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Italy voted “No” to the national referendum on Sunday, December 4 resulting in important economic and political consequences for the nation and the European Union (EU). Italy has been in dire straits for a number of years, despite Prime Minister Mateo Renzi’s bold attempt to change its political system and revive the economy.

Renzi, who started with changes in Italy’s employment laws in hiring and firing workers, also cut payroll taxes by €35 billion ($37.1 billion) creating 580,000 new jobs. But the Prime Minister tried to make further changes in Italy’s government by putting forth a national referendum to change the Senate’s structure.  The referendum has economic and political consequences.

Italy not only has a huge governmental bureaucracy but a constitution that makes passing a law a long, tedious process. Compounding this problem is that the national government can change when there is a lack of confidence exhibited by the Senate and the House of Deputies. The referendum is designed to reduce the Senate’s size, streamline the process of passing a law, and bring more stability in the governmental process.

The Renzi-Boschi referendum, named after Renzi and the Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi, was meant by the government as a radical approach in ensuring stable majorities for present and future governments in a tightly run parliamentary format. The Senate would have been broken apart and the House of Deputies becomes the actual law-making body in the Parliament.

This referendum also envisioned the simplification in the law-making process and planned to allow the House to pass laws and votes of “No Confidence” in the government. The legislative process was meant to be sped up since the House would be permitted to debate a bill sent from the cabinet of ministers within five days and vote on it in a maximum of 70 days. The reform also planned to reduce the number of senators from 315 to 100.

Those against the referendum saw it as taking away the constitutional right of government and abrogating democracy. Renzi and his supporters marketed it as streamlining government to make it faster and more responsive to new situations as they present themselves.

The “No” vote is a victory for the 5 Star Movement headed by the comedian turned political party leader Beppe Grillo. Grillo regards a “No” vote as a victory for the populist movement and an opportunity to have elections called next year. The 5 Start Movement’s anti-establishment agenda regards Renzi’s referendum as not radical enough. Renzi placed a huge bet on the referendum’s passage. Given his failure, he was forced to resign and the Italian President will be forced to call for elections for a new government in 2017.

This could allow Grillo and his party to assume enough popular votes to take control of the Italian government. Victory for the 5 Star Movement will rank with Brexit and the Trump presidency as another step forward for anti-establishment politicians. It also means that the 5 Star Movement may try to push to exit the euro and, in the long run, leave the EU.

A larger concern for Italy regarding a “No” vote is the financial market’s reaction.  A “No” vote will result in a loss of confidence by the financial markets who will see Italy changing governments in 2017. Deutsche Bank estimates that if the 5 Star Movement came into power and Grillo becomes prime minister a referendum will be called on Italy’s involvement with the euro and the Stoxx Europe 600 index could drop by as much as 20%. This could also cause Euro Stoxx 50 Volatility Index (VSTOXX) to go higher than its average.

Markets and investors despise bad news and a “No” vote could cause a higher degree of anxiety than many are prepared for. A lethal combination of the unpredictability of Italian politics and serious economic problems for the EU’s third largest economy will cause the market deep consternation. Some analysts feel there will be a domino effect among the European financial markets that the European Central Bank cannot handle and therefore a serious downturn will cause investors to reach for antacid medications.

Compounding the ill reaction by the financial markets will be the effect on Italy’s government bond market, the fifth largest globally. It is bad enough that international bond markets are reeling since the recent American presidential elections, but Italy’s bond market will take a steeper decline in response to the referendum vote. Most recently, the yield on Italy’s 10-year government reached 10% for the first time in more than one year and analysts feel it could go higher. This increase in yields will cause bond and note prices to fall.

“No” could also make it very difficult for Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA (MPS), Italy’s third largest bank by assets and one of the most troubled in Europe. MPS is looking to raise financial capital by shedding €28 billion ($29.7 billion) in bad loans while raising €5 billion to make up the void in its capital cushion that the write-downs from the sale of bad loans will cause. MPS is planning to sell common stock and swap certain bonds at full face value even if they are presently trading at 50% of nominal value.

With a “No” vote, potential investors will become jittery and avoid the offering. If this transaction cannot occur, then MPS will seek a bailout from Renzi’s government.  Renzi and MPS must move quickly to make this happen in order to avoid a bank run and calm financial markets.

While a “No” vote does not mean that Italy will fall apart, it will cause deep anxiety for investors, financial markets, and those in the EU trying to keep it intact.  In the short term, analysts may compare the result to the quake caused by the Brexit vote. In the long term, “No” may cause more uncertainty and hurt Italy’s opportunity for political and economic stability.

This article was originally published by Global Risk Insights and written by Arthur Guarino, an assistant professor in the Finance and Economics Department at Rutgers University Business School

The post Italy and the Consequences of the “No” Vote appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(Brigette Supernova/The Daily Beast)

After winning the election, Trump will soon have to navigate the labyrinthian US foreign affairs field as the President. As a diplomacy amateur, Trump’s strategy may cause uncertainty to US-Sino relations. Tracing back to Trump’s election campaign, he has never introduced a complete and systematic foreign policy strategy. Most of his commitments are based on the form of a slogan.

It is difficult to categorize his strategy as merely an election slogan or a truly tangible diplomatic policy. However, with reference to Trump’s media interview, his election platform and a speech provided by James Woolsey, the diplomacy advisor of Trump’s election campaign, in China-US Forum, a basic stance of Trump’s China strategy can be formulated.

This position can neither be simply classified as pro-Democrats nor pro-Republican. Rather, as Woolsey had stated, US’s external intervention will be exercised with more prudence. The national interest of US will also be redefined.

In the field of military, Trump has explicitly disagreed with the rebalancing strategy of the Obama’s administration in the Asia Pacific region. In terms of the South China Sea territorial dispute, not only does Trump having an ambiguous stance, but also criticize US’s allies of their lack of commitment.

He also propose to re-evaluate US-Japan allies. He has agreed with idea of South Korea and Japan acquiring nuclear weapons, stating that it may be beneficial to the containment of China and resolve North Korea nuclear issue. Moreover, Trump threatened to terminate economic relation with China if China fails to control North Korea effectively. In other words, to deal with the geopolitical issues in East Asia, Trump emphasizes on allies to bear more responsibility for security and to contain China. At the same time, he hopes China to act constructively in the region.

The implementation of the above strategies depends on the interaction of Trump, his cabinets and Republican-led House of Representatives and Senate. However, it inevitably causes uncertainty to the region. On the one hand, the roll-back of US’s external commitment can relieve the pressure on China created by the rebalancing strategy. China may be able to expand its sphere of influence in the Asia Pacific region. At the same time, the roll back of US’s responsibility may induce Southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia and Philippine to bandwagon with China. On the other hand, US is predicted not to withdraw all its influence in the region as isolationism is not beneficial to US’s economic interests. Trump’s emphasis on “America First” requires significant external trade leverage.

Trump’s actual diplomatic strategy for China rests on the dimension of economic relations. In many of Trump’s speeches, Trump accused China of stealing America’s wealth and job position. Most of its “America First” strategies are targeting China, including those related to the protection of copyrights and anti-dumping measures. In the past, Trump has proposed to impose a 45% tariff on Chinese products, though it is unlikely for the parliament and Republican to acknowledge these proposals.

In Trump’s plan for his first 100 days in office, Trump stated that he would classify China as a currency manipulator and initiate negotiations with China regarding trade dispute. However, currency is not a major topic of the current US-Sino economic relations. Former president candidate Romney had also proposed a similar strategy in his platform, it is predicted that the classification of currency manipulation can be seen as merely a leverage for future negotiation.

Undoubtedly, if Trump pursues the above economic strategies, China reacted to these strategies strongly, guaranteeing an all-out currency war. However, given what we knew about Donald Trump’s personality and his love of “deal-making”, it is more likely that these will be used as leverages in future negotiations.

Another key issue related to the grand strategy of China is Trump’s reluctance on free trade agreement such as TPP and NAFTA. With no endorsement from the president, the prospect of TPP is undermined and the attempt of US to reconstruct the rules and norms of economic relations in the Asia Pacific region will be in vain. Therefore, it provides China with a decent chance to implement “Belt and Road” initiative to strengthen economic ties with countries in Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe.

Woolsey has recognized the role of China in G20 in the fields of US-Sino relations and global governance. He stated that US should provide meaningful responses to China-led regional development institution such as AIIB and “Belt and Road” initiative. At the same instant, Woolsey urged China to uphold more responsibility to collective issues. He believed China had not been responsible for major global crises such as the Libya crisis and the rise of ISIS. It can be understood as an implicit criticism urging China to have their commitment commensurate with the international status it is pursuing.

Trump failed to provide diplomatic strategy other than those in the field of military, bilateral trade and global governance. In the field of normative diplomacy and soft power strategy, Trump has not provided any tangible plans. Commentators speculate it as an indicator of Trump’s lack of interests to promote democracy overseas.

Trump believes democracy may not be universally applicable. Current over-commitment on international issues can be attributed to the intense promotion of democracy in the current agenda. His viewpoints have been consistent with the general stance of Chinese nationalist. During his election campaign, Trump had repeatedly complimented the intelligence of Chinese leader and his frequent business interactions with Chinese. Therefore, he is quite popularly among regular Chinese inside the country.

In general, the effect of Trump’s diplomatic strategy on China is not specifically contained within certain aspects but how it introduced unpredictability to the Sino-US relationship. This is why, unlike the popularity Trump gained among ordinary Chinese citizens, Chinese officials have not been enthusiastic about the outcome of the election. For example, in the press conference of the closing ceremony of “The Two Meetings” (also known as “Lianghui” (The NPC and the CPPCC), Li Keqiang responded a US media stating that mutual benefits should be the essence of US-Sino relations, the progress of US-Sino relations will not be altered regardless of which president is elected. It demonstrated Li has not been concerned about the “tariff penalty” introduced by Trump.

