMD development. Rewarding the Kim dynasty for its temporary for-aid deception under such uncertainties has always generated more next-level costs than benefits, while the Kim dynasty has repeatedly breached the Agreed Framework by non-compliance. Thus, the Kim dynasty’s abominable past records of repeatedly withdrawing from the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization)’s failures to certify the Kim dynasty’s commitment to ‘freeze’ plutonium production and programs all lead to one very clear conclusion. Even if the Moon administration’s goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula is a procedurally long-term one and the leftist regime does not seek a regime change in North Korea, such aims must reciprocally maximize its negotiation leverage by strategically devising a step-by-step blueprint for consistently punishing and sanctioning Kim Jong-un whenever he displays detracting behaviors.

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A 2-ship of Israeli Air Force F-16s from Ramon Air Base, Israel head out to the Nevada Test and Training Range, July 17, 2009 during Red Flag 09-4. Red Flag is a realistic combat training exercise involving the air forces of the United States and its allies. The exercise is conducted on the 15,000-square-mile Nevada Test and Training Range, north of Las Vegas. Red Flag is one of a series of advanced training programs administered by the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center and Nellis, through the 414th Combat Training Squadron. Flying for Red Flag 09-4 begins July 13 and ends July 24. U.S. aircraft will come from Nellis and Creech in Nevada, South Carolina, Idaho, the United Kingdom, Washington, Oklahoma and Ohio. Aircraft types will include F-15s, F-16s, E-3s and KC-135s. In addition to U.S. aircraft, the Israeli Air Force will be flying F-16C Falcons.
(U.S. Air Force photo/ Master Sgt. Kevin J. Gruenwald) released

Iran has been ratcheting up the rhetoric while Haaretz warns of the consequences of Iran’s ambitions in Syria. It all started back in February, when an Iranian drone and an Israeli F-16 were shot down at the Syria-Israel border. More incidents and additional quarrels over the Iran Nuclear Deal could lead to more grievous confrontations between the parties involved.

The drone and the F-16: the incident

On 10 February, the Israeli Air Force (IAF – Heyl Ha’Avir) intercepted and shot down an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that was flying within its borders. Soon after, the IAFdispatched its F-16I jetfighters in order to destroy the UAV control vehicle in Syrian territory. However, as the F-16Is engaged their targets, an intense barrage of anti-aircraft firewelcomed them. One F-16I was eventually shot down, while the two pilots managed to eject and landed on Israeli territory. In retaliation, Israel conducted surgical strikes against at least twelve Iranian targets within Syria.

A series of new developments

The events of 10 February represented a number of unprecedented developments. First, this was the first time that an Iranian drone penetrated Israeli airspace. Previously, Iran’s proxies – such as e.g. Hezbollah – usually carried out these tasks. This marks an upgrade in Tehran’s presence and involvement in operations against Israel. Also, the retaliation unleashed by the downing of the F-16 represented the first Israeli strike against manned Iranian bases. Hence, similarly to the Iranian counterpart, Israeli forces are not steering clear of a direct confrontation with their regional competitor.

Moreover, the IAF losing an aircraft is news in itself. Indeed, Israel had not lost a single jetfighter in a combat operation since the time of the Lebanon War at the beginning of the ‘80s. It is not clear what anti-aircraft weapon system brought the jetfighter down. IAF F-16Is are equipped with electronic countermeasures that give them an advantage against many anti-aircraft systems. There are, however, sophisticated systems in Syria – such as the Russian-made Buk-M1-2 or S-400 – that could successfully engage advanced jetfighters like the IAF F-16Is.

The loss of the jetfighter is noteworthy in another regard as well, as it could change Israel’s course of action. Indeed, Israel has been ceaselessly conducting airstrike in Syria throughout the Civil War, targeting Hezbollah’s supply chain as well as Syrian and Iranian strategic military facilities and bases. This line of conduct might be subject to change in light of these recent events; as an Iranian official commented, “the era of hit and run is over” and his words might ring partially or entirely true.

Leaders send warning from Munich

Displaying a piece of the UAV downed over the skies of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran from the stage of the Munich Security Conference to not “test Israel’s resolve”. Netanyahu asserted that Israel would not let Tehran proceed with their plans against Tel Aviv, stating that his country is ready to wage war against Iran or its proxies to defend itself.

While Iran rejected all accusations brought forth by Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister might find additional reasons to reinforce his anti-Iranian foreign policies in recent domestic developments. The Israeli police recently claimed to have enough evidence to charge Netanyahu with corruption. Faced with this accusation, the Prime Minister might be strongly motivated to show resolve against Israel’s arch-enemy in order to deflect attention from himself – more so as if he can count on the Trump administration’s unconditional support and even on the assistance of countries equally worried about Iran’s rise, like Saudi Arabia.

Also in Munich, Lebanon’s Defense Minister Yaacoub Sarraf reacted to Netanyahu’s words. Commenting on the Israeli Prime Minister’s promise to go after Iran’s proxies, Sarraf asserted that the government in Beirut is ready and willing to defend its territory against external aggression. Any Israeli operations taking place on Lebanese soil would, therefore, prompt an armed reaction against it. Sarraf’s pledge may well prove empty, as it is hard to imagine Beirut conducting military operations against Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, Israel will feel forced to gauge potential reactions from other neighbouring countries besides Syria. Meanwhile, there have been further revelations about Iran allegedly having up to 10 military bases in Syria, two of them near Israel’s border.

The Nuclear Deal as the final straw?

The year 2018 will see an increase in tension between Iran and Israel. This could potentially lead to a limited, regional conflict between Tel Aviv and Tehran’s proxies. Yet, while the anti-Iranian front tightens, a more direct confrontation might arise from the Nuclear Deal. Indeed, the dissatisfaction of Israel and the USA grows, since they believe the Deal is incapable of preventing Iran from getting nuclear capabilities.

At the same time, Iran’s resentment towards the US is increasing. In particular, Iran accusesthe Trump administration of meddling in its business with other countries in order to counter the positive effects that the lifting of the sanctions ensued. Under such circumstances, the Nuclear Deal does not pay off and Iran would benefit from withdrawing. In this regard, Tehran warned its competitors that the world “would face another nuclear crisis, which would be very difficult to be resolved”, if the Nuclear Deal was to be scrapped.

If this is going to be the case, Iran will surely re-embark on its nuclear endeavour with renewed vigour. Simultaneously, Israel, the US, and the rest of the regional powers worried about Iran’s rise, might push for more aggressive solutions in order to deal with the prospects of a nuclear Iran once and for all. If diplomacy loses this round, the probability of a direct confrontation between these parties will increase dramatically.

 

This article was first published on Global Risk Insights, and was written by Mauro Lubrano.

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Today, some of Europe’s poorest countries are critical to China’s global economic development strategy. Under the 16+1 sub-regional framework, which includes eleven countries from central and eastern Europe and five from the Balkans (CEEC), China is pursuing investment opportunities in infrastructure in order to enhance its connectivity with the European region.

Thus far, Chinese interests have been universally welcomed by the sixteen nations with political elites keen to boost their fragile economies in post-recessionary times. However, as economic cooperation grows between China and its former socialist allies, the political implications are becoming more apparent. As the EU strives to sustain its ‘One-Europe’ policy with China, how some of its members and potentially future members embrace China’s global ambitions could undermine EU cohesion as it continues to endure instability.

The new Silk Road

The 16+1 framework is a key component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to integrate the Asian country more deeply into the world economy. The initiative, launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013, underpins the Communist Party’s economic and geopolitical vision to connect China with the world. Considered as the biggest foreign investment by any one country since the US Marshall Plan, the BRI project spans 70 countries and aims to connect Central Asia with Europe, Africa, and Oceania through investment and trade in the areas of energy, infrastructure, and transformation.

Some of the projects include a railway line from Kazakhstan to Iran, a high-speed railway running from Southern China through South-East Asia, oil pipelines connecting Russia and China, a gas pipeline in Pakistan, highways in Hungary, and a railway connecting Budapest with Belgrade. Despite the estimated $4 trillion cost of the BRI, its objectives are not only economic. Enabled by positive economic relations, cultural exchanges between China and BRI participant states have increased with more opportunities for student-exchanges while foreign literature and cinema enters the Chinese market. Most significantly, the BRI is central to China’s political ambitions. Last October, it was enshrined into the Communist Party’s constitution, signalling the centrality of foreign policy to the ruling party and Xi Jinping’s desire to enhance China’s global image. As China’s global influence continues to grow, how will the West, grappling with its own challenges, react to the rising star of the East?

China sees Europe as pivotal to the revival of the old Silk Road, which launched China’s regional development over 2000 years ago. China’s strategic ambitions in Europe are underscored by its economic initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). According to the state-owned news agency, Xinuanet, Chinese investment in the CEE has surpassed $9 billion with $1.4 billion of investment going in the opposite direction. For some of Europe’s poorest countries, Chinese investment could be critical in building and upgrading energy plants, railways, motorways, and airports. Some of the big deals in the CEE involving Chinese investment include a €3 billion expressway connecting Montenegro and Albania; a €1.4 billion linking the Bosnian municipalities of Banja Luka and Mlinište; and a €1 billion project in the Czech Republic to create a Y-shaped canal connecting the waterways of the Danube, the Oder, and the Elbe. Moreover, in November Serbia began construction of the China-funded railway from Belgrade to Budapest worth around €3.2 billion.

The Balkans and Baltic regions are especially critical to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Two routes outline China’s historic project: The Silk Road Economic Belt, which enters Europe through the Baltic corridor, and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which passes through the Southern Balkans. In 2016, the Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO bought a majority stake in Greece’s largest port, Piraeus. Through investment worth hundreds of millions of euros, COSCO aims to strengthen the port’s capacity and trade relations with the EU. In the Baltics, states are competing with one another for Chinese investment and exportsto China have more than doubled in recent years. Chinese tourism to the Baltic region has reached record levels, rising by 57.8% in Latvia in 2016. China sees the Baltics and Balkans as the gateway to the wider EU region and are critical to China’s new Silk Road.

Political consequences

China’s influence in the CEE transcends economic interests. On the political front, diplomatic relations have strengthened between China and several European countries. In November, China promised $3 billion in investment funds to the CEE at the fifth annual summit of the 16+1 framework in Budapest as Chinese leaders were joined by the heads of the sixteen countries. Hungary, in particular, has been very welcoming to Chinese interests. Its  right-wing Eurosceptic prime minister, Victor Orban, claimed that a new world order was forming and that ”the world economy’s centre of gravity is shifting from west to east”.

In the Czech Republic, President Milos Zeman has stressed the importance of relations with China over other actors such as the EU and NATO. In 2014, Zeman travelled to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and in 2016, the same meeting took place in Prague, with Jinping stating that both countries should see stronger relations ”from a strategic viewpoint and long-term perspective”.

Serbia represents another country to benefit from Chinese investment and strong political ties. Serbia, one of the Balkan countries applying for accession to the EU, has welcomed Chinese investment to improve its railways, roads, and energy plants. On his visit in June 2016, Xi Jinping said that Serbia was the point where civilisations of the west and east meet, suggesting the importance of the Balkan country to China’s BRI. In addition, China is one of the few countries to support the Serbian position of not recognising Kosovo.

Although China insists that the sub-regional 16+1 framework is central to the China-EU ”strategic partnership”, the EU is concerned that China is deploying ”divide and rule” tactics to damage European cohesion. The EU has called on all its members to respect the one-Europe policy and speak with one voice to the Chinese government. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Foreign Minister Sigmur Gabriel conveyed concern over Chinese influence in the EU’s periphery. Merkel stated that the 16+1 group should not contain political strings, while Gabriel warned that ”China will succeed in dividing Europe” if Europe fails to develop a single strategy towards China. China has rejected the notion of a one-Europe policy on political and economic grounds, given that ”the EU is a regional organization composed of sovereign states, not a sovereign country itself”.

There is evidence to suggest that China’s perceived strategy in Europe has caused division between Brussels and some of Europe’s sovereign nations. According to Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, the Balkans has no alternative but to welcome Chinese investment given the EU’s neglect of the region. Moreover, in 2016, Greece and Hungary compromisedthe EU’s legal stance on China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, while an EUstatement criticising China’s human rights record was blocked by Greece last year.

As parts of Europe continue to suffer the consequences of the financial crisis, Chinese investment is a welcomed opportunity to create jobs, upgrade infrastructure, and enhance economic competitiveness. However, the political impact of China’s economic interests in Europe is creating the most tension, especially in Brussels. For the EU, strong relations between China and the 16+1’s eleven EU members threatens the Union’s one-Europe policyvis a vis Beijing. In addition, five non-EU countries are part of the Western Balkan enlargement strategy, which aims to integrate the region into the EU by 2025. Seeing that the EU views the Balkan’s relationship with China as gaining leverage on Brussels, growing Chinese influence in the region could undermine the future of EU enlargement.

 

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This article was first published on Global Risk Insights.

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On February 26, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck 35 kilometers underneath the Southern Highlands in Papua New Guinea, causing at least fifty deaths. An Australian Air Force plane carrying relief supplies landed five days later amid criticism that aid had been too slow to arrive.

The effectiveness of the Australian response in PNG will only become evident in time. Yet similar criticisms were also made in the response to Cyclone Pam, which hit Vanuatu three years ago. An internal report into Australia’s assistance in the recovery effort by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) found that progress was ‘less than expected’ and the program required ‘restorative action’. Australia committed $35m in long-term recovery money, but how that money was spent is unclear.