Lou Jiwei, the former Minister of Finance of China, stated the behavior of Trump had brought uncertainty to the global economy in an interview with Wall Street Journal. For China, a predictable US will be more beneficial given the lack of combined capabilities to replace the US and the presence of internal and external threats. If Trump adopts isolationism, the existing rules of globalization will be undermined. It will cause disastrous effects to China’s development which is based on utilizing globalization to expand its economic relations and sphere of influence.

In his victory speech, Trump stated his desire to maintain a positive relationship with other countries. Structurally, the current outlook of US-Sino relations—characterized by both confrontation and cooperation—faces a number of constraints which cannot be solved by any individuals, including Trump. As a pragmatist, Trump understands the benefits offered by US-Sino relations. Therefore, prudence should be the essence of China’s strategy.

The post A Preview of Trump’s Foreign Policy Towards China appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation.

International media has been focusing on the near-term directions of US foreign policy with regard to the Iran nuclear accord, sanctions against North Korea, relations with China and Russia, mutual defense with Japan and South Korea, free trade agreements, immigration, terrorism, and the wider Middle East. But no closer look has been paid to the possible dynamics of foreign aid under a Trump presidency.

Having a look at the Middle East and North Africa, for example, shows that some form of foreign aid is given for strategic and geopolitical reasons. New policy challenges have also arisen in the face of violence and civil wars across the region which made the Obama administration use new sources of funding beyond traditional bilateral or State Department/USAID-controlled accounts.

However, questions will arise over the type (i.e. other than military aid) and amount of resources the US should devote to tackling the region’s challenges. The Congress and the Trump administration will most likely debate whether US aid would be vital for the promotion of stability and democracy across the region. Globally speaking, President-elect Trump’s agenda will likely be how to do less with foreign aid (especially where policy and institutional settings have not been conducive for effective aid), yet not ignoring low-income countries.

The orthodoxy in foreign aid viewed the lack of capital as a major cause of poverty; the most basic of which was the idea of a “vicious circle of poverty.” Foreign aid was used to fill that gap to provide a “big push” to poor nations and, in the view of Walt Rostow, lead to an “economic takeoff.”

Skepticism of such plans is widespread nowadays among academics and development practitioners. Peter Bauer (1915–2002) was actually the most articulate of the dissenters, who once explained that the notions of a vicious circle of poverty and of foreign aid as essential to development were absurd: rich countries that were once poor developed without outside aid, whereas those that have received substantial external aid have failed to escape poverty.

According to William Easterly, “foreign aid cannot achieve the grandiose goal of transforming other societies to escape poverty.” When foreign aid becomes a significant part of a nation’s income, the result is likely to be inflation, waste, corruption, rent-seeking, and indefinite postponement of needed economic and political reforms (the major theme of Easterly’s book The Elusive Quest for Growth).

Whatever the ideological divide, there might be a clear case which a Trump administration can give more attention to, and possibly, boost US aid’s relative success compared to other global aid agencies: the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which was established in 2004 as a US foreign aid agency that works in partnership with competitively selected countries which demonstrate a commitment to good governance, economic freedom and investment in their citizens.

Since its inception, MCC’s mandate has included demonstrating results with rigorous criteria to evaluate countries’ aptitude to utilize grant funding. Perhaps of equal significance, raising indicator scores has become a prominent objective of some developing countries: the MCC effect. This means that countries seeking eligibility are said to be moving on their own to enact reforms and take measures to improve performance scores that would enable them to meet MCC criteria.

While there is little doubt that availability of MCC funding has influenced some decision makers in developing countries to undertake policy reforms, it is uncertain how large or widespread the MCC effect is. A limited number of quantitative analyses have attempted to test this incentive effect. The earliest of these was conducted by Harvard researchers in 2006 (Doug Johnson and Tristan Zajonc, “Can Foreign Aid Create an Incentive for Good Governance? Evidence from the Millennium Challenge Corporation,” April 2006). But because the analysis was conducted soon after MCC’s creation and with a limited amount of data, the researchers determined that the results were not conclusive.

The best evidence for an MCC effect thus remains qualitative and country-specific. Setting aside specific methodological aspects, we need to think of the MCC effect (and the effectiveness of foreign aid at large) as a process, rather than a policy outcome. This is not surprising as economic progress depends on the complex interaction of policies, institutions, and values, not all of which are easy to measure.

Coming from a private sector background where incentives matter, President-elect Trump can radically improve US foreign aid by looking at its effectiveness in the past, focusing on the intended beneficiaries of aid (the poor) rather than leaving it to politicians and corrupt governments. The MCC has a track record: it is one of the few aid agencies in the world that have been already held accountable for specific tasks and not the visions that follow from aid bureaucracies.

The post Foreign Aid under a Trump Presidency appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The Arizona-Mexico border fence is seen near Naco, Arizona. (Samantha Sais/Reuters)

No one really knows the exact number, but with an estimate of between ten and twenty million non-status immigrants in the United States, resolving America’s immigration quagmire is nearly impossible. For a legal system based on individual rights and consequences to apply justice in its intended manner, the millions of non-status immigrants that are in the United States must be acknowledged and processed as identifiable individuals.

Without a new and innovative path to legal status and a method for removing those who could be potentially harmful to communities in the United States, there will be no resolution without a massive political fallout and a human rights tragedy upon the application of traditional immigration policies.

The current language on immigration reform is not as inventive as many on both sides of the political spectrum may perceive it to be. During the last months and transition from the Bush to Obama Presidency, there was bipartisan support for a significant barrier on the southern border of the United States. While the barrier had some support from both parties, the cost of building such a barrier was not justifiable at the time. The 2008-2009 economic downturn that came about in the same time period affected immigration to such a great degree, that non-legal immigration to the United States from Latin America fell considerably.

Since the 2008 economic crisis, illegal immigration to the United States never recovered in any substantial way to its pre-2008 levels and the idea of building a wall on the southern border was shelved until the 2015-2016 election campaign. Even with the idea of the barrier being proposed by the Trump Administration, the application of a new immigration policy is still hampered with traditional limits to resolving the larger issue.

Some agreeable perspectives from both sides of the issue should be acknowledged if any resolution will become reality. It should be acceptable that the United States should have control over its own border, and be able to apply this control when required as a nation state with a contiguous southern border. It should also be acknowledged that a policy to remove illegal immigrants from the United States without strict guidelines based on human rights and the rule of law would most likely lead to an abuse of administrative powers by authorities who may ignore individual rights of citizens and non-citizens alike.

A path to citizenship must exist for non-status immigrants that satisfy the rule of law and the needs of the United States, but also be developed in a manner that creates confidence and trust in the process against abuse and against a lack of fairness in its application. A new approach is needed for a resolution to take place, one that develops and promotes confidence on both sides of the issue.

For a new immigration process to work, it must be based in reality. It will be almost impossible to remove ten to twenty million individuals from the United States in a simple manner, and this large number of people, often with American born children and relatives, are an integral part of the culture and economy of the United States. To begin, an initial smaller group of people should be self-identified and have their contribution to the US economy, community, employer and family reviewed by officials of the United States to determine their contribution to American society, and if deemed a productive part of their community and society, be given a path to full citizenship within a four to six year time frame.

Self identifying by non-status immigrants without the threat of deportation allows for individual identification of productive members of American society and brings those who already are in American communities into the larger fold. This will allow millions of the best contributors of the formerly unknown group to fully integrate into the communities they have been building for years. With an initial group being integrated with respect to individual rights and the needs of the American public as a whole, the confidence in the process would allow for it to be rolled out to the larger non-status community and produce a path to citizenship for those who wish to become permanent parts of the larger community.

For those who are not seen as contributors to their American communities, they can return to their country of origin and apply under a work permit or as an immigrant through the normal process. For those who are linked to crime or are deemed a threat to the United States, they can be deported without permission to return.

While there will always be a great debate on how to handle the issue of illegal immigration, the acceptance of a path to citizenship that is a benefit to the United States would be a toughly sought win-win for the best contributors to American society. Without a realistic solution based on the current immigration policy approaches, all policies will be protested against by those who will not be able to achieve the policy approach that most benefits their perspective on the immigration issue.

Millions of non-status immigrants will remain in the United States no matter what policy approach is applied, and that reality must be accepted and worked upon to come up with a resolution. The only option is either maintain the status quo, or accept the impossibility at resolving the current issue using current policy tools and attempt a new and innovative approach.

The post Resolving America’s Immigration Issues One Policy At A Time appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The MEK advocates for a non-nuclear Iran with free, democratic, and secular values, much in line with our own. Having been based in Iraq since 1986, they are now resettled in European countries, an effort in which the U.S. government played a major role. However, with the President-elect a vocal opponent of the nuclear deal with Tehran, charges against the dissident group and its many defenders—the stock and trade of the mullahs in Tehran—are conveniently resurfacing across the U.S. media.

As an academic and author of three empirical, peer-reviewed journal articles that examine the MEK—in addition to writing the foreword for an independent 2013 study undertaken by Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr. that addressed the misinformation campaign directed at Western government policies toward the Iranian opposition group—I feel that it is critical to set the record straight.

The US Department of State did not add the MEK to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) until 1997. The purported basis was the killings of six American military personnel and defense contractors in Iran in the early 1970s. The State Department would later allege that the MEK played a key role in the February 1979 occupation of the US embassy in Tehran and that after fleeing to Paris, and then Iraq in the early 1980s, it conducted terrorist attacks inside Iran. Such claims, never verified with credible terrorism incident data, were formally debunked by French judicial review.

Two years later, in 1999, the United States went a step further by alleging that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a political organization made up of several Iranian opposition groups that reject clerical rule, was a front for the MEK and designated it too as a terrorist group. Martin Indyk, then Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, indicated that the State Department added the National Council of Resistance (NCR) as an alias for the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) because “The Iranian government had brought this to our attention. We looked into it and saw that there were good reasons for designating the NCR as an alias for the MEK.” The United Kingdom (UK) and European Union (EU) followed suit, pinning the MEK (though not the NCRI) to their terror lists.

The evidence, however, demonstrates that the US military officers and contractor killings that formed the basis of the original designation were carried out by a secular hard-left splinter group, with no ties to MEK leadership; that there was no proof that the MEK played a role in the 1979 embassy takeover; and that the armed resistance carried out by the MEK from Iraq was an insurgency directed at official regime targets, not innocent civilians, at a time that their relatives and sympathizers were being jailed, tortured and executed en masse.

There is also overwhelming evidence that Iran lobbied hard to get the United States and other Western governments to designate the MEK as terrorists, even though the allegations were baseless. Only a day after the US added the MEK to its FTO list in October 1997, one senior Clinton administration official said inclusion of the MEK was intended as a ‘goodwill gesture’ to Tehran and its newly elected moderate president Mohammad Khatami. Five years later, the same official told Newsweek: “[There] was White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government. At the time, President Khatami had recently been elected and was seen as a moderate. Top administration officials saw cracking down on the [MEK]—which the Iranians had made clear they saw as a menace, as one way to do so.”

Across the Atlantic, similar political considerations operated. In 2006, then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw admitted that the UK designation of the MEK in 2001 was specifically issued in response to demands made by the Iranian regime. That same year, classified documents, later unclassified by a UK court, revealed that senior foreign service officials were concerned about possible adverse foreign policy consequences if the terrorist designation was lifted since the Iranian regime prioritized “tough legal and political measures” against the organization. The EU too is now known to have bowed to pressure in designating the MEK in 2002.

Supporters of removing the terrorist designation took their case to courts. These efforts met with strong resistance, not only from spokespersons for Iran but also from representatives of a new Iran-tilting government in Iraq. By 2006, seven European courts had ruled that the group did not meet lawful criteria for terrorism. They also ruled that the terrorist designation should have been moot after 2001, when the group’s leadership ceased armed resistance to focus on a political and social campaign to bring about democratic change in Iran.

In the United States, where the courts similarly ruled repeatedly in favor of the MEK, and as many as 200 members of Congress signed statements endorsing its cause, the process was stalled until America’s second highest court granted the writ of mandamus filed by the MEK, and ordered the Secretary of State to take action or it would delist the group. Secretary Hillary Clinton, having been provided no credible basis for re-listing by the intelligence community, revoked the designation in September 2012.

Overwhelming evidence demonstrates that the MEK is a natural ally of the United States, one to which we have pledged our support. Unfortunately, if people are to believe the misleading media storm, it could have a dire influence on the selection of our next Secretary of State and the future of US-Iran policy.

Dr. Ivan Sascha Sheehan, Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs, is director of the graduate program in Global Affairs and Human Security at the University of Baltimore. Follow him on Twitter @ProfSheehan.

The post Media Storm Resurrects Discredited Claims about Iranian Resistance Group appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Palestinian firefighters after helping to extinguish the Nahf fire. (Agence France Presse)

Last week, while Americans celebrated Thanksgiving, fires raged across Israel and on social media.

While Northern Israel was besieged by “unprecedented” fires, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee their homes, another battle raged in the war of the Middle Eastern twitterverse.

Firefighters fought upwards of 250 large fires, with more than 1500 total fires burning across the region. People across Israel, the Middle East and the world began trading barbs about the fire, both mourning and rejoicing in the devastation.

Northern Israel had been extremely dry due to a severe lack of rain. These dry conditions and heavy winds helped readily spread the flames. While the initial fires were naturally occurring, many of the fires that followed are thought to have been acts of arson.

As the flames spread, people coalesced on social media around the hashtag #IsraelIsBurning. Throughout the Arab world, the fires were being equated with Israel’s controversial bill to ban outside loudspeakers from places of worship, clearly aimed at preventing mosques from making their 5-time daily Muezzin call.

The hashtag, in English and in Arabic, really began to take off when it started getting used by several Imams from Arab Gulf countries, including Kuwaiti preacher Mishary Rashid Alafasy who has 11.6 million Twitter followers.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to brand all such arsonists as “terrorists.” Education Minister Naftali Bennett stated that those lighting the fires could not be Jewish. “Only those to whom the country does not belong are capable of burning it.”

While Israel battled these fires, the world came together to offer assistance. The US, Turkey, Egypt, Ukraine, Greece, Russia and others sent aid, planes, trucks and manpower. But some assistance came from much closer to home; the Palestinian Authority sent eight firetrucks and four firefighting teams to help battle the flames.

Superintendent Micky Rosenfeld, the Israel Police Foreign Press Spokesman, sent a tweet with several pictures of Palestinian firefighters working alongside Israeli firefighters to “help put out fires and blazes.”

And Israel’s official Twitter account shared a video of Palestinian firefighters at work.

But when Israel made a professional and official graphic stating that “Israel is thankful for all the support and assistance from around the world!” (shared over Thanksgiving weekend), the Palestinians were not included. They received merely a footnote.

Other than Israel, no one was more directly threatened by these fires than the Palestinians themselves. While Israel was quick to condemn Palestinians lighting the fires as terrorists, they were reluctant to label those fighting the fires as heroes.

Belarus, Britain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Portugal, Romania and Switzerland are all included in the above graphic for simply offering assistance.

But while the Palestinians stood alongside Israelis fighting the flames, on social media they were but a footnote.

Other related hashtags in use: #Israel_IsBurning, #TelAviv_Is_Burning, #IsraelFires, #IsraelBurns and #IsraelUnderAttack.

Follow me on Twitter @jlemonsk.

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The Arleigh Burke Class guided missile destroyer USS Mason (US Navy)

Since March 2015 U.S. allies, led by Saudi Arabia, have been increasingly involved in a military campaign in Yemen against the Zaydi Shia fundamentalist rebel movement known as the Houthis, and their ally, former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Yemenis forced to flee their homes because of it.

Yemen’s collapsing state holds negative implications for international maritime trade, as the conflict is occurring near a major trading artery for the global economy, the Suez Canal-Red Sea shipping lane, and for regional security for countries on both sides of the Red Sea, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf of Aden.

The lack of a deep Yemeni national identity means that the incomplete fall of Saleh has seen multiple competing power centre re-emerge. Owing to the lack of national cohesion, events could yet see the country break up entirely, pushing nation building into to the far future. Militarily, NATO should therefore stay out of this bitter factional civil war between multiple sides. However, the Alliance should seek to mitigate the effects of the conflict at sea where international shipping could be affected by the belligerents or a fresh wave of piracy.

The real roots of the present civil war stem from Yemen’s complex regional and tribal politics, long predating the Arab Spring which led to the toppling of Saleh, Yemen’s long-time dictator. Following months of protests against his rule, a Saudi-backed deal saw Saleh step down in 2012 in favour of his Vice President, Field Marshal Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Hadi took office after running in an election as the only candidate for a transitional presidency, but in 2015 he was overthrown in turn by the Houthis who allied with the deposed Saleh. Their long-running insurgency had first developed in the early 2000s under the former dictator’s rule, but the Houthis saw the chaos of the Arab Spring as a chance to expand at the expense of the weakened central government of Saleh’s successor.

Hadi bitterly denounced the Houthi move against him as a coup, eventually fleeing to Saudi Arabia. A massive Saudi-led intervention against the Houthis and Saleh followed in March 2015, by nine Arab states and assorted mercenary forces. Djibouti and Somalia open their airspace, waters and military bases to the coalition whilst the U.S. accelerated its sale of weapons to coalition states and provided intelligence and logistical support. The U.S. and UK have also deployed their military personnel in the command and control centre responsible for Saudi airstrikes.

Saudi influence has galvanized regional states to defend the internationally recognized Yemeni government. However the kingdom’s military campaign has also provided an opening for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Islamic State (IS) to seize territory in Yemen from which they operate in relative safety, and threatens to internationalize the Yemeni civil war.

An example of this internationalization came on October 12 when the U.S. alleged that Houthi forces had fired missiles on American naval assets and struck back by targeting the rebel’s radar systems. Previously American attacks in Yemen had been limited to targeting members of Sunni militant groups in the fragmented state such as AQAP, al-Qaeda’s local franchise, which found refuge in Yemen after largely being driven out of neighboring Saudi Arabia in 2009.

Houthi hostility to America predates the U.S. backing of Saudi Arabia during its intervention on behalf of President Hadi’s feeble regime in March 2015. As a minority Shi’a community in a Sunni majority nation, they are fierce enemies of Sunni fundamentalist movements such as IS or AQAP, which view them as apostates to be exterminated. But they also oppose U.S. military involvement in the fight against the Sunni radicals as an unacceptable infringement of Yemeni sovereignty.

Now that the U.S. has supported direct military intervention against the group, this position has hardened and allegedly led to the recent missile attacks against U.S. navy ships. Though the Houthis deny their forces carried out the attacks, analysts speculate the rebels might have acquired Iranian anti-ship missiles or seized these from captured Yemeni army stocks. The result is direct hostilities have occurred between the Houthis and the U.S. for the first time.