Cutting foreign aid

These events are a stark reminder that Canberra has been steadily cutting its foreign aid budget for years. The Abbot government retired AusAid and undermined the internal skills and knowledge built up over the years when the program was absorbed into DFAT. Similarly, the Turnbull government’s 2017 White Paper does not provide a clear guideline for Australian aid and only alludes to the program in the context of broader issues. Australia’s current aid program is consequently the least generous in history. The share of aid to gross national income was .22% in 2016-2017, and Australia’s aid program has dropped to 17th out of 29 in OECD rankings (which measure aid spending as a proportion of GDP).

These declines will be strongly felt in the South Pacific, the destination for most of Australia’s foreign aid. Climate change will adversely affect low-lying Pacific nations sooner, and to a greater extent, than most other places on Earth. Sea levels are expected to rise at least a meter by 2100, and tropical cyclones are expected to increase in frequency and intensity. Over the last ten years inclement weather has caused economic losses equivalent to 15-25%of GDP. The government of Kiribati is seriously considering abandoning the country altogether in the face of declining space and the contamination of freshwater supplies.

Australia remains the dominant donor to Pacific Island states, followed by the United States. Yet much of Australia’s aid program is now run by four private companies; Cardno Emerging Markets, Palladium International, Coffey International Development and ABT Associates, which have together been granted almost $4 billion since 2014 and $461.8 million in the last financial year. Paul Ronalds, chief executive of Save the Children, has said that outsourcing to private companies means ‘less contact’ with aid groups that have experience in local communities. It also reduces the visibility of the Australian government.

China’s growing influence

There is increasing concern that China will fill the gap. Beijing has been stepping up aid activity across the region in recent years. For example, it has committed a total of $632 million in grants and concessional loans to fund infrastructure in Papua New Guinea, including hospitals, universities, and government IT systems. Interestingly, these IT systems are contracted to Huawei, a Chinese company that was banned from participating in the construction of Australia’s National Broadband Network due to security concerns raised by national intelligence services (the company is accused of having opaque links to the Chinese military). Unlike Canberra, however, the government in Port Moresby is not in a political or financial position to refuse Beijing, as doing so may jeopardise other Chinese aid projects.

The second-largest regional recipient of Chinese aid is Fiji. Beijing is funding the construction of major roads, bridges, and seawalls, and donated 500 tons of essential supplies in the wake of Cyclone Winston in 2016. It has also donated computers to the Fijian military and anti-riot equipment to Fijian police forces in the lead-up to an election. China is now the largest foreign aid donor to Fiji, followed by Australia, and unlike Canberra has maintained ties with the government in Suva following the coup in 2006. Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainarama has said that Fiji’s cooperation with China “reminds [Australia and New Zealand] that countries like Fiji have options”.

The strategic effects of Australia’s cuts to foreign aid funding are not yet clear. However, the Trump administration’s plan to cut foreign aid by a third will only increase the aid gap already opened by Canberra. It is therefore no surprise that Beijing has seen an opportunity to expand its influence. China is set to become the largest foreign aid donor to Samoa and Tonga, and will soon overtake Washington as the region’s second-largest donor. It is also increasing economic and military ties. Trade between China and Pacific island states doubled between 2014 and 2015 alone, and Beijing has signed memorandums of understanding with the Fijian military. It seems that the strategic competition between superpowers is spilling into the blue waters of the South Pacific.

 

This article was first published by Global Risk Insights, and was written by Ewen Levick.

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A woman is seen near posters placed at a bus stop in support of Brazilian former President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, in Brasilia, Brazil, January 22, 2018. A sign reads: “Lula innocent, Lula indecent”.REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

While difficult to measure a few months before elections are to take place, major national and regional changes are coming to the Americas, with votes likely determining the future economic and security focus of the region.

When considering NAFTA, it could be that the waves created by Trumps bargaining approach may be less of a challenge than electoral change on the US border. With Mexico having a Presidential election this year, and the next President of Mexico having one term of six years to focus on their policy file, any agreements between NAFTA partners may be re-set depending on who wins the Mexican election. It is really difficult to determine who will win in Mexico, as the current establishment party of the PRI runs a young challenger while dealing with a strong push against corruption and security in Mexico. With the PRI being seen by many as skilled practitioners of corruption historically as well as during their last mandate, the field is open for the combined PAN and PRD candidate as well as Lopez Obrador, former left leaning mayor of Mexico City. Obrador may be an interesting choice as a left leaning popular elected official to determine the future of NAFTA negotiations, but will also likely create more uncertainty where popularly elected politicians have already created mixed reactions to NAFTA talks. The PAN and PRD joint party would be an interesting outcome, as a more regional conservative party linked with a social democratic party would make for some negotiated balance in policy, perhaps acting as a bulkhead against old style PRI institutional politics as well as the election of yet another populist leader. It will be a difficult choice with no stark contenders in this year’s Mexican election.

Brazil looks to be choosing Lula in their election this year, if he does not get banned or put in jail for past accusations of corruption. With the judiciary taking to task the entire elite structure in Brazil, it seems as if everyone has been touched by corruption, and the choice between one candidate and another is like choosing between an apple with worms or an orange with mold. Openly knowing about corrupt practices of a candidate and still being elected has occurred before in the Americas, but it is not a choice a voter would like to have as it is confirming a sense of hopelessness. The law of corruption if it was to be seen as a law of physics is that once it takes hold, it is nearly impossible to remove without an excessive response. With Brazil’s judiciary going above and beyond their role as a separate branch of government, their cleaning out of their elite and institutionalized corruption has also created a political ripple effect where interested parties and have and have-nots have taken to politicize the great purge of the elite. With all of the chaos and uncertainty, it could be that the comfort and stability during Lula’s past terms in office might propel him back into office, even if he was shown to be one of the corrupt elite himself. It seems as if the law of corruption might yet again be proven.

An election in one of the largest and the most indebted region in North America, if not the world, is taking place in Canada’s own Ontario. After 15 years of the same government and massive eye watering debt and a legal sentencing coming for a former Chief of Staff coming this month, the seat of the most skilled practitioners of corruption may have a challenger. With the Premier’s approval rating narrowing towards the single digits, the Liberal Party of Ontario’s leader decided to pile on the debt by promising everything to everyone, costing inexplicable amounts more to which the Auditor General of Ontario took to challenging, along with credit rating agencies as well as citizens in Ontario from Small Business owners to Doctors to those who were recently unable to fund heating their homes a few winters ago. The effect of taking half of Canada’s economy and piling on taxes, debt and accusations against anyone who disagrees with these absurd debt laden promises will have a questionable effect on NAFTA. Raising taxes when you have record debt to preserve the political careers of a handful of failed politicians unmeasured against a US economy with low business taxes is tantamount to ignoring the laws of economic theory when you are applying the laws of corruption. With Ontario also being the economic glue that holds divisive regions together in Canada, targeting the energy industry in Alberta and asking an economically growing Quebec to pay into Ontario’s debt will create fractures in the Canadian Federation mirroring the current state of affairs in Catalonia. Accusing others of taking personal actions to cover bad decisions as well in Ottawa also will not help reduce any of these problems.

With the election of the new President in Venezuela being wholly determined by the current President of Venezuela, corruption clearly demonstrates its path to one party state rule. It is clear where corrupt practices have lead, but to move on from them may prove to be more difficult than just promising everything, looking to the past or just being a bit less corrupt than the next person running for office. As it seems, the laws of corruption tend to stand firmly in place.

The post Voting Against the Law of Corruption appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The annual full session of the National People’s Congress, which began on 5 March, sees President Xi Jinping on the way to becoming China’s “Emperor” for life.

Following the party’s Central Committee proposal of eliminating the limits for the country’s president from the constitution – currently set at a maximum of two consecutive terms – Xi is likely to remain China’s leader and rule well beyond 2023, when his five-year mandate would previously ahve come to an end.

A one-man show

In last year’s party congress, it became clear that a new era was born under Xi Jinping and he has no intention of stepping down in the future. His name and political thought theory, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, were added to the party constitution.

“Xi Jinping has finally achieved his ultimate goal when he first embarked on Chinese politics – that is to be the Mao Zedong of the 21st century.”

– Willy Lam, political analyst at the Chinese University in Hong Kong

Xi’s presidency has been marked by an increasingly powerful cult of personality, along with a dangerous lack of political opposition and a dismal human rights record. In fact, other than being President of the People’s Republic of China, he also serves as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

As Xi holds the top offices of the party, the state, and the military, and with the previous party congress ending without appointing a clear eventual successor, it is not difficult to see why some describe him as “China’s most authoritarian leader since Mao”.

Since Xi became president of China in 2012, his strongman image has played a key role in determining China’s domestic and foreign policies. At the domestic level, his ruthless anti-corruption campaign has become a stronghold of his consolidation of power. Used to intimidate or eliminate cadres and party members who disagree with him or represent a threat to his political ambitions, Xi Jinping’s campaign has been leading him to finally achieve his sought after one-man show.

Xi’s assertiveness is also evident at the foreign policy level. From showing off China’s hard power in the South China Sea, to its increasingly strong soft power projections in the form of billions of dollars invested in Asia and Africa, Xi Jinping’s China is more powerful and influential than before.

Emperor for life

The 64-year-old leader could now be only one step away from tightening his grip on China and stay in office indefinitely. News regarding the presidency term limits broke in a two-sentence article on 25 March, as reported by Xinhua, China’s official newswire:

“The Communist Party of China Central Committee proposed to remove the expression that the President and Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China ‘shall serve no more than two consecutive terms’ from the country’s Constitution”.

If this reform proposal encounters zero opposition at the National People’s Congress, it is fair to accept that China will continue to move forward according to Xi’s thoughts, economic reforms and political strategy. Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the party-run tabloid, Global Times, tweeted that the “removal of the two-term limit of the president of PRC doesn’t mean China will restore life-long tenure for state leader”. However, this unexpected announcement is likely only the beginning of an even more prominent crackdown that will affect China’s standing in the international community.

The state propaganda machine, which was immediately put in motion after the announcement to respond to the social media backlash, has not been able to mitigate the concerns of the economic and social risks linked to this reform. Given Xi’s already heavy-handed approach on China’s economy and his government’s clampdowns on freedoms – such as online censorship and human rights abuses – his “emperor for life” status doesn’t come without risks.

Heading towards a “One China, One System”?

The next challenge for Beijing will be the aftermath of the Hong Kong elections from March 11th. In the crossfire of criticism for the disqualification of activist Agnes Chow – representative of the pro-democracy party Demosisto, Xi Jinping’s government is accused of infringing the “One China, Two Systems” model that allows Hong Kong to hold a certain degree of political autonomy.

Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Patrick Nip, agreed to review Hong Kong’s electoral laws in the wake of a recent court ruling that granted officials’ power to ban candidates because of their political views. Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in Hong Kong is undeniable.

During the Party Congress held in October 2017, Xi Jinping reaffirmed Beijing would not allow anyone to “separate any part of the Chinese territory from China”. Fast forward to today, his statement can be interpreted as a constitutional reform by extending Xi’s mandate and, therefore imply a much-feared transformation towards a “One China, One System” model.

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United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May switches on No10 Downing Street Lights for visits Brussels, Belgium to meet with Jean-Claude Juncker the President of the European Commission.

The transition agreement between the UK and EU means that although the UK will officially leave the EU in March 2019, it will still remain in the customs union and single market for another 21 months. The deal was struck after several concessions by the UK, indicating the government’s willingness to sacrifice regaining full sovereignty in order to reach a trade agreement at the end of the negotiating period.

The UK’s concessions are indicative of the government’s broader negotiating strategy with the EU. While Theresa May has often claimed that no deal would be better than a bad deal and that she is prepared to walk away from negotiations, in practice, she has been very keen to compromise in order to reach an agreement. The transition agreement was struck almost completely on the EU’s terms.

Negotiations over the transition demonstrate the UK’s desire for reaching a wider withdrawal agreement even if that may mean making concessions on their part. The transition agreement thus increases the likelihood of an orderly withdrawal which would entail at least a limited free-trade agreement. During the transition, EU migrants arriving into the UK will continue to be granted permanent residency and the EU will continue to set fishing quotas. These terms violate May’s red lines of taking back control of borders and laws immediately after Brexit, and reflect a realization that despite May’s rhetoric, the UK would bear the brunt of the economic costs that a no-deal Brexit would bring about.

Muted political backlash from Brexiteers
Given the concessions over EU citizenship rights and fishing, the backlash from the Brexiteers in the Conservative party has been subdued. Jacob Rees Mogg, the head of the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) faction of the Conservative Party previously warned that a transition deal would make the UK a “vassal state,” but now argues that he could live with the transition arrangement as long as the final withdrawal arrangement is satisfactory. There has been no serious threat to rebel against the government or the Prime Minister even though she has violated most of her previous “red lines.”

There are two reasons why Conservative Eurosceptics are still overtly supporting the Prime Minister. First, any attempt to vote against the government in October on the EU Withdrawal Bill might lead to fresh elections. Polls are currently neck and neck, which means that the Labour party has a non-trivial probability of winning. Labour is committed to striking a customs arrangement with the EU, which is anathema to many Conservative Brexiteers. Therefore, this option is highly risky for them.

Second, while the ERG could try to trigger an internal Conservative Party leadership election by instigating a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister, party rules state that a majority of Tory MP’s have to vote against the incumbent leader. This is unlikely to happen because there is no credible alternative candidate who can unite the party’s Remain and Leave camps. Moreover, there is simply no appetite for a leadership election at such a critical stage in the negotiations.