Meanwhile the Saudis see the Shi’a Houthis as coming under the influence of Iran, though proof of Iranian backing to the rebels remains limited. As such Riyadh perceived the overthrow of the Hadi government through the lens of its struggle for influence in the Middle East with Tehran, rather than an internal development in Yemen’s turbulent politics. Thanks to forceful Saudi and U.S. support, President Hadi’s forces have been able to retake Aden and hold onto large parts of central Yemen. But the Houthis still hold the capital Sana’a and the Saudi led coalition has been unable to dislodge the rebels from the parts of Yemen unsympathetic to the internationally recognized government.

The exact extent of any Iranian backing for the Houthis is unknown but likely to remain small. The Houthis do not follow the same branch of Shi’a Islam as the Iranian regime and the Yemeni militia is not influenced by Tehran to anywhere near the same extent that Lebanon’s Hezbollah is, for example. Nonetheless there are credible reports that weapons transfers sent through neighboring Oman, said to include missiles, ammunition and small arms, have been stepped up by Iran to the Houthis in recent months. Yemeni and senior regional officials accuse the Omanis of turning a blind eye to the flow of arms through their territory and of failing to aggressively crack down on the transfers.

Western officials have been more skeptical about the scale of Iranian backing, pointing out that the Houthis secured an arsenal of weaponry when entire divisions of Yemen’s army, allied to former Yemeni President Saleh, defected to them at the start of the civil war last year. These included the crews of three Chinese-made Type 021 missile boats armed with C.801 anti-ship missiles. Some analysts claim that an unknown number of these C.801 missiles and their launchers were installed on trucks by Houthi forces and coupled with various surface-search radars to create an improvised missile system.

The Houthis had been using these weapons without success to strike at the Saudi coalition’s naval blockade against Yemen for about a year until they managed a direct hit against the catamaran Swift, a former U.S. Navy catamaran now in Emirati service. This system was destroyed in retaliatory strikes by American forces after the Houthis targeted U.S. ships but Tehran can easily supply its proxies with Iranian made replacements and the training to use them.

Since Iran offers a quasi-recognition of the Houthis as Yemen’s legitimate government and certainly sees the civil war in Yemen through the matrix of its regional conflict with Saudi Arabia, this would not be impossible to envisage. Tehran believes backing the Houthis in Yemen against Saudi Arabia is a counter move offsetting Saudi Arabia’s support for Syrian rebels fighting Iran’s ally Bashar al-Assad.

It carries the risk of potentially antagonizing the United States at a time the two countries have warily cooperated over Iran’s nuclear program, but Tehran may think of Washington’s approval of Saudi action in Yemen as a sop from the Obama administration to Riyadh. When the nuclear deal was signed in 2015 skeptical Gulf countries warned Washington it would only embolden Iran in conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere. The Iranians may be gambling that at least in Yemen the U.S. will not care enough to do anything except continue reassure the Saudis that they remain committed to defending Saudi Arabia’s interests.

The U.S. and other Western nations are right to hesitate before committing themselves, either individually or collectively though NATO, to a military campaign aimed at resolving Yemen’s intractable differences. Yemen was only formally united as a country in 1990 and has remained deeply divided even during the height of Saleh’s dictatorship. . The new Houthi Revolutionary Committee has been unable to defeat tribesmen opposed to it in central Yemen despite holding its ground against the Saudis and their allies on its home ground in Yemen’s north-western areas.

Meanwhile, although Saudi money did much to keep Yemen afloat before the war, this has now gone. As a result, the Yemeni economy is in freefall while civilians are on the brink of starvation. Yemen’s feuding factions include hostile southern secessionists and IS and AQAP militants who would react violently to any Western intervention on behalf of the Hadi regime. Heavy casualties would be inevitable and any post-conflict clean up would take years and cost billions, particularly one aiming at a Kosovo or Bosnian style nation building program to bring a permanent end to civil war. No Western government would be willing to meet this commitment at present and any failure would damage the prestige and perceived value of NATO.

The presence of major regional powers backing different sides in the present civil war also means that Yemen makes an especially poor choice for a major NATO intervention. Admittedly Yemen is lower on the Iranian priority list than it is for Saudi Arabia; Iran is ultimately much more willing to relinquish Yemen than cede influence in Iraq or Lebanon. But it is a useful card to have, and Tehran will keep playing it for as long as it can, because the Iranian regime knows how weak its proxies are, making Iran’s major rival look through their defiance. Riyadh has always considered Yemen to be in its backyard, and insisted that foreign countries, including the United States, follow the Saudi lead when making deals with its troublesome neighbor.

Inserting NATO forces into this conflict would be unlikely to end the fighting in Yemen entirely as long as Riyadh remains determined to end the war on its terms. Iran could step up its support to compensate for any NATO troop surge, setting the stage for a wider escalation beyond Yemen if Western armies are being constantly attacked by Iranian weapons. At a time when Europe is already strained by refugees from the war in Syria, any escalation of war in the Middle East would be a disaster which would expose divergent U.S. and European interests.

The Houthi attacks on shipping passing through the Gulf of Aden have highlighted one valuable role for NATO forces— maritime security. Indeed, the Houthis gained access to missile systems which present a real danger to international shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the nearby strait, Bab al-Mandeb. The strait is a major shipping lane between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden leading into the Indian Ocean, and any Houthi attempt to disrupt the passage of international shipping would have massive financial implications for logistics and insurance companies involved in the maritime sector.

It would also be an economic disaster for Egypt, which controls the Suez Canal connecting the Gulf region and Asia to Europe and North America. Egypt has committed warships to support coalition operations against the Houthis and the rebels may calculate that targeting the economies of Saudi Arabia’s allies would be a good way to weaken the coalition supporting its domestic enemies.

Missile launchers and their radar systems have proven vulnerable to U.S. countermeasures but there are also reports that the Houthis have used small speed boats to support their missile attacks on coalition and U.S. vessels. These only present a danger to unarmed support ships like the Swift or to civilian vessels but these are precisely the vessels which would be vulnerable if the Houthis decided to switch tactics and start performing suicide attacks or hijackings in the Gulf of Aden or the straits.

There are precedents for this—in 2000 the USS Cole was hit by a speed boat packed with explosives while it was being refuelled in Yemen’s Aden harbour. Meanwhile hijackings by Somali pirates using small boats to approach and board undefended civilian vessels mean ships passing through the Gulf of Aden have required a permanent international naval taskforce to protect them. Even before Yemen’s civil war reached its present heights there were fears that a devastated Yemen could serve as a new hub for piracy.

NATO should consider the possibility that the Houthis could adopt this tactic or encourage and tolerate the emergence of pirate groups on their territory as a form of economic warfare against the Saudi coalition and its Western supporters. This would function similarly to the way Iran presently sponsors the Houthi ‘government’ as a means of pressuring Saudi Arabia without fighting an open war against them.

This could be modeled on the effort to suppress Somalian piracy, which NATO has been helping to deter and disrupt since 2008, protecting vessels and helping to increase the general level of security in the Gulf of Aden, off the Horn of Africa and in the Indian Ocean. As part of this, NATO is currently leading Operation Ocean Shield in the region and working in close collaboration with the European Union’s Operation Atalanta, the U.S.-led Combined Task Force 151 and individual country contributors. Ocean Shield is scheduled to terminate in December 2016 but with the rise of the Houthi threat the alliance should shift its attention to the other side of the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

Yemen would be a highly unsuitable place for NATO intervention by air or on land. The interests of the Alliance at stake in Yemen are simply not high enough yet to justify intervening in what is essentially a civil war between Yemeni factions, aggravated by the sectarian struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The cost of maintaining peace and security in Yemen would be staggering at a time when the Alliance needs to focus on more urgent matters, such as deterring Russian adventurism in Eastern Europe.

This could change if there is an emergence of a jihadist emirate along the style of the IS caliphate declared in Iraq and Syria or the takeover of northern Mali in 2012. But for now, AQAP and IS in Yemen have not reached such threatening heights, while the arrival of NATO units to Yemen would merely provide targets of opportunity and ideological justification to the Sunni terrorist networks currently operating there.

What would be of great value in light of the demonstrated Houthi interest and ability to hit vessels passing through the Bab al-Mandeb strait is the creation of a new NATO naval task force modeled on its Somali predecessor to help deter future attacks and enforce freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb and elsewhere around the world.

A version of this article appeared earlier in the Atlantic Voices journal of the Atlantic Treaty Association and reappears here with kind permission.

The post Yemen: A Regional Problem With Regional Consequences appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

A surgical strike on corruption. Shock therapy for the economy. A financial system in chaos. All are descriptions of the recent actions taken by Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India to crack down on and root out corruption, money laundering, and the illicit financial transactions that comprise the so-called shadow economy.

India is one of the world’s most cash-dependent countries. Over 90% of consumer purchases are transacted in cash. Much of this ends up as “black money,” used for unofficial or illicit transactions. Corruption, including racketeering and counterfeiting, is extensive, plus few workers pay income taxes and many rely on informal payments.

Modi’s solution to this crippling problem? Ban his own country’s currency. On November 8, 2016, with no warning and to the shock of many at home and abroad, Modi declared India’s 2 most popular bank notes—500 and 1000 rupee bills—null and void. Instantly, cash held by millions of people became worthless paper (or demonetized, in finance terminology). The 500 and 1000 rupee notes represent 86% of cash in circulation, and according to Reuters “pushed Asia’s third largest economy to the brink of a liquidity crisis.”

As the government introduced new, theoretically “clean” (literally and figuratively) banknotes, what this meant for most Indians is that ATMs became inoperable. They were not reprogrammed to dispense the new notes prior to the announcement; the public was purposefully kept in the dark. The idea is that this would have tipped off users of black money, causing them to cover their tracks.

As a consequence, lines at banks stretched far and wide. As Panos Mourdoukoutas writes in Forbes, the currency shakeup “brought the nation’s economy to a standstill.” Natasha Sarin and Lawrence Summers of Harvard University wrote that the move is “is by far the most sweeping change in currency policy that has occurred anywhere in the world in decades.”

Customers wait in a long line outside a bank in Allahabad, India on Nov. 16, 2016. (Reuters/Jitendra Prakash)

Modi and his administration have steadfastly supported the drastic policy. The government believes it will expose corruption, people with unaccounted for or undeclared wealth, and counterfeiting operations with a goal of eliminating black money.

Modi is even counting on the problems caused by the demonetization becoming the solution. The theory is that the broken ATMs and long bank lines making it difficult to acquire new, legally recognized cash will spur people to adopt digital payment methods, thereby boosting India’s nascent e-commerce sector. On November 27 in a national radio address, Modi urged small business owners to embrace digital transaction systems such as mobile bank applications and credit card swipe readers.

In an attempt to convince tax evaders to join the formal economy, on November 28 Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley pledged an amnesty scheme for anyone who legitimately declares their holdings. The move could lead to the recognition of billions of dollars of previously undeclared income.

While the action was certainly shocking, also surprising is that many Indians have seemed to support it. According to James Crabtree in Foreign Policy, “Modi trusted his instincts that both the boldness of the move, and perhaps even the pain it introduced, would win him support. Here he has been proved right […]. If that public sentiment holds, Modi’s gutsy (and arguably reckless) move will secure a remarkable political victory.”

But as popular as the measure may seem, critics are plentiful. The opposition Congress party has claimed Modi is fleecing the people of their hard-earned cash. Many economists question whether the shadow economy will be impacted by demonetization in any significant way. In fact, some are convinced the people who will be hurt the most are the very people the measure intended to help the most: average law-abiding citizens. And the people supposed to be bankrupted—criminals and cheats—will be no worse for the wear.

As Pranjul Bhandari, economist at HSBC in Mumbai, puts it, “The minor entrepreneur, the shopkeeper, the farmer will be hurt by this. And even among the bad guys, the risk is you catch the minnows, but the big fish escape.” This is certainly a troubling proposition. If it comes true, it would certainly erode any goodwill Modi has accumulated with this bold change.

Rooting out and eliminating corruption, collecting taxes, legitimizing the economy, reducing cash dependency and developing e-commerce are all fantastic goals. But will Modi’s decision to invalidate currency and replace it with new cash actually accomplish those goals? At this point the only reasonable answer is decidedly who knows? It seems hard to believe most (some? any?) of India’s financial problems will be solved by it.

It has certainly garnered worldwide attention to the country’s economic plight, and maybe this is the best outcome Modi could have hoped for. But many Indians are suffering because of it, including those whose lives were supposed to be improved by it. This situation needs to be rectified as soon possible. And now the world is watching.

The post Crazy, or Crazy Enough to Work? India’s Financial Shakeup appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Despite unforgivable slips in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, the polling industry must be strengthened, not discredited. It remains crucial in an era in which markets are hypersensitive to political outcomes.

By 11:00pm EST on November 8, 2016, after commercial breaks allowed the world to swallow the unexpected reality of a Donald Trump presidency, pundits pinned the blame on public opinion polls. Electoral experts firmly renounced major polls for miscalculating the electoral outcome by biblical proportions into the morning hours. Mr. Trump, who according to the superstar electoral statistician Nate Silver had a 28.6% of winning the election, ended up flipping the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. He also took the key battleground states—Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina.

Mr. Silver is not the only expert who was wrong. Every major publication, think tank, and agency able to forecast the election predicted a Trump loss by margins making Silver’s forecast look optimistic for the Trump campaign. Gallup published an article on November 2 (less than a week before election day), stating that the Trump campaign’s ratings were the “worst in recent election years”, with a 29% national approval rate.

News broadcasting stations, however, were the furthest off the mark. The day before election day, all major cable stations had Clinton winning by a couple points: Fox, ABC, and CBS had Clinton up by 4 points; while NBC had Clinton ahead of Trump by 6 points. Polls funded by other publications and agencies also forecasted a Clinton win, albeit by a smaller margin: The Economist and YouGov had Clinton up by 4 points while Reuters and Bloomberg had her up by 3 points.

The following headlines from The Economist articles provide a glimpse into the level of disproportional forecasting going into Election Day:

• “Hillary Clinton has got this. Probably. Very probably.” Published Election Day five hours before the first votes were tallied.
• “The Economist Explains: How did the Polls Get it Wrong?” Published November 9, the day after Election Day.
• “Epic Fail.” Published November 10, two days after Election Day.

This sequence, which starts cautiously optimistic, then defensive, and finally accepting, is representative of the sentiment among the pundits. Going forward, experts should not jump to discredit the entire polling industry but rather allow academia to reassess the methodology for future national polls. A technical review of polling companies should address the following stress points.

Concerning the research design, national polls usually have a sample size of 1,000 people. In a geographically massive and culturally heterogeneous country of 320 million people such as the United States, sample sizes may need to be significantly larger to cover more counties, including rural areas, to have a deeper footprint among the electorate.

Polls were somewhat accurate when analyzing the overall national popular vote, but highly inaccurate at the state and local level. A miscalculation at the state level can make a large difference under the Electoral College’s points system. The disproportionate tally mechanism of the Electoral College brings into question how polls can correctly predict a national election in a highly decentralized electoral system, especially with an untraditional candidate such as Donald Trump.

Mainstream polls may also want to revisit how to capture politically marginalized groups. One unifying characteristic among three unexpected electoral outcomes in 2016—Brexit, the Colombian peace plebiscite, and the U.S. presidential elections—is the undocumented strength of a resentful anti-establishment silent majority. The polls may be missing this significant chunk of the electorate, which is composed of diverse demographic and income groups. The silent majority’s level of distrust with the establishment may have spilled over to independent institutions such as polling agencies, leading this important cohort to reject polling requests en masse.

In the three electoral cases presented, there was no stark contrast in the options available and voters were left to choose between a menu of suboptimal scenarios. In Brexit, Leave supporters were willing to sacrifice macroeconomic stability for bureaucratic sovereignty. In Colombia, No supporters sacrificed the demobilization of the most enduring guerrilla in the western hemisphere for the possibility of tougher sanctions. In the United States, Trump supporters turned down political and diplomatic experience for a systemic shock to the establishment.

These cases are not traditional or simple. Voters had to logically process a very rough menu of choices, which only increased popular dissatisfaction. Given the context of broad public distrust of government, polls may need to readjust their methodology to more effectively capture the pulse during untraditional electoral patterns.

Polls are adjusted to a dichotomous party-based political model, when perhaps, the establishment and party do not have the influence over voters they once had. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, said “Trump pulled off an enormous political feat”, meaning that Trump won mainly with his persona and without the full backing of the party machine. The Republican Party remained fractured over Trump’s candidacy until the end.

Maybe this anti-establishment wave of electoral politics in established liberal democracies has not been grasped by big data. Pollsters are hanging on to an old party-based model in a context in which parties are mistrusted, as they represent a decaying governing elite.

The polling blunders of 2016 cannot be taken lightly. In the era of ultra-low interest rates and thin yields, the markets—particularly currencies—have become hypersensitive to political outcomes. The recent market politically induced volatility also transcends borders.

More than ever, electoral outcomes have a direct implication on global markets, even if the policies promised in campaigns are unfeasible in the short-term. The U.S. election, for example, has severely altered a large number of currencies, regardless of the country’s current account balance or general economic standing. The currency market’s reaction to Trump’s election is symptomatic of the deep economic interconnectedness of the global economy.

If political stakeholders have placed so much trust in polls, it is because they have worked successfully in the past. Yes, 2016 has been an unconventional year for democracy and therefore polls as well, but this is no excuse to discredit the industry as was done by pundits on Election Day. Rather, firms should reassess how polls are structured in unorthodox political contests and recalibrate the qualitative methodology to treat voters as complex social beings instead of robots.

This article was originally published by Global Risk Insights and written by GRI Senior Analyst Daniel Lemaitre.

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A simpler time: officials at the opening of the climate conference in Marrakech. (UNFCCC | Flickr)

Grief unfolds in five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the aftermath of the U.S. election, climate policy-makers have been struggling through this process themselves. The urge to deny the significance of the coming U.S. climate policy turnaround is understandable. The Paris Agreement was hailed as a momentous deal, and negotiators had to fight a lot of difficult battles to get there. A little less than a year later, much of that progress could be on the verge of irrelevance.

Coincidentally, the first international climate conference after the Paris deal kicked off two days before the U.S. election. In the early morning hours of November 9th, it became clear that American voters—or more accurately the U.S. electoral system—had dropped a bombshell on negotiators. Within two months, Donald Trump will be moving into the White House, joined by Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and a soon to be reinstated conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

The repercussions are pretty clear. Donald Trump’s plans for the EPA will likely end the agency’s mandate as a climate regulator. Support for fossil fuels is one of the key pillars of his energy strategy. Trump has promised lifting regulations on both shale gas and coal in order to boost production and jobs. While these moves are unlikely to do much for either one of these goals, they could slow down the death of coal.

The President-Elect has also shown a complete lack of awareness when it comes to the relationship between business, international trade, and the climate. So it is hardly surprising that Trump wants to cut U.S. support for UN climate measures and has openly flirted with pulling the U.S. out of the Paris deal. Yet other measures like cancelling U..S membership in the UNFCCC or the Green Climate Fund are within the realm of the possible.

Of course, the incoming President could, in a Trumpian fashion, reverse all of these positions overnight. But the question is not to what extent a President Trump will differ from candidate Trump. Rather, the real question is this: how will the international community respond?