Therefore, Tory Brexiteers are unable to turn their displeasure over the transition deal into concrete action. Their lukewarm opposition to the concessions to secure the transition agreement demonstrates that the Prime Minister is not as beholden to the group of hard-line Brexiteers as previously thought, which makes it more likely that a final agreement with the EU will be reached.

Updated probabilities of final outcomes
Given Theresa May’s greater latitude for action, it is worth reevaluating the likelihood and impact of three of the most probably Brexit scenarios. The most likely of these is the signing of a limited free trade agreement in goods. As the EU runs a trade deficit with the UK of around £95 billion, it would be in its interest to strike a tariff-free goods agreement. The UK, despite demanding the full restoration of its sovereignty while maintaining full access to the single market, has demonstrated an increasing willingness to compromise in these negotiations so far. The Government’s official policy that no deal is better than a bad deal does not have much credibility at the moment.

A comprehensive deal would involve facilitating trade in services, however, trade in services is usually more complex to negotiate. Negotiations are set to complete in October 2018, and there simply might not be enough time to negotiate such a comprehensive deal. Importantly, this means UK financial services will likely lose their “passporting” rights to sell their products across the EU. Given the centrality to financial services to UK’s economy, a limited free trade agreement would entail significant economic costs to the UK. However, it would be preferable to a no-deal scenario under which the UK would fall back on WTO rules.

An obstacle to this outcome is the problem of the border in Northern Ireland. Leaving the customs union would risk creating a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland which would threaten the Good Friday Agreement. The UK government is committed to preventing a hard border, but has not yet laid out how it would achieve this objective if it leaves the customs union.

Alternatively, to solve the Irish border conundrum, the UK could try to strike a new customs arrangement with the rest of the EU. Although the government has ruled out a customs arrangement, there is a pro-customs union majority in Parliament at the moment. If the government does not come up with a solution of its own, it might have to soften its position and aim to strike a customs arrangement, meaning this scenario remains a real possibility.

Finally, if there is no withdrawal agreement, economic risk will be significantly heightened. Trade flows and air traffic will be significantly disrupted and the legal status of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU would be unclear, while a hard border in Ireland would be likely. However, the recent negotiations over the transition process makes this outcome highly improbable. The UK’s negotiating strategy has followed a clear trend – the further the negotiations go, the more willing the UK has become to compromise to strike an agreement. The domestic political response to the transition has exposed the limited ability of the hard-line backbench Brexiteers to force the government’s hand. Moreover, the transition agreement has also engendered a mood of cautious optimism that a deal can be reached decreasing the chances of this worst case, “no-deal” scenario.

 

This article first ran on Global Risk Insights, and was written by Aman Navani

The post Theresa May’s evolving Brexit strategy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

 

John Bolton speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Oxon Hill, Maryland, U.S. February 24, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

John Bolton’s alarming return to a position of power, as top aide to the United States’ President, is cause for worry. A die-hard self-described Americanist, Bolton sees the world in black and white. In his thesis, “Should We Take Global Governance Seriously?”, published in 2000, Bolton outlined an America divided between “Globalists,” a small coterie of highly educated academic intellectuals, and “Americanists,” virtually everyone else. In a wide-ranging career in public office, Bolton has un-diplomatically torn into the United Nations, criticized international treaties, backed conspiracy theorists, supported military wars as primary solution to dictate foreign policy, and scoffed at non-governmental agendas like human rights.

Bolton’s resistance to the United Nations, the poster-organization of multilateral decision-making, underlies his studied indifference to international treaties, per se. As recently as last year, Bolton penned an essay, titled “How to Defund the UN”, in the Wall Street Journal. A graduate and undergraduate student of law from Yale University, Bolton disavows the basic tenets of international law. Most lawyers generally agree that international treaties derive their power, or legitimacy, not because they are legally binding by definition, but because they are unequivocally accepted as a legal concept and widely treated as such. For Bolton, however, adherence to international treaties maybe prompted by political or moral motivations, but never by course of legal obligations. More than that, Bolton believes that international treaties constrain the United States from acting in its own best interests.

The United States government, however, has frequently treated international treaties as legally binding for all decades in history. As far back as 1946, when France breached the Air Service Agreement, the United States asserted transgression of an international obligation and applied countermeasures. The countermeasures were upheld by an international arbitral tribunal.

Let’s consider a more recent example. In 1996, Bill Clinton became the first leader to sign onto a pact, called the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, that aimed to curb nuclear proliferation in the world. However, according to a constitutionally directed process, in which all treaties have to abide “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,” the nuclear arms treaty fell into the pits of political decay. Nearly two years later, in 1999, the Senate reviewed and rejected it. Clinton, who saw the decision as a severe setback to his administration, assured allies that he would, according to the Vienna Convention of 1969, which, too, the Senate never signed as party, uphold the intent of the treaty still.

Even though the Senate’s decisions should have been to Bolton’s liking, he was infuriated. In Bolton’s eyes, Clinton should have asserted constitutional supremacy instead of cleaving unnecessarily to external constraints.

When the same treaty banning nuclear arms was revived for discussion in the Senate in 2001, Bolton, then acting as George Bush’s Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, asked the State Department’s legal office if the President could unilaterally withdraw a treaty from the Senate. The lawyers responded, and said—“no.”

In a 1997 testimony before the House International Relations Committee, Bolton claimed that the United States did not have to pay dues “decided by the General Assembly or other governing bodies”; that is, according to the United Nations Charter. Seen in this context, it is hardly surprising that the United States’ invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, in circumvention of the UN Security Council’s authorization, were seen by Bolton as a triumph for the nation.

Now, Trump has appointed Bolton to advise him as his National Security Advisor from April. The increasing “presidentialization” of the position, or the role of an individual alone to exercise influence in politics, and the marginalization of other key positions, like the Secretary of State, is not lost on those working in the administration. Aligned with plenty of ideas consistent with the President’s “America First” vision, Bolton has called for tearing up the Iran nuclear deal, and for preemptively striking North Korea. In the past, Bolton has also floated the idea that Israel should strike Iranian nuclear facilities. Judging by the options that have been floated so far, there is only one question left to be asked—is Bolton’s influence going to remain implicit or made explicit by the administration? 

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Sunset in Siberia, 2018. J.Quirk

Reports from Russian announced that Vladimir Putin won over 76% of the votes in his reelection bid March 18, with turnout over 67%.

The view from Siberia was a little different.

OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, sent nearly 600 short-term, long-term, and other election observers to Russia.  In its next-day report, OSCE noted that in an environment of state-owned television networks, “television coverage was characterized by extensive and unchallenged reporting of the incumbent’s official activities.” More curiously, OSCE described election day itself as technically competent but ultimately spoiled. “Overall,” it judged, “election day was conducted in an orderly manner despite shortcomings related to vote secrecy and transparency of counting.”  The election was run well, it seemed to judge, except for the voting and the counting.

OSCE dispatched more than 200 pairs of short-term observers, each with a local driver and interpreter, all over the country.  Some observers had done this many times across the Balkans and post-Soviet space, while for others it was their first mission. Observers included chief elections administrators from cities across the U.S., EU “Former Ministers of Something,” and at least one former member of the U.S. Congress.

A voter in Siberia, March 18, 2018. J.Quirk

My partner and I joined four other teams on an overnight flight to a mid-sized Siberian city; from there we drove four hours to smaller communities.  The flat, snowy landscape was broken up only by lines of birch trees and the occasional petrol station. We benefited from the beginning of spring weather and reliable roads. Other teams enjoyed 15⁰C resort-living in the south or the chance for a bit of tourism in St. Petersburg, while some endured flying ten or more hours east, or driving off the road in a snowstorm.

After two days of briefings in Moscow, the short-term observers’ work begins the day before the election. Our responsible driver and informative polyglot kept us safe and on course. We located and inspected the polling stations in a hospital, at a football stadium, at a coal mining company HQ, and in several schools.  People were generally finishing or finished with preparations for the next day. Across the towns, there were a few posters and billboards for candidates. Most, though, were targeting turnout with patriotic white, blue, and red calls to vote for “Our country, our president, our choice.”

Voting was brisk in the morning, but we had a question about mobile voting. Large percentages of voters in some polling stations were scheduled to be individually visited, handed a ballot, and have their vote collected in a mobile ballot box. These visits are a nice service for homebound voters, but they are not followed by international or local observers. In cases where mobile voting was intended to serve 20 or 30 percent of the polling station’s list of voters, we were told it was because there were many older voters. But the challenge to visit 200 or 300 voters in a few hours seemed substantial.

“Our country, our president, our choice.” J.Quirk

The counting itself gave us as much pause. It was at the individual polling stations, not regional or central locations, where the actual counting was done. In theory, a ballot box would be emptied on a large table. One by one, each and every ballot would be displayed to the polling station workers and to any observers. (There were observers from several candidates or parties at most polling stations.)  “A vote for Candidate X,” and anyone could question it. It would make for a long but accurate count. Instead, the big pile of ballots was divided by four or five poll workers into new piles, one for each candidate. Observers watched from a distance and could see some accuracy but not each ballot.  Each poll worker counted her pile (poll workers were overwhelmingly women in our area), and in turn announced simply, “Zhirinovsky, 22”, “Sobchak, 44,” “Putin, 701,” etc.  There was no recounting of someone else’s pile, and no obvious reconciliation among the number of the day’s voters and the total of the candidates’ piles. (The next-day OSCE report noted that many observation teams reported this same practice.) These tallies were recorded, entered into a computer, and sent. The ballots themselves were sealed in bags and delivered to the regional center, where we were told they would be locked in a room for a year. There seemed to be no built-in sampling of the bags of ballots, for example – “this one says Yavlinsky, 18 votes, let’s check it for accuracy.”

This doesn’t mean there was fraud at this stage: I watched one woman count her Grudinin pile. I was several feet away, but she seemed to be counting earnestly, flicking the top right corner of each ballot in her pile with her right index finger. She and I got the same number, but she went through the whole pile only one time.

At least one more difference between this election observation mission and others on which I served was the motivation of the host country.  In Albania’s 2011 local elections, for example, they needed to demonstrate that they had the technical capacity and political commitment to hold free and fair elections, as one small step on the long road to the EU.  Instead, the race for Tirana mayor was extremely close, the national election commission overruled the local ones in some key ways, and Edi Rama launched a series of controversial appeals before officially losing by just 81 votes.

Russia and President Putin didn’t seem to have to appease international observers, only national public opinion.  Live Internet webcams inside polling stations across the country captured a number of apparent irregularities, including ballot-box stuffing, that were shown on foreign newscasts around the world. But it seemed to some of us that an inspiring turnout to match the candidate-choice results was a higher priority than impressing temporary guests.

A final note: in some ways, these are not just technical, legal administrative matters, but foreign exchange programs. We met dozens of people working the polls, but also on airplanes, in hotels, in shops and cafes, and elsewhere. Most Russians were met were friendly, cooperative, and interested in doing their work while we did ours. The political atmosphere prevented more opportunities for rich, personal exchanges, but I hope my partner and I were as effective unofficial ambassadors for our countries as so many of the Russians we met were for theirs.

The post Russia’s Elections: The View from Siberia appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The Horn of Africa is among the most congested, eventful, and most volatile geopolitical intersections on earth. It is where the West meets the East in a highly competitive game of strategic positioning for economic or hegemonic advantage.

China and Turkey who, more or less, employ similar soft-power strategies have tangible investments in various countries in the region, including Ethiopia. However, the widespread discontent with Ethiopia’s repressive impulses and its ethnic favoritism that led to a particular ethnic minority (Tigray) to exclusively operate the state apparatus has inspired Arab Spring-like mass protests. These protests have caused serious rancor within the ruling party. It is only a matter of time before this haemorrhaging government might collapse.

So, who is likely to gain or lose from this imminent shockwave in the region’s balance of power?

The Nile Tsunami

Ethiopia — a country previously considered as a stable regional hegemon, a robust emerging market, and a reliable counter-terrorism partner — is on the verge of meltdown, if not long-term civil strife.

Today, the Ethiopian government is caught between two serious challenges of domestic and foreign nature: the Oromo/Amhara mass protests tacitly supported by the West, and the water rights conflict with Egypt, Sudan and Somalia.

Ethiopia is claiming the lion’s share on the Nile that runs through it and other rivers that flow from its highlands for the Grand Renaissance Dam – thus presenting existential threats to the connected nations.

For the third time in three years, the Shabelle River has dried up, putting millions of Somalis at risk of starvation.

But the current government is not ready for a substantive change of guard. The longer the mass protests continue and the minority-led government continues to offer artificial or symbolic gestures of prisoner releases — while declaring a second ‘state of emergency’ in two years— the faster Ethiopia will become destabilised and the faster foreign investments will fizzle away.

Worse — though seemingly unthinkable — the ‘favorite nation’ status granted to Ethiopia after becoming the US’ main partner in the global ‘War on Terroris’ is slowly corroding.

Despite this week’s visit from US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the US State Department is gradually turning its back on Ethiopia for a number of reasons; chief among them, is its double-dealings on the South Sudan issue.

Despite the facade of US/China collaboration to end the South Sudan civil war, the geopolitical rivalry between these two giants has been pressuring Ethiopia to pledge exclusive allegiance to one over the other.

With China’s huge investments on Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan’s oil fields – making a choice won’t be too difficult.