Under the Paris Agreement, 21% of emissions cuts through 2030 were to come via the United States. The Obama Administration had made some modest progress to put the U.S. on a path towards meeting these commitments. Hillary Clinton had a plan in place to continue a strategy build around an assortment of executive actions. On the one hand, even Donald Trump and a Republican Congress will not be able to stop the growth of renewable technologies, whose economic fundamentals are strong. On the other, U.S. policy was already comparatively weak. The imperative for the U.S. was to do more, not less.

But this is more than a story about U.S. emissions plans. It remains indispensable to have the world’s biggest economy on board with the climate agenda. Post-election, that is no longer the case. It appears very likely that the United States will pull back from diplomatic engagement in global climate politics. This could mean that other countries that are on the fence on climate issues—Russia, Australia, Saudi Arabia and others—have license to relax their ambitions even further.

In such a scenario, the Paris agreement collapses unless other countries step up. But the deal was already fragile. What parties to the agreement are currently pledging is far from meeting the 2°C goal. And there is no guarantee that they will actually put in place the commitments that do exist. To make matters worse, the formula that countries agreed on last year essentially depends on them taking greenhouse gases out of the air in the second half of the century. Such technologies currently do not exist. Add to that a likely U.S. exit (if not on paper), and the situation looks pretty critical.

Now, there are many voices calling for a workaround that would essentially see countries continue on the Paris path without the U.S. China has been mulled as the new global leader. For years, the country has invested massively in renewables. Urban pollution and business opportunities give Chinese leaders good incentives to move ahead with that agenda domestically.

China has also ramped up its political ambition internationally. In its quest for status on the global stage, the Chinese government sees climate change as one of the areas in which it can conceivably move ahead of other countries. China has also used climate change as an issue over which it can declare its solidarity with poorer countries.

Another more natural alternative would be Germany, home to the Energiewende (energy transition) and a global leader in renewable energy technology. With the UK and the U.S. pulling back from international engagement, the New York Times sees Angela Merkel as the “liberal West’s last defender”. Does Germany’s supposed new role on the global stage extend to climate change?

Such a prospect seems unlikely. Germany has traditionally assumed more of a backstage role. Within the EU, it has dealt in uncomfortable fashion with the new responsibilities thrust upon it by the Euro crisis. The country is more at ease as a lead-by-example player than as an out-and-out leader. Merkel, who is likely to win a fourth term as Chancellor next year, is also not someone known for visionary ideas or strong political convictions. She is a manager at heart. In the short-term, she may be able to patch something together. But Merkel is ill-suited as someone to reorient a process as complex as global climate diplomacy.

That leaves a third option: moving away from state-oriented leadership. This is something that has already happened with increasing speed in recent years. Cities, businesses, NGOs and activists are all governance actors in their own right. Corporations like Apple and Wal-Mart have long since recognized that being proactive on climate change will save them money in the long-term. For cities, climate change is an issue of air quality, jobs, and innovation. Along with NGOs and activists, these actors have strong incentives to collaborate and drive solutions.

The problem is that, despite globalization, we don’t live in a borderless world. To a large extent, regulations remain national in scope. And the Paris deal is one that was agreed on by states, who retain control over crucial policies that will determine the course of emissions going forward.

The upshot is that U.S. withdrawal from climate diplomacy throws up a plethora of questions. Rather than focusing simply on the nitty-gritty aspects of the Paris deal, climate negotiators will also have to find a way to replace not only expected U.S. emissions cuts, but its role as an important diplomatic force. The faster they can move from depression to acceptance, the better the chances at success.

The post Who Will Lead on Climate in the Age of Trump? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

On November 14, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) praised China’s “emergency water release” earlier this year with helping alleviate a severe drought in the Mekong River Basin. In a statement by Pham Tuan Phan, the chief executive officer of MRC, Phan said the water release from China’s Jinghong Reservoir in China’s southwest province of Yunnan “shows the positive impact of China’s cooperation on the drought management.”

The statement follows the release of an MRC report published in late October, produced with the cooperation with China’s Ministry of Water Resources. The MRC was established in 1995 as an intergovernmental organisation to work with the governments of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam “to jointly manage the shared water resources and the sustainable development of the Mekong River.”

However, some experts are calling the praise by the MRC unjustified. The Cambodian Ministry of Water Resources stated, at the time of the water release, that it was unlikely to have much of an impact. Ian Thomas, a former technical adviser at the MRC, called last week’s report was “a stinking pile of codswallop”, believing it did little to address the critically low water levels in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, saying “Cambodia is the real loser”, although conceding it did help remove salt from the delta in Vietnam.

Experts have also downplayed the perception that China’s water release was altruistic, with Thomas saying it was necessary for the dam to properly function, and Brian Beyler of the Stimson Center calling the move “perfectly crafted public relations”, adding it “was not unique and undeserved of praise”. Beyler also criticized the water release as a one-off, arguing consistent releases would do more to alleviate drought and allow for “farmers and downstream governments to prepare and make prudent decisions”.

In downstream Vietnam, authorities are particularly concerned over agriculture in the Mekong Delta and its reliance on upstream water supplies. The latest El Nino weather patterns caused the rainy season to begin late and finish early in 2015, with average rainfall across the river basin down by between 20 to 50% and salt water intrusion increasing some 6-9 miles inland. Some experts claimed as much as 50% of the 2.2 million hectares (5.4 million acres) of arable land in the delta had been hit by salinization due to the drought.

The situation became so grave last March, that Hanoi was forced to send a formal request to Beijing requesting for the release of more water from one one of China’s hydropower stations. Fortunately for Hanoi, Beijing granted their request, but to be in a position of dependency cannot be comforting for the Vietnamese, especially if the next request comes during a period of conflict over South China Sea (East Sea) claims.

The post The Alarming Dependency of Downstream Mekong River Countries appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

On the campaign trail, President-Elect Trump’s virulent rhetoric linked the prospect of terrorism to Muslim immigration. Banning Muslims from entering the country, then compelling American Muslims to register with the government, emerged as campaign policy proposals. Concurrently, the Trump campaign fed a strain of intolerance and extremism domestically that has now been further empowered by his victory and his appointment of advisors known for their own inflammatory views.

Extremism is on the rise in America—in its electorate and potentially in its government. At the same time, combatting extremism abroad remains a policy priority. How do these facts relate?

A November 15 forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) marked the release of Turning Point, a report commissioned by CSIS to outline “a new comprehensive strategy for combating violent extremism” (CVE).

The word “new” meant that no truly comprehensive strategy had yet been identified and implemented. The word “comprehensive” proposed a marriage between America’s “hard power” capabilities for CVE—its military and intelligence capacity—and the “soft power” of U.S. cultural and economic influence. The CSIS Commission on Countering Violent Extremism is chaired by former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, both men of deep experience at the highest levels of government who are familiar both with the use of force and its limits.

Trump’s surprise victory colored the Commission’s presentation of its findings. Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State included actions that pointed to some receptivity to soft power. She implemented a Quadrennial Development Review modeled on the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review and aimed at targeting America’s development funding to unstable regions that might otherwise foster terrorism.

Trump, by contrast, pledged to “bomb the hell out of ISIS” while claiming a secret plan to defeat it—a commitment to hard power that was as bellicose as it was vague.

With a growing global population of Muslims under 30, and martyrdom as a recruitment tool, demographics point to the limitations of a hard power solution to extremism. CSIS Senior Advisor and former Deputy National Security Advisor Juan Zarate put it bluntly: “you can’t kill your way out of this problem”.

Instead, the Commission’s plan would degrade the power that distortions of Islam and other extremist ideologies hold over individuals, particularly youth. It proposes a long-term battle for the hearts and minds of those susceptible to extremist ideologies that will draw on America’s hard power and soft power resources.

Some recommendations in Turning Point reflect the U.S. government’s proven ability to project hard power. One recommendation would have the U.S. build a new international force capability to “quickly dislodge terrorist groups that control territory, avert and respond to immediate threats, (and) weaken violent extremists’ projection of strength”.

So long as ISIS or groups like to aim to wrest and hold territory from sovereign states, a military-led solution to extremism is vital. Other recommendations—directing $1B in new funding to CVE and appointing a new White House assistant to the president for CVE—speak to government’s ability to direct money and personnel at problems. They are also measurable outcomes.

Recommendations covering the soft power side of the battle express ideals rather than concrete actions. Calling for “Expanding CVE models”, the Commission asks America and partner nations “to enlarge the CVE ecosystem, creating flexible platforms for funding, implementing, and replicating proven efforts to address the ideologies, narratives, and manifestations of violent extremism”. Governments are not expected to create the solutions; rather, government funding should catalyze private sector and philanthropic funding of CVE activities by NGOs.

Embedded here are two realizations: first, we do not really know what successful CVE solutions will look like; second, government is not the forum in which to create them. Commissioners recognize the role that social media plays in changing the CVE landscape—both threat and response. Those most susceptible to extremist ideology are “digital natives”, in the words of Commissioner Farah Pandith. Social media networks are manipulated to foment extremism and should be used as CVE platforms.

Direct government involvement in battles of religious ideology, however, gets tricky. Commissioner Mohamed Magid, Imam of the All Dulles Muslim Society, acknowledged that Muslim communities must communicate the true values of the faith, and maintained that “government should not be active in religion”. That is an American value.

It is also a political reality that free governments can share ideas but they cannot impose them. Think of a strong public library system: a local government can and should build it, but it cannot tell its people when to go and what to read.

Soft power has been denigrated in part because its tools and outcomes are less quantifiable than its hard power counterparts. Then hard power fell on hard times. The Iraq War—America’s most recent exercise in hard power—has not yet produced its promised promotion of democracy in the Middle East. President Obama embraced aspects of hard power – particularly the use of drones – but his overall foreign policy recognized the limits of force as a policy tool.