The Kenya Factor

Several years ago I wrote an article arguing that the two most stable nations in the Horn (Kenya and Ethiopia) will become more unstable as Somalia becomes more stable.

Today, the Ethiopian government is facing the most serious threat since it took power by the barrel of the gun, and Kenya has a highly polarised population and two presidents ‘elected’ along clan lines.

Kenya — the nerve center of the international humanitarian industry — could just be one major incident away from inter-clan combustion.

The Somalia Factor

The Ethiopian government has launched a clandestine campaign of strategic disinformation intended to fracture or breakup opposition coalitions and recruit or lure potential comrades.

Ethiopian intelligence officers and members of the diplomatic corps together with some ethnic-Somali Ethiopians have been recruiting naive Somali government officials, intellectuals and activists with a Machiavellian disinformation campaign.

Meanwhile, IGAD — Ethiopia’s regional camouflage — calls for an open-borders agreement between member states. Despite broad-based public perception that for a fragile state like Somalia, such an agreement would be tantamount to annexation, some Somali politicians are eagerly carrying its banner.

These kinds of desperate campaigns and the abrupt resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn only underscore the fact that the government’s days are numbered.

The Sudan Factor

Sudan is caught in a loyalty triangle (Ethiopia, Egypt and Turkey) with competing powers. Sudan needs Egypt to address threats faced by the two nations regarding the diminishing access to the Nile by reasserting rights granted through the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty.

It needs Ethiopia to protect China’s economic partnership and to shield President Omar al Bashir from Western harassment through IGAD.

It also needs Turkey for development and for a long-term strategic partnership. Sudan has become the second country in Africa to grant Turkey a military base, with Somalia being the first.

The Eritrea Factor

When neocons dominated US foreign policy and the global ‘War on Terror’ was the order of all orders, Eritrea was slapped with sanctions. It was accused of being the primary funder and weapons supplier to al Shabab.

Today, though neither the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia or Eritrea nor any expert free from Ethiopian influence holds such a view, yet the sanctions have not been lifted.

The Ethiopian lobby and certain influential elements within US foreign policy-making circles continue to label Eritrea as a Marxist rogue state that undermines regional institutions such as IGAD and international ones like the UN Security Council; a closed society that espouses a deep rooted hatred towards the West.

Against that backdrop, the UAE has been investing heavily in Eritrea since 2015 or the beginning of the Yemen war that has created one of the the worst humanitarian disasters. The Emirati military (and its Academi/Blackwater shadow) now operates from a military base in Assab. Whether that’s a Trojan Horse or not, is a different discussion altogether.

Ins And Outs

The current wave of discontent against the Ethiopian government is likely to continue. But, considering how the Tigray has a total control on all levers of power, a transition of power will not be an easy process.

Ethiopia has also created an ethnically Somali counterinsurgency force in the Liyu Police. This ruthless force has already been used against the Oromos as they were used against Somalis of various regions that share a border with Ethiopia.

The extrajudicial killings and human rights violations are well documented. Despite all this, the Oromo and Amhara are set to reach their objectives albeit with bruised and bloody faces.

Will their coalition remain or, due to their historical distrust, will each eventually invoke its constitutional right to secede?

Whatever the outcome, any scenario of civil war or chaos in Ethiopia could put the entire Horn in danger and create a potential humanitarian catastrophe, especially in Somalia.

Meanwhile South Sudan is a lightyear away from sustainable political reconciliation especially since the foreign elements fueling the fire are not likely to stop any time soon. Djibouti remains the host of the most intriguing geopolitical circus. So, that leaves Eritrea as an island of stability in the region.

In the foreseeable future, Turkey could divest her investment out of Ethiopia into Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea. China will diversify her portfolio to include Eritrea. And the US — with no new policy — will continue droning her way through geopolitical schizophrenia.

** This article was first published by TRT World

** On Twitter:@Abukar_Arman

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At this critical hour, when the influence of radical Islamist groups such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Al Nusra Front, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Taliban and Lashkar e-Toiba alongside the oppressive Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi regimes plague the Islamic world, the Hindu, Buddhist, Yezidi, Christian, Druze and Jewish minorities who are presently being oppressed across the Islamic world should unite and stand together against their common persecutors. The minorities of the Islamic world are stronger together than they are divided.

For the radical Islamists and the regimes that support them, it does not matter if one is Jewish, Yezidi, Hindu, Christian, etc. In their worldview, the Hindus are polytheists, the Christians are crusaders, the Yezidis are devil worshippers and the Jews are the sons of apes and pigs. As a result of these perverted beliefs, from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to the Middle East, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Ahmadi Muslims, Sufis, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Yezidis and Druze are presently being gravely persecuted.

In Afrin, Syria, the Yezidis are currently being massacred by Turkish-backed jihadists as we speak. Hundreds of Yezidis have been forced to flee their villages after taking refuge in the Afrin region following the terror implemented by ISIS and other jihadist groups in the country. Turkish-backed jihadists have just arrived in the Afrin region but already, Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut reported that they have destroyed many Yezidi temples and converted others into mosques. There have been reports that Turkey has been ethnically cleansing Afrin of Christians, Kurds, Yezidis and other groups, hoping to replace them with Syrian Muslims who are presently refugees in their own country.

Under ISIS, Yezidi men and women too old to be sexually appealing were massacred. ISIS sold Yezidi women and girls into sexual slavery while indoctrinating young Yezidi boys into becoming ISIS cannon fodder. Over 3,000 Yezidi women and girls are still being held captive by ISIS despite the fall of the Caliphate. Christians under ISIS rule faced a similar fate. However, ISIS is not the only Islamist group to have persecuted Christians. According to Father Gabriel Naddaf, a Christian is slaughtered every 5 minutes in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Islamist groups other than ISIS in Syria have forcefully converted Druze to Islam, destroyed Druze holy sites and forced Druze to sell their properties.

The Islamic Republic of Iran hosts the second largest Jewish population in the Middle East but it is one that is gravely oppressed. In Iranian courts, the testimony of a Jew is worth half that of a Muslim. Muslim principals control what Jewish students learn in Hebrew schools, the Shabbat is not respected as a Jewish day of rest and according to Iranian Jewish author Sima Goel, it is difficult for the local Jewish community to obtain Jewish religious items due to the fear that they could somehow be associated with Israel, an enemy state. The constant fear that Jews can be arrested due to their association with Israel permeates Iranian Jewish society and the fear is justified. Recently, the Times of Israel reported that a Jewish grandmother was sentenced to death in Iran merely for running an underground organization that found housing solutions for women with abusive husbands that could not obtain a divorce. It is very likely that the penalty would not have been that severe had the grandmother been Muslim. As a result of this reality, Iranian dissidents report that Jews in Iran are afraid to protest and celebrate their holidays under wraps, with the Iranian Secret Police ensuring that non-Jews cannot join the festivities.

In Bangladesh, Hindus have been raped, murdered, assaulted, kidnapped, forcefully converted to Islam and had their properties seized and their temples desecrated. The indigenous tribes of the Chittangong Hill Tracts, which are mainly Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Animist, face an especially horrific predicament. Routinely, the Bangladeshi military backed by Bengali settlers, who have burned down Buddhist and Hindu temples, have slaughtered and gang raped the population to the level that some describe it as genocidal.

While the conflict between the Bangladeshi government and the indigenous tribes officially ended in 1997, grave persecution of the Hindus of Bangladesh continues to date. According to local sources, JMB and ISIS, who are controlled by Sheikh Hasina, are in the process of ethnically cleansing Hindus and other minorities from the country. Not too long ago, a Hindu man and his wife were tortured within the same country. The victim related: “I cannot stretch my arms and legs. I don’t have any place in my body where he has not touched. Where is the law in the country?” In addition, the Dakeshwari Temple Committee reported that temple property was seized from them and handed over to the Muslims in order to destroy the property.

These are only a few incidents of the grave persecution experienced by the Hindu community in Bangladesh. The systematic persecution experienced by Hindus and other minorities such as Buddhists and Christians in Bangladesh is highlighted on a daily basis. For example, a Hindu man in Bangladesh was recently arrested merely for sharing a report on four women wearing a Burka playing cards in Mecca. According to local sources, no Muslim was arrested for sharing this report but as a Hindu, he was. The World Hindu Struggle Committee claims that Hindus are being ethnically cleansed from the entire region, noting that 39 Indian Hindus and Sikhs were killed by Islamists recently on the Indian Subcontinent merely for being born into the wrong faith.

As bad as the situation is in Bangladesh, in Pakistan, the situation is even direr for the minorities. The Blasphemy Law is spreading terror across the country and Christians as well as other minorities have fallen victim to it. Asia Bibi, a Christian field worker, was sentenced to death for no other reason than saying something that the witnesses around her considered blasphemous. In Pakistan, having a Muslim witness say that blasphemy was committed is sufficient evidence to arrest and charge someone. According to CNN, once blasphemy is alleged, Amnesty International claims that the accused is as good as dead for the legal system offers them zero safeguards to protect them against mob violence or to defend themselves in case they are innocent.

There also have been reports that the Pakistani Army is presently ethnically cleansing both the ethnic and religious minorities from the country at a much faster rate than what exists in Bangladesh. Whether one is Sufi, an Ahmadi Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Baloch, Bahai, Buddhist, Zoroastrian or a member of another minority group, the minorities have no future in Pakistan. Nadeem Nusrat, the president of the Free Karachi Campaign, told the Business Standard: “The Punjabi dominated elite of the Pakistani Army have carried out the systematic ethnic cleansing of every minority group in Pakistan and the intensity of the savagery continues to grow with every passing day. Thousands have been extra-judicially killed. Thousands have disappeared after being picked up by the Pakistani security forces and their families are living in a state of an unending fear and helplessness with no knowledge of the whereabouts of their kins.”

According to Shipan Kumer Basu, the President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, “The Hindu residents of the Sindh Province in Pakistan have suffered a serious calamity. These people from the border areas came to India seeking shelter but no one did anything to let them stay in the country. They have been sent back to Pakistan. Upon being returned, there, they are being pressured to convert to Islam. They are told that if they do not convert, the family members including the women cannot be saved. If they don’t agree, it will be ruthless torture. This is the situation in the Sindh Province, where more than 500 Hindus are being forced to change their religion.”

Israeli Druze diplomat Mendi Safadi, who heads the Safadi Center for International Relations and Public Diplomacy, has emphasized: “The Hindu minority and the other minorities especially those living in the Middle East and in Asia are persecuted and threatened with ethnic cleansing. It is our obligation in the free world to stand against any attempt to harm the Hindus and other minorities such as the Buddhists, Christians, Druze, Yezidis and others.” The time has long since passed for the voices calling for justice in the free world united with the minorities in the Middle East and Asia as one voice seek to end the human rights abuses and to begin a new reality, where minority rights will be respected. As the Passover Haggaddah states, “Now we are slaves. Next year, may we be free men.”

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Talk to them?  How?

Whatever the impact of a new national security team, and whether or not President Trump actually meets with Kim Jong Un in the next few months, the fundamental problems with North Korea remain the same. Former U.S. negotiator Evans Revere notes that we have heard Kim’s line before. Still, the atmospherics around  around the question are changing, and an unnecessarily negative response risks  painting the U.S. as the  belligerent party.

U.S. diplomacy might introduce a new note to the discourse with a two-part message. This would start with a fantasy scenario: If somehow North Korea became a state that served its public, our drive to isolate them would start to weaken, South Korea’s fears would abate, and the international community would find dealing with the Kim dynasty less distasteful. Such development of their regime into a responsible state would reduce tensions and make nuclear weapons less important, to them and so to us, whether or not they keep them.

Of course we know full well that North Korea will remain a brutal dictatorship, that its strategic aim has long been to take over the whole peninsula.  The purported diplomatic opening is most likely a stratagem or outright ruse.

So the second part of the message would point out the fragility of North Korea’s regime. With or without their nukes, it will be destroyed in any war, probably with a nasty death for Kim Jong Un himself, leaving only the question of how many others are killed in the process.

We should remind Kim that the nature of his dynasty supports our case for economic sanctions, and will help us to isolate them further. We have not mounted a campaign to undermine the dynasty, heinous as it is. But even if the nuclear question is somehow resolved, their brutality and belligerence will still be known; they will remain isolated, with or without nuclear weapons.

This reminder should invoke our half-century military deterrence of the Soviet Union, a much more powerful regime, and how its own tyranny killed it from within. The price for keeping their nuclear program is our concerted effort to inflict costs like those that hastened the Soviet collapse. We may lack the capacity to force North Korea to give up its weapons now, but the regime’s best guarantee of survival is to reduce their repugnance.

We don’t really know what drives former-Swiss-student Kim Jong Un, or any North Korean. In any case, just as rejecting an invitation to dialogue risks making us look belligerent, raising the fantasy scenario clarifies our true motive, to protect free people and advocate freedom. The simple observations of this message suggest a positive long-run possibility while ceding nothing. They are not a negotiating agenda, so raise no questions of reducing our military exercises. They do remind all that North Korea does have another option to ensure their security, however difficult; the onus of rejecting it falls on them.

Kim would have to craft a response. In a world that knows his regime’s tyrannical nature, he would either have to cut its weapons program, initiate real measures to liberalize, or admit to a disdain for any standard of decent government. The regime likely won’t bother with the fantasy scenario, and keep discourse in its current traces. But if somehow they pick up the idea, there may be some basis, over time, for reducing tension and fear.

The message can be transmitted by a President.  But the idea cannot be implemented by negotiations in the near term. North Korea’s history does not justify any tradeoff of commitments, to reduce sanctions on our side in exchange for certain policies on theirs. We could not, and should not offer, to tell them how to be more free — which could be taken as imposing our interests. But if the world sees basic commitments to rights, in unfettered views of their society, negotiating anything would become easier.

The idea of course carries risks. One is that North Korea makes enough cosmetic change to loosen South Korean resolve. The South Korean left has pursued conciliatory gestures for political purposes in the past, witness the cash-for-meetings to the north that yielded Kim Dae Jung a Nobel Peace Prize. Another risk is that our other policies worldwide fail to convey the priority we put on freedom and peace. But if credibility in tough talk to North Korea makes us tighten our self discipline, it’s good for America.

Furthermore, the proposed message should resonate for an America aching to revive its moral authority. We are most influential when we project our core nature. Should we move North Korea either to cut its nuclear program or evolve toward responsible governance, so much the better. Nothing else seems to be working.

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People walk by a poster of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for the upcoming presidential election, in Cairo, Egypt, March 1, 2018. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is slated to win elections on March 28. His only contender, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, is someone who has not only called himself a “big supporter” of Sisi, but has also worked as member, until he announced candidacy in the last minutes of a final deadline, on the president’s re-election campaign team. Other contenders, who have been the likes of a former military officer, a former prime minister, and a human rights lawyer, have all either been arrested or forced to back down.

This year’s dummy election is, of course, the last of the anomaly that gives us a glimpse into Sisi’s repressive one-man rule. Under Sisi, the government has passed a series of restrictive laws that has effectively paralyzed civil society. In 2017, for instance, the government passed a law that threatened members of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—like human rights groups—with criminal prosecution if they snubbed or went around restrictive rules.

In 2016, Sisi’s government brutally beat protesters who demonstrated against a deal that transferred Egyptian islands to Saudi Arabia. The demonstrations were especially important because in some ways, it revealed the wishes of Egyptians, who have time and again, expressed their ambition to gain political rights and achieve social justice as much as they have called for  an improvement to their standards of living.

When the wave of popular protests of 2011 felled Hosni Mubarak from power, one man, Wael Ghonim, as F. Gregory Gause III noted in Foreign Affairs, appeared as exactly the kind who could succeed in post-Mubarak Egypt. Ghonim spoke both Arabic and English, was educated at the American University in Cairo, and most significantly, worked as an executive at Google. Still, Ghonim traded economic opportunity in exchange for political freedom. He set up a Facebook page called “We are all Khaled Said,” in memory of an Egyptian activist who was beaten to death by the police, and fomented the critical turning that led people to rise against the Mubarak regime.

In addition to people’s demands, there is something to be said of social movements in Egypt, and more generally, in Arab countries. Most social movement theories build on the experiences of the West, and largely ignore critical aspects that punch momentum into movements in other countries. Social movement theorists, over the years, have, no doubt, realigned their thinking and contended to the fact that political opportunities, like the chance for people to act together—and not structural factors, like formal organizations—have been the real harbingers of change. Yet, as Jeff Goodwin, a leading scholar on social movements has explained, protests that entail a good element of “constructionism” or the way in which people construct their own history under circumstances that they are able to make the most of, have been largely underscored in social movement studies. Political opportunity continues to be studied against structural conduits, and social movement theories continue to retain a structural bias. Thus, Islamism, as a social movement that highlights the citizens prolonged efforts to gain political rights, along with their practise of Islam, falls dead on arrival. Neither politicians in Egypt, nor Western policy experts, can grapple adequately with the marriage of Islam and modernity.

The lack of understanding of this concept of social movement, and therefore the lack of support for “alternative modernity” from the international community, can be one way to explain why nascent democratic movements in Egypt have risen as quickly as they have died. The Kefaya movement of 2004 offers an example of this. Although the movement could not sustain itself in the long run, Kefaya, which means “enough” in Arabic, touched on the cornerstone of the people’s movement that ultimately forced Mubarak to open up presidential elections in 2005. It was also the first anti-Mubarak demonstrations in Egypt. Egyptians wanted an end to inheritance of power (Mubarak was set to transfer power to his son, Gamal), and demanded free, fair, and competitive elections (Mubarak held office for four consecutive terms in “yes-or-no” referendums). Kefaya was successful, in the beginning, because it brought people from all swaths of the society, from secularists and Islamists, from people of different social backgrounds, to demand structural change. The movement, like the protests of 2011, built itself from the bottom-up. Leaders communicated with protestors on their cell phones, instead of announcing their agendas from traditional headquarters. However, internal differences, such as differing interpretations of democracy among leaders, ultimately contributed to the end of Kefaya.

Today, Sisi has shown no sign of granting civil liberties to its citizens. Much of the talk lately has focused on Sisi’s agenda to revive the economy, and while he deserves some credit for it, the common man and woman, who have largely borne the brunt of harsh austerity policies, are still awaiting their turn to reap the benefits. The international community, now in disarray, has lost its power to condemn Sisi’s nationalistic tendencies. In that case, Sisi should remember that, the more he presses ahead and suppresses political will, the more likely he drives momentum to the cause.

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In this video grab provided by RU-RTR Russian television via AP television on Thursday, March 1, 2018, Russia’s new Sarmat intercontinental missile is shown at an undisclosed location in Russia. RU-RTR Russian Television via AP

Russia had a bigly moment recently when announcing their new invincible weapons systems that use new nuclear propulsion systems and travel at hypersonic speeds. The claim that these weapons are unable to be intercepted by modern air defense systems could likely be true. Beyond the testing of American THAAD interceptor systems, there are no extremely reliable anti-air systems in the US or NATO arsenal that would give anyone much confidence in preventing a ballistic missile strike. The THAAD and tests to upgrade and perfect its system capabilities are ongoing, and while they have been deployed to counter a possible North Korean missile threat, it is unclear if they would able to stop even lower grade North Korean ballistic threats when multiple warheads are involved.

The tradition of anti-air missiles often was linked with Soviet programs that arose from a generation that had suffered invasion during the Second World War. Defense of life and society during Russia’s Great Patriotic War produced a skeptical outlook on foreign interference in Russia and a dedicated defense strategy during the years of the Cold War. Even today, Moscow is ringed by an Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) system to counter any ballistic missile threats coming from abroad, and it is most likely the case that their Anti-Ballistic Missile defense ring is fairly effective. From the infamous SA-2 SAM that punished American planes over Vietnam, to the SA-6 that changed strategies during Middle Eastern wars, Soviet and Russian air defense has a long tradition of producing viable missile shields against airborne threats. The motivation for these generations of programs is the belief that invasion is a possibility in the future as it was in the past. Out of necessity, they had to be effective.

The need for reliable defense likely motivated the production of effective Israeli systems like Iron Dome and the new Arrow system, but the added element of maintaining a low conflict scenario also contributed greatly to the political aspects of Iron Dome. When there is an immediate and impossible threat, the ability to stop aggression via missile strikes gives a great deal of breathing room to policy makers who do not want to escalate a conflict past the point of no return. A huge motivation for increased anti-air missile tests does not come solely from Russia’s recent announcement, but allows for the capability of extending a cooling off period in tense situations when there are little to no causalities due to an effective defense structure. While having Sarmat nuclear missiles may place Russia in a better position to strike US targets first, the US will be able to develop similar systems fairly rapidly. What might serve a skeptical Russian side and a nervous American side best is the ability to shoot down missile threats effectively, giving space for political negotiations where negotiations are the only way to achieve a lasting peace.

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A recent article in the Atlantic penned by Eliot Cohen, a former State Department luminary and currently Director of the Strategic Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC, lamented the collapse of the global elite and its inability to offer anything of substance to a world in turmoil. He cited the political entropy recently on display at the Munich Security Conference, one of the most anticipated events of the year, at which breathless attendees jockey to be seen.

The picture he paints is of a perennial group of button-down government leaders, solipsistic, superficial policy wonks, and shoulder-rubbing wannabes, most of them oblivious to the notion of being held to account let alone shaking things up with an original idea.

Cohen’s is a weighty name, but his is not the only one to break the silence. In his recent book, The Retreat of Western Liberalism, Ed Luce, chief U.S. columnist for the Financial Times, tore into the World Economic Forum at Davos as “consistently one of the last places to anticipate what is going to happen next”. He opined that it “has made a brand of its blow-dried conventional wisdom”.

If Cohen and Luce are right, it is little wonder that large sections of the Western public have turned their backs. The trouble is that, in principle at least, major international gatherings that bridge government, military and business leaders with policy institutes, media outlets and grass roots organizations should be vital pieces of our democratic architecture. The current stand-off between the people and the elites is unsustainable. We can’t go on like this. What is to be done?

As advisers to the Halifax International Security Forum, North America’s leading foreign affairs and security conference, it is not our place to tell other major international gatherings such as Davos and Munich how to conduct themselves. Nor, by implicit comparison, do we pass judgment on the success or otherwise of Halifax. But there is a clear public interest in getting this issue right. In talking about what Halifax aspires to achieve that is what we are speaking to, and in so doing, we are open about where we ourselves have fallen short of the mark.

A case in point arose a couple of years ago when the Halifax hierarchy was startled to be hit by a tweet, shot right out of the middle of the audience of a plenary session, decrying the all male panel. Ouch. But as Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, pointed out at the most recent conference last November, inclusivity is a strategic imperative. This is not about political correctness, as Stoltenberg’s colleague on that panel, Canadian Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan, added. The (rather obvious) lesson for us was that major conferences earnestly in search of innovative solutions can’t expect people to engage with them if half the planet is excluded from the get-go.

Above all else, Halifax is a values-based forum for democracies. We are all too aware that much of the world’s population suffers under despotism, or inhabits a twilight landscape between democracy and tyranny. But Peter Van Praagh, President of the Forum, and his team are not ignoring the rest of the world by not seeking to replicate the General Assembly of the United Nations. We shouldn’t try to be all things to all people. Inclusivity is not the same as relativism. Democracy is better than tyranny. Halifax, we believe, demonstrates that there are certain debates and dialogues that are best undertaken among interlocutors who share the same core values, ones that support a liberal world order underpinned by a rules-based system.

At such a starting point, there is still a mountain to climb. How can we remain fresh? We are probably not alone in agonizing about that, and agonize we do. Given that every organization ultimately tends towards stasis and inertia, one technique Halifax employs is to hold fast to a policy that at least half of the 300 participants be new to the forum each year. It’s painful to turn away past participants who want to return, and it’s never personal. But fresh thinking and new perspectives require constant renewal.

Obviously, the death knell of freshness is fear of controversy. But stakeholders can sometimes get nervous about contentious topics. Everyone who has run anything from a high school debating society upwards can see the challenge: what if you start saying things your funders dislike? Again, that is where values come in. Criticism is central to a functioning democracy. If you’re frightened of controversy, you’re frightened of what makes a democracy come alive. Don’t accept stakeholders that can’t handle that. Be prepared to take the hit.

Halifax, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, has been fortunate in working with myriad governments of different political stripes from around the world. The vital role non-partisanship plays to our mission has been further buttressed over the years by Congressional delegations often led by John McCain for the Republicans and high ranking Democrats such as Tim Kaine, and Jeanne Shaheen.

Nonpartisanship is the right approach, but it is still not enough. One of the great criticisms of political elites is that whether from the Right or the Left, these days they all sound the same. Halifax is sensitive to that, which is why we actively seek individuals unafraid to rock the boat, such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman, who took last year’s conference by storm on an all women security panel. Likewise, discussions featuring Google’s Eric Schmidt on how new technologies, from AI to quantum computing, shape the geopolitical landscape inspired spirited debate and challenged entrenched assumptions.

So, yes, there is no doubt that global elites must shoulder their share of responsibility for the daunting challenges that face us, from climate change to the rise of neo-nationalism, and the festering of bloody, regional conflicts. And, of course, gatherings of global leaders alone cannot solve all of the world’s problems.  But through open and inclusive dialogue, a commitment to renewal, and earnest debate, hope and progress can yet take stronger root. Later this year, in Halifax Nova Scotia, people who share that commitment will huddle together, working on a brighter future for the democratic world.

 

Robin Shepherd is Senior Advisor to the Halifax International Security Forum. Dean Fealk, an international attorney, is its General Counsel and a Fellow of Truman National Security Project. Views expressed are their own.

 

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Photo Credit: World Hindu Struggle Committee

Israeli Druze diplomat Mendi Safadi has declared that it is time for the world to act against the systematic destruction of Hindu homes.

The late Elie Wiesel once proclaimed, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” In recent days in Bangladesh, Hindu homes have been attacked and vandalized. According to Shipan Kumer Basu, the President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, the Bangladeshi government systematically encourages the destruction of Hindu property and blames the wanton act of violence on its political opponents. Israeli Druze diplomat Mendi Safadi called upon the world to stand up against this and to force the Bangladeshi government to stop permitting attacks on Hindu homes!

According to local reports, the Hindu homes that were attacked and vandalized recently occurred in the background of a local dispute. Following an arbitration meeting over the dispute, local sources reported that Chairman of Chatlarmi Sheikh Hizam Uddin and his people attacked the Hindus during the meeting. These reports claim that after the Hindus came out of the meeting, Uddin ordered two to three hundred people including Awami League leader Kishore Majumder and Rajat Roy to attack and vandalize the Hindu homes. Following the incident, Uddin denied the allegations against him and blamed the incident upon local UP member Paroshosh Mandal.