The biggest obstacle to America’s use of soft power against extremism is the recent emergence of extremism in America. The Commission recommends that “The United States should put human rights at the center of CVE, ensuring that its engagement with domestic and foreign actors advances the rule of law, dignity and accountability”. It certainly should. To do this, however, America must first put human rights front and center at home.

The 2016 election exposed the degree to which racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia still plague America. To have any credibility on the issue abroad, America must steadfastly protect the human rights of its own citizens. We must take the plank out of our own eye first. That done, America has power to spare in helping others do so abroad.

“When all you have is a hammer”, the saying goes, “all problems become nails.” The bad news is the CVE represents a complex array of problems. The good news is America has more tools in hand to fight it than it has been using. Time to pick them up.

The post Fighting Extremism in the Trump Age appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Frustrated anti-government protesters flooded the streets of Caracas, Venezuela in October 2016. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)

This summer I wrote about the economic and political struggles in Venezuela. Unfortunately the country’s situation has not greatly improved since, and recent events have shown the frustration and discontent with President Nicolas Maduro’s leadership. Nevertheless, each side has made some recent concessions which offer hope.

Opposition parties began a petition in May asking for a recall election which could remove Maduro from power. Yet such an action would only take place with the approval of Venezuela’s supreme court, which is controlled by Maduro.

In the last few weeks this dispute reached a boiling point. In late October, the country’s supreme court suspended the recall election petition, a move derided by the U.S. State Department and the Organization of American States. Venezuelan lawmakers announced that this decision amounted to Maduro staging a coup. Outraged, they vowed to put the president on trial themselves.

Despite growing opposition, some protests rose up in support of the government. Days after the court decision a legislative session was disrupted by hundreds of pro-government protesters who muscled their way onto the floor yelling “Congress will fall!”

Though symbolic, this action was easily dwarfed by the tens of thousands of Venezuelans who subsequently took to the streets of Caracas and other cities demanding Maduro’s removal from power. Opposition leaders termed the demonstrations of outrage “the takeover of Venezuela.”

Polls indicate as much as 80% of Venezuelans want him removed from office, tired of the stagnating economy, food shortages, and significant health care deficiencies. Victoria Rodriguez of Caracas, a recent high school graduate, told the Associated Press she hoped to vote to cast her first vote to support recalling Maduro. Rodriguez further lamented her “emptying country,” noting that 15 of her 25 classmates have left Venezuela since graduation, which is just one reflection of the country’s hardships.

After the court decision to suspend the recall intensified the political crisis, various interests have attempted to broker a resolution. Representatives of Vatican City tried to organize talks between Maduro’s government and the opposition but with limited success. Some common ground was reached by Nov. 14, 2016, as both sides agreed to cooperate to address the food and medicine shortages. However some anti-government activists characterized these developments as a ploy by Maduro to divert attention from the main issue: reinstating the recall referendum. Opposition protests were called off when the Vatican-backed talks began with the understanding that a recall vote would be on the table.

Despite the mistrust, both sides have made some concessions. On Nov. 15 the opposition consented to the resignation of 3 legislators the government accused of committing fraud. Maduro commended the move, stating “The process begins for the National Assembly to respect the Supreme Court, respect the Constitution.”

As reconciliation talks continued, three days later the government released Rosmit Mantilla, a politician who had been imprisoned on suspicion of fomenting violent protests against Maduro in 2014. Mantilla had been a key figure in the opposition-controlled congress. While encouraged by the government releasing Mantilla as a first step, Amnesty International expressed the opinion of many opposition supporters in saying, “He should have never been made to spend a second behind bars. The Venezuelan authorities must now build on this positive step and release all imprisoned activists and political leaders whose only ‘crime’ was to disagree with the government.”

As long as Maduro controls Venezuela’s court system, it seems unlikely the government will agree to a recall election. Therefore the opposition may be better served focusing on ensuring that the government provides the resources and support services needed by so many Venezuelans. With the support of outside groups, they should demand that the government provide these services. If it fails or refuses, anti-government groups will be in a better position to demand political change. They have shown a willingness to reconcile, now it is the government’s turn. Presently, this is the best chance for the country’s recovery.

The post Venezuela’s Struggles Continue as Government and Opposition Clash appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(Associated Press)

Not long ago, a war of words between the Singaporean Ambassador to China, Stanley Loh, and the chief editor of Global Times, Hu Xijin, broke out. The incident provided a rare opportunity to observe the characteristics of the two countries’ thinking and logic in recent years.

The fuse of the polemic was a relatively small, technical issue with limited relation with international pattern, yet the story must begin from here. Earlier this year in July, Laos, as the rotating presidency of ASEAN, submitted a request to Iran, the rotating presidency of the 17th Non-Aligned Movement Summit. It hoped to revise the ‘Southeast Asia’ paragraph of the draft Final Outcome Document, stating the increasingly serious concern of some leaders and ministers to the South China Sea situation.

However, the new rotating presidency and China’s ally Venezuela rejected the amendment. Thus, ASEAN wrote to the Foreign Affairs Minister of Venezuela, stating ‘ASEAN expressed reservations about the existing paragraph on the South China Sea issue and said that it could not reflect the ASEAN position and hoped that the General Assembly would record the attitude of ASEAN and the earlier request for revision of that paragraph by way of an annex.’.

Nevertheless, Global Times published a report on the summit with a title ‘the Non-Aligned Movement summit closed, Singapore highlighted the South China Sea arbitration regardless of opposition’. Singaporean ambassador to China accused that the report was not true, yet the editor of Global Times, Hu Xijin insisted that the report was true, and expressed dissatisfaction with Singapore’s foreign policies.

To break down the debate, Global Times’ reported that Singapore has made a request on the Non-Aligned Movement summit for the strengthening of the South China Sea paragraph on the Outcome Document for its own interests when ‘many countries’ expressed opposition, reflecting that the South China Sea arbitration was ‘not popular’ in the international community.

Secondly, Singapore has challenged the authority of the rotating presidency Venezuela, delaying the progress of conference, making many member states feeling uneasy, hence showing a disrespect for international rules. It is particularly noteworthy that Hu Xijin said that the Global Times has made these reports based on the information provided by the ‘informed sources’ who attended the summit, insisting that the report was not fabricated. This position was confirmed by the spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (who said ‘the truth is very clear’). It seems that these reports are not without official involvement.

Of course, the biggest message behind the report is not within these details. In fact, the main reason behind China’s discontent is how Singapore openly sided with the United States to put pressure on China over the South China Sea issue. Aside from Global Times’ usual style of writing which includes all kinds of negative, subjective and emotional words, it seems that it also decontextualized the details into a large framework of established view, and the main audience for the polemic is not international readers but the Chinese domestic readers.

Although Singapore is also a Chinese-majority country, its official routine is the opposite of China. Singaporean Ambassador to China, Stanley Loh, made his counterargument based on the following points. Firstly, he pointed out that ‘Emphasizing the South China Sea issue’ is not Singapore’s claim but the consensus of the ASEAN Summit. It is reckless for China to specifically single out Singapore for the collective decision of ASEAN. Besides, there were only a few non-Southeast Asian countries that opposed this on the summit, quite the opposite with what Global Times described.

Singapore also stressed that is its common practice for countries of the relevant region to make their own decisions on the amendments to the draft outcome document of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit. Thus, the request of Singapore on behalf of ASEAN countries was not unusual. Yet it was rare this time that Venezuela rejected the collective request of the ASEAN due to the pressure of a few ‘extraterritorial countries’, hinting that the Global Times report is an accusation made by the offender itself.

Thirdly, Singapore stressed that its ‘consistent position’ on the South China Sea issue had not changed. That was, it hoped to enhance mutual understanding with China on this matter and jointly promote China-Singapore relations development, etc. It also made a sarcastic statement that Global Times’ “escalation of issues” is simply a misread of Singapore’s response.

From this, we could see that Singapore is mechanically describing facts, emphasizing the fact on documents and legal details, and to avoid making any political statements in order to win the moral high ground of reason. The target audience is domestic readers, the ASEAN member states, and the international community.

However, Singapore has indeed avoided answering Beijing’s most concerned question: Singapore does hold certain attitude on the controversial South China Sea issue and actively support the United States in keeping its force in this region. Diplomatic issues like the South China Dispute is simply impossible to be solved by a game of word. We can expect that similar cases would come one after another in the coming days.

The post Singapore vs. Global Times: Analysis of Two Logics appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The results of the US presidential election are expected to mark a substantial shift in American foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Since 2011, President Obama has inaugurated a critical recalibration phase of Washington’s primary interest over the region, considered as the natural epicenter of American economic, diplomatic and strategic interest.

The “rebalance to Asia” strategy is one of the most distinctive hallmark of the Obama administration, marked by the determination and the commitment of Washington to reaffirm its role in the region over the years.

Echoing his historic speech to the Australian Parliament, President Obama has renewed American engagement in the region during his state visit to Laos to attend the U.S-ASEAN Summit. Back in 2012, the beginning of the America’s Pacific Century was saluted by former Secretary of State Clinton as the most critical opportunity to ensure the peace and prosperity.

During this time the American political elites have faced a wide range of challenges that have prevented the Obama administration to fully achieve the pursuit of a new form of Manifest Destiny in the region.           The new direction represented by the Rebalance to Asia strategy, has embodied a marked shift in the U.S. foreign policy, becoming a critical tool to establish a solid baseline for deepening the level of economic, political and military cooperation with critical regional actors and allies

This has been featured through the establishment of a very comprehensive agenda that encompasses the following priorities:

1. the protection and the expansion of the free flow of the trade and commerce;
2. the  promotion of economic integration and liberalization in the region;
3.  the strengthening of Washington’s critical strategic cooperation with allies and new partners  based on safe and secure lines of communication(SLOCs);
4. and the increase of the stability in the region in response to the emergence of non-traditional threats, undermining the regional security architecture.