In another instance, local sources reported that a family home was looted in Shimoli. During the incident, they claim that an entire family was kidnapped and all of the valuables in their home were robbed including gold ornaments and money. The stolen goods were supposedly worth 36 taka and it took them two truckloads to take everything away. The abductors did not stop there. Later on, according to the report, they tried to kill Mihir Biswas by strangling him with something like a telephone cable around his neck. They beat him heavily and dragged him out of his home. They then proceeded to break a statue of Kali and left the broken part of the statue lying on the floor.

Not too long ago, local sources reported that another Hindu from Jaleshwar village was found dead with his legs and hands tied up. His home was vandalized as well. In addition, a Hindu home in Sarankhola was burned to the ground. Furthermore, a Hindu temple in Sirajdikhan was attacked and two idols were desecrated. According to the president of the temple, metal and copper plates, dishes, glasses, gold chains and other goods worth tens of thousands of dollars were looted. A temple is a spiritual home and yet in Bangladesh, local sources noted that holy places belonging to minorities are under attack.

While the culprits hate Hindus, they have not spared poor animals belonging to Hindus. According to local sources, two goats recently were burned to death in Hindu areas. In addition, there are reports of cows being burned. Radical Muslims in Bangladesh often burn cows due to the sanctity of this animal in the Hindu faith. It is reported that the homes of the dead are not even spared from these cruelties. According to local sources, the Kali Puja Cemetery was attacked recently. According to these sources, during the attack, the assailants started to harass a group of Hindu girls and then proceeded to beat up a grandmother before destroying the tools of a temple and vandalizing a house on the premises of the cemetery.

Basu is demanding that this cruel phenomenon of minority oppression come to an end in his country: “We cannot tolerate the vandalism of our homes, holy places and cemeteries in Bangladesh. We mourn over the plight of the wounded gods and goddesses as well as the desecration of our homes and the destruction of our property.”

Basu blames the Bangladeshi government for the recent atrocities: “While the Bangladeshi government likes to blame their political adversities or local Islamists, in reality, ISIS is the culprit and the Bangladeshi government has given them freedom of action to operate in. ISIS recently murdered a Hindu monk yet the Bangladeshi government denies that ISIS is active in Bangladesh. But we know better than to believe a government that recently arrested the main opposition leader Khaleda Zia, who just got HC bail and who is working to cleanse Hindus and other minorities from the country. It is time for the international community to pull in the reigns on Sheikh Hasina’s dictatorial rule. It is time for this grave injustice against the Hindu community to come to an end!” As Israeli Druze diplomat Mendi Safadi stressed: “It is our obligation in the free world to stand against anyone who stands up against the Hindu minority.”

The post Israeli Druze diplomat: Time to protest the destruction of Hindu homes! appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

There’s a scene in the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War when the titular character, a congressman played by Tom Hanks, tries to make a case to his congressional peers. He wants to allocate one million dollars toward building a school in Afghanistan, as a way for the United States to combat Soviet propaganda in the country. In response, one of his colleagues asks: “Afghanistan? Is that still going on?” seconds later, another quip follows: “We’re a little busy now reorganizing Eastern Europe, don’t you think?”

The film takes place in the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War. But even today, a similar scenario of political amnesia is playing out. In 2008, the entire transatlantic community, including Brussels and Washington, condemned Russia’s invasion of Georgia. Senator John McCain, known for his blistering critique of the Kremlin, famously declared: “Today, we are all Georgians.” But now, 10 years on, a familiar sort of forgetting has left Georgia, a country of geopolitical importance, jammed in a state of development limbo—one that actors neither inside nor outside the country seem to be in much of a hurry to remedy any time soon.

How to pluck out the heart of this particular mystery? In a sense, the current reality shouldn’t be all that surprising. After all, the West itself is facing challenges of the magnitude it hasn’t seen since the end of the Cold War. Its political, economic and even philosophical underpinnings seem to be losing legitimacy. Understandably, it’s in no mood to be a political cheerleader for a seemingly obscure country like Georgia.

Indeed, gone are the days of unfettered democracy promotion and calls for  NATO membership, even though Brussels, with support from Washington, had allowed for some progress in its relationship with Georgia. The issue isn’t necessarily the level of global support for Georgia, critical as it may be. Rather, it’s the carte blanche the West has traditionally given to Georgian governments. Which is to say: Western support for Georgia on the international stage might now be diluted by internal dynamics, ones unique to the long history of Sovietization of Georgia’s socio-political culture.

This domestic development has, in turn, cleaved Georgia into two entities: a pro-Western country on the one hand, and a post-Soviet one on the other. Yet the West has largely ignored this duality, fueling a mood of forgetfulness that in ways mirrors the one that came to beleaguer Afghanistan. (And the consequences have been severe: As the journalist Remy Tumin recently reported for The New York Times, “a truce was ostensibly called in 2008, but… ask any Georgian in the area and they will insist the conflict never really ended.”)

Yet this isn’t to point the finger of blame for Georgia’s glacial modernization solely at foreign powers. When it comes to Georgia’s relations with Russia, old habits appear to die hard. More specifically, the country hasn’t seemed to learn from the mistakes of its second and third presidents: Eduard Shevardnadze and Mikhail Saakashvili, respectively. During their tenure as president—Shevardnadze between 1995 and 2003, and Saakashvili between 2003 and 2012—both men transferred strategic economic assets to clandestine Russian-Georgian business groups. On top of that, Washington had to interfere to prevent the sale of the main Georgian oil pipeline to Gazprom, a large Russian company. What was perhaps most disturbing, however, was that Saakashvili—the great modernizer, and a tireless fighter against Putin’s regime—sold off almost the entirety of Georgia’s economy. Far from modernizing these sectors, Russian businesses drove them into the ground.

Today, these sectors languish in inefficiency, and they’re run by what’s been dubbed by the literature as “red directors.” They’re also drowning in dilettantism, raising questions about favoritism and corruption. It seems that over seven decades of Soviet dictatorship have eroded some people’s ability to distinguish between adversaries and friends.

Other internal actors have derailed Georgia’s development, too. For one, billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his money in Russia, has decided to maintain the status quo. The political environment he’s created has worsened the investment climate in the country. Ivanishvili was previously prime minister of Georgia, but stepped down after only one year in office. (The political party he financed with his money, the Georgian Dream party (GD), beat Saakashvili in parliamentary elections in 2012, effectively removing him from power.) While in office, he summoned the heads of Georgian companies and publicly scolded them for distorting the rules of the game in their favor. But that was merely a PR stunt, and it was the extent to which he cared to address Georgia’s clandestine, post-Soviet business landscape.

Now, as a private citizen, Ivanishvili is widely believed to be an unofficial ruler of the country, working through a network comprised of his relatives, members of the GD, and popular support he receives from those social elites who are beholden to him (mainly because he still pays their salaries and serves as a sort of arbiter of their professional careers). More startling, he also arguably wields the real power behind current Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, though he still falls miserably short on his promises to develop a vibrant civil society and bolster human rights.

A decade after Georgia captured international attention, its development seems to be on no one’s mind—neither on the minds of international actors, nor on the minds of most domestic actors, who seem to care more about keeping their hands on the levers of power.

Both Brussels and Washington ought to use their political clout to reduce the crippling legacy of Soviet influence, which any wily person can mold to boost himself above institutions, creating a personal brood of followers. At the same time, it’s Georgia’s government that must ultimately do the grunt work of cleaning up its backyard. In the private sector, the government must create greater transparency of key economic sectors. It must also carve out a sense of social and political fairness (to see why, look at how Ivanishvili’s feud with the current Georgian president, Giorgi Margvelashvili, speaks to how he’s willing to place himself above his office; he’s yet to forgive Margvelashvili for allegedly disobeying directives, and has accused him of selling out to the opposition party).

Georgia’s political elites will likely avoid scrutiny from the West, but they’d be wise to remember that their fellow Georgians have a penchant for elevating politicians to the status of a deity—only to condemn them later with an equal and opposite intensity.

 

Giorgi Lasha Kasradze is an analyst focusing on political risk and a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

The post Georgia on No One’s Mind appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The National People’s Congress meeting that kicked off on March 5 has ushered in some revolutionary stances . From the constitutional amendment to the two-term limit that was proposed by the Communist party on February 25 , the prospect of the abolition of the term limits looms large on the horizon. This indicates that the Chinese President Xi Jinping could stay on indefinitely beyond the expiration of his term in 2023. Such an act entails the continuity of Xi Jinping’s leadership which gives him greater control over the levers of power and money that underscores Xi’s standing as China’s most dominant political figure in decades . The move represents a dramatic departure from the rules and norms that nudges the country towards a kind of centralisation of power where China’s state-controlled media have sought to justify the move as one that guarantees stable leadership as China enters a period which Xi has identified as crucial in his vision to restore the country to its rightful place as a global power.’

The removal of term limits that was long the topic of speculation in the lead up to the 19th Party Congress is nevertheless audacious . From having his thought enshrined in the Constitution in a way that was only done by Mao Zedong previously , his failure to identify a successor at the 19th party Congress in October ,Xi Jinping believes that there is no other leader who is capable of pushing and achieving his vison . Recognising the imperative to reform the Party and state institutions which forms an integral part of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics the Politburo maintained that reforms should be implemented to strengthen the Party leadership and fulfil the requirements of the new era .In this sense the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) set forward the agenda where the text mentions that the proposed two-term limit will be conducive to safeguarding the authority and the unified leadership of the CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core  and strengthen the leadership as China realised its major economic and social development goals under Jinping over the past five years .  This marks an end to institutionalised leadership that was put in place under Deng Xiaoping and makes all the talk about the rule of law under the party at the 18th Party Congress ‘ fourth plenum somewhat quaint in retrospect.

A recap of the past

Deng Xiaoping enacted China’s term limit in 1982 during his tenure as China’s paramount leader in the 80’s as part of his effort to ensure that China was never  again subjected to a crushing dictatorship like that of Chairman Mao and the turmoil it occasioned. Breaking from the West ‘s system of governance which constituted epithets like balance and checks, Deng instituted a form of governance with Chinese characteristics designed to prevent the recurrence of a cultish like obedience that was shown towards Mao during that time.

Jinping’s quest to firm up China’s presence in the world

 Prior to the elimination of the term limits the approval of the enshrining of Mr. Xi’s eponymous political theory  Xi Jinping Thought for the New Era of Socialism with Chinese Special Characteristics  as a new component of the party’s guide for action signifies that Xi is put on a doctrinal pedestal along with Mao and Deng which reaffirms that his reign would be supreme. Xi Jinping became the leader of China in 2012 where he espoused his Chinese doctrine of national rejuvenation. Since he assumed the mantle of leadership Jinping demonstrated that he is someone who does not shy away from breaking conventions . From methodically purging his potential rivals including Sun Zhengcai and Bo Xilai through anti-corruption campaign to assuming prominent positions related to military and national security Jinping is undertaking stronger stances to reframe the domestic structure of the country which reflects his overarching ambition to firm up his presence in the Communist Party. An appropriate instance includes Xi’s attitude to use his first term in office to monopolize an array of leadership positions reflected in the creation of several so-called leading groups which he heads to drive policies across a range of areas including finance, cybersecurity and relations with Taiwan . Although Mr. Xi was already provided the title  guojiya zhuxi which can be translated as state chairman , it is clear through Xi’s intention that he considers himself as  a transformational figure leading China and the party into new era when the Communist party conferred upon him the designation lingxiu or   China’s core leader that placed him on the same pedestal as Mao, Deng Xioping and Jiang Zemin . This is commensurate with Jinping’s position where he believes that it is only through attaining domestic stability and subsequently a stable relationship would be possible for China to reclaim its rightful place as a global power.

Apropos to Jinpin’s political theory his ardent desire to restore China’s eminence as a global power in the international arena got adequately reflected in  his statement at the historic 19th Communist Party Congress meeting. Outlining  two broader goals for China where first it will build a moderately prosperous society by 2020 and second  it will become a fully developed rich and powerful nation by 2050 , Jinping heralded the dawn of the new era of Chinese politics and power where the world witnessed Xi’s waxing poetic about the priorities of rejuvenating Chinese power and realising the Chinese dream . Although Jinping majorly stressed on domestic achievements , goals and challenges but for any foreign policy geek with an insight into present Chinese policy making will understand that his speech provides crucial insights into how China’s strongman leader seeks to advance his country’s role in the world.

A major takeaway for global community is Xi is extremely confident in China’s growing national power that has major implications for global politics . This was succinctly captured in Xi’s statement where he proclaimed that our Party, our country , our forces and our nation have changed in ways without precedent. The Chinese nation with an entirely new posture now stands tall and firm in the East . Against this backdrop of growing Chinese interest under Jinping’s leadership the assessment stands that the international community will face an increasingly assertive China . As was stated by a Beijing based political analyst right after the move to end term limits where he disclosed that  if we ‘ re beginning to see a much more aggressive international posture by china , expect more of that , turned upto 11  .

 The Chinese juggernaut rolls on

A corollary  of Jinping’s fervent commitment to establish Chinese prominence is the retrenchment of the US noticeable through Mr . Trump’s promise to Make America Great Again that smacks of a retreat into unilateralism which spells trouble for the fraying international liberal order. Two major instances in this regard include the evolving  Chinese maritime strategy where it has shifted from conducting coastal defense and near seas operations to far seas protection that underlie the expansion of China’s naval capabilities through deployment and berthing facilities under its String of Pearls strategy in the Indo-Pacific and secondly its colossal One belt one road ‘ global infrastructure initiative.

A stark reminder of the China’s increasingly expansive international agenda comprises of the recent phenomena of conclusion of the construction of the contested Spratly islands as part of its land reclamation activities . Through a host of installations which includes a ‘ 3 km long runway, large naval -grade berthing facilities and a range of military defences such as anti-aircraft guns and close -in weapons system (CIWS) ‘ reports on the built-up infrastructure in the islands suggest that the China has reclaimed almost seven  of the islands which houses surveillance measures. The reclaimed islands in the Spratleys are not merely fortified flag markers for China’s claim for sovereignty in the disputed South china sea but  they serve as a network of platform that strengthens Chinese military capabilities and  significantly enhances China’s projection of military power in the region.

Further on another accord through its Belt and Road initiative China under the garb of serving to enhance economic interconnectivity and facilitating development across regions including Eurasia, East Africa and more than 60 partner countries it is pursuing what analysts in the US has termed as a predatory economics. Through aggressively employing economic tools to advance its strategic interests Beijing has extended huge loans to financially weak states and ensnared in vicious debt traps that enhances its leverage . To exemplify of the 68 countries identified as potential borrowers in the BRI  23 were found to be  already at a quite high risk of debt distress  according to the Washington-based Centre for Global Development (CGD), a think tank. Moreover the report also determined that eight of those 23 countries would potentially face difficulties in servicing their debt because of future financing related to BRI projects that includes countries such as Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos , the Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Pakistan and Tajikistan . This not  solely increases Beijing’s economic clout in International politics but gives a clear signal about the principle that is guiding China’s rise in global politics which is buying friendship through its economic heft. In other words co-opting countries to expand its sphere of influence both in Asia and the world .

What to do ?

Although reigning between the established superpower predominantly the US and rising power like China has not led to a full scale war yet the recent constitutional amendment poses an inflection point for liberal nations. From broadening its core interests by asserting sovereignty claims contrary to international law, continuing with its military expansive tendencies in the Indo-Pacific region , pursuing a predatory form of economics and colonial type exploitative policies in dealing with developing nations that are clear manifestations of Xi’s growing thirst for power has raised the chance of devastating instability. A takeaway in regard to China’s rise under Jining that despite there have been concerted attempts by nations in global platform to present initiatives like the Quad but to counteract the China’s increasing belligerence both within Asia and the world the current trajectory shows that it is going to be a long winding road before these come to fruition .

 

Sreeja Kundu is presently a researcher working at the Strategic Studies Program in the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank based in New Delhi, India. She has graduated with an M.Sc in International Relations from the University of Bristol in November 2016. She tweets @SreejaKundu

The post The ascent of the dragon continues – Implications for global politics appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Allow me to make two observations before I turn to my remarks. The Mission statement of the Forum’s website asks that we be honest and direct.  And so, although I do not wish to appear overly harsh in my observations, nevertheless I am obliged to be frank and open.  Otherwise, why have a conference such as this at all?  Also, I want to emphasize that when I speak about the “West”, or use the term “we”, I do not at all include the people in this room who are not from Ukraine, and who know and understand far more than the general citizenry of the countries that they represent.  They and their institutions have labored tremendously on the very issues that we are so concerned about, and deserve much credit.

“Why Putin Likes the West” may seem to be an anomalous title for my remarks.  After all, what we incessantly hear is that Putin is blaming the West for everything.  We hear about Russia’s “lost pride,” that it is “humiliated,” “embittered,” “insulted,” “lost,” “confused.”  One of the advisors to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the last presidential campaign said, “Putin has been trying hard to find love, appreciation and recognition.”

The demonstrable facts are opposite.  Fiona Hill is formerly from the Brookings Institution, a well-recognized think tank in Washington, and is now with the National Security Council in the White House. She is recognized in many circles as a Russia and Putin expert. A few years ago, she wrote a book about Putin where she said that Putin is “unable to understand the mindset of Americans and Europeans and their political dynamics.”

For someone who doesn’t understand us, however, Putin has done quite well. Let’s just take one example. We have his money in our bank.  We hold the key. Yet he brazenly expands his aggression.  Russia–one country–taunts, menaces, intimidates, and threatens with nuclear war the collective of Western democracy.  And Putin doesn’t in the least feel that his money is at risk. Why not? Where does he get his self-assurance from?  We gave it to him.

Putin is not brilliant. But he knows and understand very well the hundred-year history of relations with the West. He has identified patterns of Western behavior, thinking and emotions that are clear, predictable, and reliable.  His conclusions, based on those patterns, are also themselves predictable.  He sees repeated strategic blunders by the West, squandered opportunities, and an inability and absence of political will to think and act strategically, in an affirmative, and not a reactive, manner. But how can this possibly be the case if, as we tell ourselves, it was the West that “won the Cold War”? We’ll return to that question later.

What is the history that Putin sees? In 1918, Ukraine declared independence, was recognized by Lenin and was promptly invaded. Ukraine turned to the West, requesting aid in the form of surplus WWI equipment and medication. Ukraine was denied. Ukraine warned that in a generation the West would be confronted directly by Russia. Ukraine was ignored. Moscow of course conquered and occupied Ukraine, and its control of Ukraine was pivotal to the formation and viability of the Soviet Union.

In 1933, the United States extended diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union at the same time that Moscow was using starvation to break the back of Ukrainian resistance, thereby ensuring the regime’s survival. In the eyes of the world, recognition represented America’s legitimization, acceptance and approval of Stalin’s murderous regime. Furthermore, this was legitimization, acceptance and approval by America, the devil of the capitalist world, the intended victim of the very regime that had declared itself the leader in the world campaign to destroy capitalist America.  How should Putin assess our strategic sense?

In World War II, the West liberated Europe, but only part of it. We facilitated one tyrant, Hitler’s partner, replacing the other.  The West in effect measured the dimensions of the Iron Curtain.  America’s Lend/Lease program delivered to the Kremlin far more equipment and material, both in type and quantity, than necessary for military needs. Unfortunately, Moscow used the “Made in America” label to crush the underground resistance movements in Ukraine and in the Baltics, and also the uprisings in the GULag in the early 1950’s.

From the late 1940’s and for 40 years, the West–essentially the United States–pursued a policy of containment, seeking to contain Soviet expansionism. Containment, however, did not contain.  Compare the relative position of the United States and the Soviet Union after WWII, and then 40 years later.  For all the treasure spent and precious lives lost on “containment”, there was a dramatic shift, with the Soviet Union massively increasing its global influence and military capacity as America retreated.

The problem with containment was that it was exclusively reactive, with no sense of the West undertaking any affirmative measures to bring about the dissolution of the USSR.  We surrendered situational control to the Kremlin. We concluded that the only way to deal with a pyromaniac was to build a very expensive, very large and very mobile fire department that would run around the world, putting out fires that were set by the Kremlin, at its choice of time, place and intensity.  Containment was based on hope.  But if hope is not a policy or strategy for the stock market, how can it be the basis for national security?  Not surprisingly, the prominent American journalist at the time, Walter Lippmann, described containment not as a strategy, but as a “strategic monstrosity.”

But containment’s most fundamental flaw was that it didn’t recognize, in the least, the multi-national structure of the Soviet Union, that it was a colonial empire.  Containment perpetuated the “Russia”/”Soviet Union” equivalence that distorted Western thinking from the very first days of the Soviet Union. This was a massive and continuing blunder, one that helped Moscow’s repression of the submerged nations of the Soviet Union.  Today, a full generation after the fall of the USSR precisely because it was not simply “Russia,” US government officials at the very highest levels often repeat that same “Russia”/”Soviet Union” equivalence.

The Reagan Administration broke the mold, and went beyond the purely reactive restrictions of containment.  He undertook affirmative measures to cause the dissolution of the USSR.  After the election of George Bush, Sr., however, the US reversed.  Astonishingly, we worked to preserve the USSR intact. Jack Matlock, the US ambassador to the Soviet Union at the time, said directly: “The common assumption that the West forced the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus won the Cold War is wrong. The breakup of the USSR into 15 separate countries was not something the United States caused or wanted.”  As we know, Ukraine ignored Washington, declared independence, and the rest is history. So, if “winning the Cold War” meant the collapse of the Soviet Union, did that occur because of, or in spite of, America’s containment policy?

What happened after the fall of the USSR? We never implemented or even conceived of establishing a “Marshall Plan” to secure the independence and security of the former captive nations as a bulwark against Russia. We did not do what we did with the Marshall Plan in Europe in WWII, even though the necessity for doing so after the fall of the Soviet Union was ten times greater.  Unlike the devastated economy and military capacity of Germany, the Soviet economy, though in poor shape, was intact. And its military capability was very much intact as well. But most critically, while Germany came to terms with its past, and admitted, apologized for its crimes, Moscow accelerated in the opposite direction.  It celebrates its crimes.

Why were we so passive? Because, again, we simply “hoped” that things would change.  How, why? What, exactly, did we think the millions in the KGB, in the nomenklatura, would do, where would they go?  They would somehow become democrats overnight?  Why? How? What about the secret people making secret poisons in secret laboratories in secret cities?  How could we possible consider that that vast repressive system, with such a bloody history, would simply suddenly change?  Again, we simply “hoped” that it would. This total lack of responsibility by Western democracies for their very own security, the passivity and refusal to face reality and anticipate the future, is startling.  Unfortunately, it was not the first time.

History is another name for experience, and experience is another name for a book of lessons.  What lessons does Putin draw from all this?  His first conclusion is that the West itself has learned no lasting lessons.  We have not learned from our experience, and therefore have no predictive capacity.  Our experience was never sufficiently painful to leave a lasting imprint on our societal memory or political institutions.  Thus, for example, President Obama came into office wholly innocent about Moscow, but at the end he was hopefully at least somewhat more aware. But the revolving door in politics prevented the solidification of lessons to be learned. What conclusions do we expect Putin to reach?

Furthermore, Putin knows that we don’t have any understanding that Russia is a predator state.  We have no conception of the Soviet system, and cannot grasp the significance of Putin’s background, his resurrection of Stalin, and its implications for the West.  We don’t bat an eyelash over the fact that there is a “KGB Bar” in New York City, or that Jay Kearney, President Obama’s press secretary, has Soviet propaganda posters in his home, and splashed on the pages of a major Washington magazine with no objection by anyone.

In 1999, Putin celebrated Stalin’s birthday. In that year, we also saw the Moscow’s false flag operations in the Moscow apartment bombings, serving as a pretext for Moscow war against Chechnya.   His so-called Millennium Speech at the end of that year was an unmistakable blueprint for his future.  Only months later, in 2000, Condoleezza Rice was asked at a conference in the US what was the key issue that would indicate to her what kind of person Putin was, if he would be the kind of person that the US “could work with”. She replied that it would depend on what kind of tax reforms he would undertake.

Later that year, we saw no significance in Putin’s celebration of Felix Dzerzhinsky’s birthday, the notorious founder of the Cheka, precursor to the NKVD and KGB.  And that was on 9/11, the day of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers.  In February 2002, at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, Putin, in his typically probing manner, tested a “light” version of Soviet symbolism. No reaction by the West. In the following year, in 2003, Michael McFaul, President Obama’s future ambassador to Russia, published a book predicting that Russia was no longer a threat to the West. By April 2005, when Putin lamented that the fall of the Soviet Union as a “tragedy”, he had already for six years been celebrating its bloody past.  The West ignored it all.  Today, Che Guevara remains a fashion statement.

Putin sees the West in a historically self-imposed requirement “not to offend” or “not to antagonize the Russians.”  On July 2, 1934, the British Foreign Office received an inquiry from the House of Commons about Moscow’s starvation of Ukraine.  The internal memo circulated within the Foreign Office read: “We do not want to make it [information about the Ukrainian genocide] public, because the Soviet Government would resent it and our relations with them would be prejudiced. We cannot give this explanation in public.”

George Orwell’s Animal Farm was rejected by 14 publishers because they “didn’t want to offend the Russians.”

In the 1970’s and 80’s, Western intelligence knew that the Kremlin was organizing, directing and financing Middle East terrorism against the West under the name of “Arab Nationalism”.  Later it also extended to terrorism by local actors in Germany, Italy and Ireland. Yet Western politicians wanted to keep this quiet, not wanting to “offend the Russians.”

The United States, in particular, seems to be particularly compelled to “make nice.”  “Can’t we just get along and be friends?” President Truman is generally recognized as having been more hard headed than President Roosevelt, but even Truman wrote in his diary, after the war was over and when it was already clear that Stalin had deceived the West about Eastern Europe: “I’m not afraid of Russia.  They’ve always been our friends, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t always be . . . so let’s just get along.” The same approach we see repeated by Presidents Carter, Bush and Obama.  Only months after Putin invaded Georgia, President Obama initiated his infamous “reset” with Russia.  How can it be that it is we who made the overture to Putin, and not the other way around?

Putin sees us trying to transfer our commercial genetic code and our deal making culture to our relations with the Kremlin.  That does not work.  The words “stability” and “management” appear endlessly in Western writing and commentary about Russia.  That is what “doing business” requires.  But that has never been the way that the Kremlin operates.  It thrives, needs and therefore creates instability.  It is always on the offensive. It exerts a hydraulic pressure of pushing, accusing, blaming, distorting, demanding and attacking. Relentlessly. The West, on the other hand, is reactive only, perpetually responding from one crisis to another to another.  We are Pavlovian.

And, of course, doing business means entering into agreements.  In our psyche, an agreement is a roadmap to resolving a problem. Agreements with Russia do work, but in the very opposite direction and with the opposite result that the agreements are meant to achieve. We scrupulously comply with agreements.  Russia scrupulously does not. Indeed, the one exception to our trying to superimpose our commercial heritage in dealing with Russia is that we tolerate and encourage the very kind of behavior that we would never tolerate in a business setting–endless breaches of agreements by the other side of the table.  The only exception to our lack of predictive capacity that I mentioned earlier is that we have superb predictive capacity about Moscow’s breach of the very next agreement. Inexplicably, we simply ignore the breaches, always coming back for more. After WWII, the US was #1 in the world, the sole superpower, economically and militarily.  Only the US had the atomic bomb.  After forty years of containment and dozens of agreements with Moscow, what was the result?  The USSR immeasurably expanded its global influence, and its military/nuclear capacity had at least reached parity with the US.  So much for agreements.

And finally, there is the question of money. During the course of a century, Western democracies were the source of untold amounts in economic value to Moscow, whether in forms of credits, technology, know how, or other direct or indirect economic benefit. Without the West having economically propped up the Soviet Union it would have collapsed much, much earlier.  The other side of it is that today it is we who are captive to Russia’s money, and not the other way around. In 2006, a British citizen was assassinated by a miniature nuclear device in the front yard of Buckingham Palace, so to speak.  Alexander Litvinenko, a British citizen, was the victim of nuclear warfare on British territory. What did three successive British Prime Ministers do?  Nothing. Russian money purchased London.

So, what are the consequences when the West has such a character profile? We are hugely susceptible to what I call “strategic deception”.  George Orwell called it “reality control.”  The late historian, Robert Conquest, was more direct and call it simply “mind slaughter.”  When dezinformatsia, maskirovka, provokatsia, kompromat, agitatsia combine together and superimpose a total disorientation, a false perception, whether upon a person or upon an entire nation, it creates not just an alternative reality.  It creates total reality reversal.  It’s doubly dangerous, because it’s in our subconsciousness.  I sometimes give the example of your waking up in the middle of the night and finding yourself in the wilderness.  You look for the bright star in the sky, the North star, in order to get your bearings.  You see the star, or you think you do.  However, you do not realize that while you were asleep you were transported to the Southern Hemisphere. All of your decisions and actions are correct, based on the assumption of that bright star that you see is what you assume it is– the North Star.  But it’s not.  You wind up walking in the opposite direction. You don’t even think about questioning the accuracy of the assumption because you’re not even aware of it.

What is the first reality reversal that confronts us?  That Russia is merely being “defensive.”  You’ve heard it all before, and I know that no one here shares that view.  Nevertheless, it remains an enormously powerful one, regardless of the fact that Russia’s most recent intrusion into the electoral processes in Europe and the US.  You all know the litany–that Russia has “security needs,” that it requires “spheres of influence,” that it is “afraid of NATO encirclement”, that it has “legitimate interests” and “historic claims,” that it feels “victimized” by World War II, that it needs a “buffer,” etc.

This is nothing new.  President Roosevelt assured us: “Stalin doesn’t want anything but security for his country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.”  That, obviously, was during the war. But after WWII, and similar to what President Truman had said, Secretary of State Dean Acheson added: “To have friendly governments along her borders is essential both for the security of the Soviet Union and the peace of the world.”

Much credit is due to Mitt Romney and his advisers, when during the first presidential debate with President Obama Romney identified Russia as America’s primary geopolitical foe.  Unfortunately, Mr. Romney later wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal that America should give the Kremlin assurances that we wouldn’t threaten Russia’s influence in Kyiv. This is reality reversal.

“Russia’s immense contribution in World War II is part of their proud history of standing up to imperialist powers.”  This is in the introduction of an extended speech that US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, gave in January of this year.  I was pleased to hear that, in the balance of the speech, and after many years Ambassador Power had begun to understand some of the hard reality about Russia, but her statement at the beginning is inexcusable. In the 1890’s, the Russian General Staff conducted a study of military campaigns between 1700 and 1870.  Russia waged thirty-eight wars. Two were defensive.  How else do you become the largest empire, and also the largest country, in the world, encompassing an entire one-third of Asia and much of the European sub-continent?  You do not do so by being “defensive.”

When we participate in such reality reversal we become multipliers in the denial of history, in the denial of the victimization of entire nations, and in the applause of the perpetrator. Why don’t they have the right to exist?  It is the victim nations that the Kremlin has persecuted for generations, and in many instances for centuries, that have the right to feel secure, who have “historic claims” against Russia, who need “spheres of influence,” and who require a “buffer.” And it was the failure of the West to recognize this that has led to the situation that now confronts us.

Part of that same “defensive” deception is Russia’s re-engineering of World War II. “Had it not been for the colossal sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in WWII–in which they lost more than 20 million people, many times more than any other nation, friend or foe–the war would have dragged on much longer.”  Again, this is Ambassador Power speaking on that same occasion. And note that Power again equates “Russia” with the “Soviet Union,” and even describes the Soviet Union as a “nation.” It was not.  It was an empire.  A quarter of century after the fall of the USSR, far too many Western politician and commentator continue to speak and think in precisely the same terms.  This is inexcusable, and again illustrates that we have never grasped the very essence of the USSR, or the meaning of Putin’s celebration of it.

As to World War II, itself, let’s be clear that Stalin and Hitler were not simply allies.  They were equal partners, joint venturers.  When Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933, thanks to the Soviet Union the German armaments industry was already far along the path toward being rebuilt. Under the Treaty of Rapallo with Germany, in the 1920’s Moscow provided critical resources for the rebuilding of Germany’s military capability, much of it plundered, ironically, from Ukraine.  German military maneuvers took place on Soviet territory.  Tours of the growing GULag were provided. And this was at the same time that Western, particularly American, industrial assistance was flowing to the Soviet Union. How does Putin assess our strategic acumen?

How many decades have passed since the end of World War II?  Why don’t we ever hear about Hitler’s purpose for the war?  It was to colonize Ukraine. Only during this past summer did Yale’s Professor Timothy Snyder address the German Bundestag reminding Germany of its history.  It’s an astonishing distortion when Germany feels guilt about WWII and “Russland”, when it was “Russland” that started the war together with Germany, and when it was not “Russland” but Ukraine that was Germany’s target and greatest victim.  The number of Allied troops that invaded Normandy was 132,000.  The number of Wehrmacht and other troops that invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, was 3.2 million.  And that did not just include Germany troops, but Hungarian, Rumanian, Slovakian, Finnish, and Italian troops as well. Do we refer to those countries today as “Nazi”?  It’s no wonder that Ukraine suffered more than any other country during World War II, whether measured in terms of loss of humanity or physical destruction.  Four times more Ukrainian civilians were killed in World War II than the combined military deaths of the United States, France, Italy, Great Britain, Canada. Millions more Ukrainians were killed serving in the military and taken as slave laborers to Germany.  Ukrainians are Nazis? It’s another massive reality reversal, another strategic deception.

Yet another example in the strategic deception that Russia is merely being “defensive” is the drumbeat of NATO “encirclement”. First, I suggest we look at a map. How many NATO countries border Russia? “Encirclement” is a geographic impossibility. And even if it were possible, we are to somehow feel guilty about it?  Second, Putin knows that NATO is defensive. He knows there that is no chance, whatsoever, that NATO will invade Russia.  Stalin knew about NATO and its purpose before it even formally existed. Third, we never exhibited the psychology of affirmative, “take the offensive” thinking about Russia during the last 100 years even where there was never any military component. Fourth, if there was ever a time for fear of an invasion, it was during WWII and immediately thereafter.  That never happened, and could not have, given the absence in the West of any understanding of Moscow’s threat.  Fifth, how, exactly, will more than two dozen nations be coordinated?  For what purpose?  To achieve what?  Finally, for us to believe that “NATO encirclement” is something that Putin in fact fears would also require that we simply ignore the hard, demonstrable reality that he knows and understands our political dynamics better than we do.  He has proven that.  Does anyone here in the room really think that public panic (due to what, exactly?) in the West about Russia will rise to the level that it translates into political decisions for a coordinated military invasion of Russia? This is nonsense.  Putin and Lavrov may beat that drum for domestic and foreign consumption, but they know reality well enough.  So should we.

The second example of reality reversal is Western talk about “engaging” Russia in fighting ISIS.  Where is the logic of that, however, when the roots of ISIS and Al Qaeda reach back to the genetic code for “Arab nationalism” that the Kremlin created in the 1970’s and ’80’s at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow and the surrounding KGB training camps?   Today, Moscow does not have to be directing or controlling ISIS. It simply receives the benefit of a weakened, disoriented, disheartened and dispirited West.  Furthermore, consider the “genius” that it took for Moscow to be able to turn the Middle East against the West a generation or more ago.  First, the Soviet Union was an atheistic state.  Second, it –and before that, the Russian Empire–had a violent history of suppressing the Muslim nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia. And yet the Kremlin prevailed, and a Nobel Prize was awarded to its creation, Yasser Arafat. Truly, a remarkable achievement.

Finally, Ukraine.  I know there are those present for whom Ukraine is not on the mental map as are other “traditional” countries of Europe, such as Poland or Italy, for example, even though Ukraine’s now international recognized status is not questioned.  I will not get into the distortions of Russian historiography that were put in place in the 18th and 19th centuries, and will only mention that Russian historiographers who emigrated to the West after the Bolshevik coup d’état established the foundation of so- called “Russian studies” in the West.  Though the historiographers may not have been supportive of the Bolshevik regime, they nevertheless transplanted to the West the imperial history that they themselves fashioned and absorbed.

We’ve all heard the assertions: “Russia traces its 1000 year history to its beginnings in Kiev”, “Ukraine is a historic part of Russia,” “Kievan Russia was the beginning of modern Russia,” “a thousand years of Russian Christianity.” As a result, as Putin whispered in President Bush’s ear, Ukraine does not exist. Neither did it for Hitler, who identified Ukrainians in the camps as either Russians or Poles.

So let’s examine the reality reversal, the strategic deception that is grounded in the anomaly of the periphery of the Kyivan Rus’ state, Russia, pre-empting and laying claim to the center, Kyiv.  And remember, at that time the amount of Russian territory that was part of the Kyivan Rus’ empire was only some 3% or so of Russia that we know today.

Firstly, I know of no other instance in history or geography where the creation of an artificial 1000 year pedigree is used to justify war, invasion and terrorism today and accepted so totally uncritically by the West. Indeed, it is more logically and intellectually consistent to justify Kyiv’s “historic claim” to Russia, as part of Kyiv’s former empire.

Secondly, even if we accept the “1000 year history” argument, then what is the result?  Because of the Viking influence in the establishment of the Kyivan Rus’ state, Ukraine today can claim Oslo, Stockholm or Copenhagen as the beginnings of Ukraine?  Norwegians, Swedes and Danes are “really” Ukrainians”, or “Little Ukrainians” or “younger brothers”? The same holds true with the influence of Byzantium on Kyivan Rus’, complete with the Cyrillic alphabet and religion. Ukraine “really” began in Byzantium/Istanbul? Today’s France, as Spain, Germany and Israel, were part of the Roman Empire, as was part of Russia a part of the Kyivan Rus’ state. Does that mean that France can claim that Rome is “really” French, and that Italians are Frenchmen?  And what of Romania, which appropriated even the name of Rome, as Russia did with “Rus'”? What is the German word for France?  Frankreich.  Land of the Franks, a Germanic tribe.  What are we to conclude from that?  France has a claim to Germany, or is it the other way around?  I will not belabor the point.  Ignorance of history, and the lack of critical thinking on something that is not very deep, makes the West, again, a prime target for such reality reversal.

So why does Putin like the West?  First, the West does not understand how and why it finds itself in the situation that it is in today.  One country, with nothing to offer to the world, has managed to put the Western democracies on the ropes. How, why, is any of this possible?  And why are we suddenly so very surprised?  But where do we see any self-examination? Second, Western attention to Ukraine has historically been at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to Moscow’s razor focus. Even today, Western concern doesn’t even begin to approach the degree of seriousness that is necessary, given that Ukraine drove the nail into the coffin of the USSR, and in a very real sense saving the world from it.  In addition, as we know Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal, in large part to its historic persecutor.   What do we think that Putin makes of all this?  What conclusions does he draw about our strategic sense? His money is safe with us, and existing sanctions are and will remain inconsequential in impacting the situation on the ground.

I suggest that in the next two days we seek to benefit from the Forum so that we can return to our respective countries in order, ultimately, to work for their national security interests. And that is achieved by anchoring the security and independence of Ukraine as the best chance we have of turning Russia inward. We must think strategically and escape from the perpetual defensive, reactive position that we have frozen ourselves into.  And let there be no mistake. Only then will tyrants in the Middle East, China, and North Korea also understand that the West recognizes and has the will to act in its own self-interest.

L’VIV SECURITY FORUM, L’viv, Ukraine

28 November 2017

 

Victor Rud is the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian American Bar Association. He has been practicing law for 40 years and has spoken before various audiences on Russia/US/Ukraine relations. Some of his more recent commentary was carried by Forbes and The Kyiv Post. The above is the keynote speech delivered at the dinner reception for the L’viv Security Forum, on November 28, 2017.  Mr. Rud holds an undergraduate degree in international affairs from Harvard College, and law degree from Duke University School of Law. 

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