Obama’s Asia-Pacific great strategy has indeed been characterized by an audacious attempt to foster a new phase of positive relations with China during a time in which the daunting shadow of Beijing’s presence, rising as a hegemonic and revisionist power has posed a serious challenge to the fragile regional balance.

China’s aggressive military posture and willingness to defend its strategic interest has originated countless deadlocks with Japan, Taiwan and a large number of ASEAN nations, diffident about the real nature of China’s peaceful rise.

Through these eight years, Beijing has remained a formidable challenger of Washington’s determination to design the contours of regional order based on the freedom of navigation and overflight and the respect of international law.

Chinese political elites have perceived the launching of Rebalance to Asia strategy as a clear attempt to contain and or even undermine their rightful leading role and core interest the in the region. More relevant, China’s statecraft tradition and Confucian political vision do not recognize the universality of western values considered as the most fundamental pillars of Washington-oriented international order.

In the last two decades China has strived to frame a new and comprehensive political, economic and strategy vision able to project its role and interest in the global scenario.

Chinese political elites have increasingly pushed forward an alternative narrative of regional and international order that has emerged alongside Beijing’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea or with the establishment of the alternative to western-oriented trans-regional financial and infrastructural institutions and initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the One Belt and One Road.

While China and the U.S. have welcomed a new proactive engagement based on the framework of a new type of Great Power relations, characterized by reciprocal respect and recognition of national interest, the perspective of a phase of distension in the China-US relations remain uncertain.

Beijing’s remains wary of Washington’s presence in the Asia-Pacific, de facto pursuing a strategy aiming to overshadow the fulfillment of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation.

In addition, China’s restless desire to pursue a more dynamic role in the region through the expansion and the modernization of its military and power projections capabilities is the direct consequence of Beijing’s priority to protect its national maritime interest in East China and South China Sea and still represent the most enduring source of confrontation with Washington and a large number of Pacific nations.

Despite the increasing number of challenges to regional balance, China’s emergence as a great power has represented the most critical element of recalibration of Washington’s foreign policy in the region.

Beijing’s maritime assertiveness has flamed tensions but it has also provided a valuable opportunity for the Obama administration to establish the dialogue and the basis for forthcoming strategic cooperation with regional partners such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore Taiwan, Vietnam and also the Philippines, recently shifted from Washington’s to Beijing’s orbit.

The United States have managed to foster the consolidation of security cooperation with Japan through the revision of the U.S.-Japan Defense guidelines that have notably improved the strategic contribution of Tokyo alongside its historical ally. Washington and Tokyo have established a new and critical Alliance Coordination Mechanism and Bilateral Planning Mechanism to better respond to the emergence of a wide range of threats.

The Obama administration has put additional efforts to encourage a closer partnership between Japan and South Korea vis-à-vis the nuclear threat represented by the DPRK’s nuclear and ballistic ambitions. Washington’s has assisted Seoul in the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence battery as the ultimate deterrent against Pyongyang, despite China’s opposition that considers THAAD as an attempt to undermine China’s strategic interest.

As regards the DPRK, Washington has relied on a “strategic patience” strategy, aiming to the resumption of the negotiations with Pyongyang while stressing the priority of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as a prior condition to any concession to Kim’s regime. The Obama administration has tried to foster a wider engagement of Beijing, considered as a critical actor in enforcing economic sanctions against the DPRK.

Despite Sino-North Korean relations have significantly cooled since Kim Jong-un rose to the leadership, Beijing’s opposition to any change in the status quo, including the collapse of the DPRK has convinced the CCP leadership that a full recalibration of North Korea’s policy could lead to an uncertain outcome.

Beijing’s marked level of dissatisfaction toward South Korea’s more assertive strategic initiatives such as the deployment of the THAAD has represented a daunting impasse in South Korea’s relations with China. Beijing’s limited results to curb North Korea’s restless military assertiveness has indeed affected Seoul’s decision to curtail the relations with China in favor of a broader strategic partnership with Washington.

Undoubtedly, the severe security environment constantly affected by Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear threats has provided the Obama administration with the opportunity not only to amend the ties between Japan and South Korea, particularly as regards the legacy of the Imperial Japan occupation of the Korean peninsula during the first half of the 20th century, but it has laid the foundation for a stronger strategic trilateral cooperation.

Despite the Obama administration’s efforts to design a new vision and engagement, able to reframe Washington’s role and interest in the Asia-Pacific region, limited results have been achieved. Beijing’s land reclamation, infrastructure building in the South China Sea and military presence in the East China Sea in defiance of the U.S. pledge to ensure the freedom of navigation continues to undermine Washington’s credibility with its allies.

Moreover, the Obama administration’s address to the United Nation to join the efforts to force North Korea to comply with the UN Security Council resolutions has produced no tangible results. Last September Pyongyang successfully completed its 4th nuclear test, escalating the chance of military confrontation in the Korean peninsula.

Nevertheless, the United States remains and will remain committed to the Asia Pacific region and the legacy of the Obama administration could represent the very starting point for a wider pivot, whose success mostly would depend on the willingness and ability of the new incoming administration to follow and implement the path already marked.

The post Obama’s Uncertain Legacy to the Asia-Pacific Region appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

In much the same way that many Western countries look set to abandon decades-old liberal consensus by electing populist parties or xenophobic leaders à la Trump in a raft of upcoming elections, Eastern European nations appear to be pivoting away from Brussels. Earlier this week, the media trumpeted that both Moldova and Bulgaria voted pro-Russian populist presidents into power, just weeks after Moscow’s shadow loomed large over Montenegro’s own elections. But is that really the case?

According to the narrative, in Bulgaria, center-right Prime Minister Boyko Borisov resigned this week after pro-Russian socialist candidate Rumen Radev romped to victory. Things played out in a similar vein in the second round of Moldova’s presidential election, which saw another Russia-friendly socialist, Igor Dodon, take the majority of the popular vote.

Both candidates ostensibly ran on a pro-Kremlin ticket, promising to seek closer ties with Moscow at the expense of the EU. These results came after Milo Djukanovic’s Montenegrin Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) was last month left severely weakened after a mixed coalition of pro-Russian and pro-Serbian parties destroyed his majority, prompting Djukanovic to stand down after more than 25 years in power.

Moldova’s Dodon campaigned on an anti-EU platform, intent on scrapping Chisinau’s Association Agreement with the EU, just four months after it came into force. After the win, Dodon promised to push for early parliamentary elections next year to force out the current government, which is in favor of closer EU integration. Radev too promised to prevent Bulgaria from becoming a dumping ground for refugees. He vowed to push for an end to international sanctions against Russia.

Both candidates framed their campaigns around a rejection of NATO, and both expressed their delight at the election of Donald Trump in the US, suggesting that the businessman’s win could help bring about a rapprochement with Moscow.

While these events appear to confirm Russia’s growing influence along Europe’s periphery, evidence suggests that this so-called pro-Moscow stance adopted by candidates in Moldova and Bulgaria is not what it seems. Despite heavy use of the EU versus Russia antinomy in both countries’ presidential races, the elections in both Moldova and Bulgaria were largely focused on national politics, not international affairs.

In Moldova, a state run by powerful oligarchs, political candidates serve their interests, not geopolitical preferences. As was the case during Montenegro’s October election, the Russia-EU debate was used in both Bulgaria and Moldova to distract voters tired of the widespread institutionalized corruption that has plagued their governments for years.

The fact remains that both Radev and Dodon tiptoed a fine line by never explicitly settling on one option and remaining sufficiently ambiguous in order to play the debate for political gain. Radev, for instance, opined at times that there was “no alternative” to the EU and NATO but that this didn’t preclude good relations with Moscow. And soon after his election, Dodon said he won’t scrap the country’s Association Agreement, insisting he only wants better ties to Russia.

The reasoning behind these about-faces is simple: Bulgaria is the EU’s poorest country in per capita output, and Moldova has long been ranked as the poorest country in Europe. Both state are aware that turning their back on the EU means the end for financial injections from Brussels. After all, Moldova received €561 million from 2007-2013 and will be receiving even more in 2014-2017. And back in September, Bulgaria was awarded €108 million in emergency funding to stem the influx of migrants.

It thus appears that their anti-EU stance amounts to little more than a cynical ploy designed to coax the EU into delivering more financial aid, while at the same time winning the approval of voters who would like to see closer relations with Russia.

In Montenegro, Djukanovic pursed a similar strategy to stay in power, positioning himself as the only candidate in the country’s recent election that could deliver closer EU integration and full NATO membership, all the while avoiding discussion of his checkered record of alleged corruption and shady dealings. As well as being a useful propaganda tool, playing the anti-Russia card might help Djukanovic extract financial or procedural advantages from EU institutions. Djukanovic has even been accused of staging a clumsy coup during the country’s elections – which his administration chose to blame on “pro-Russian nationalists”—as a way to swing international opinion in his favor.

This is just another of example of Eastern European leaders being more than wise to the fact that using Moscow and the EU as boons in their political strategies is useful politically and financially alike. Far from having strong ideological persuasions one way or the other, Eastern Europe’s leaders are more than happy to exploit the cultural divide inside their countries for short-term political gain.

While headlines paint a picture that suggests half of Eastern Europe is embracing Moscow while the other half prepares to defend itself in the face of Russian aggression, the reality is different. Instead of moving their countries either closer to the EU or Russia, the region’s leaders will likely continue to do what suits them best—walk the fine line between Europe and Russia without burning bridges, allowing them to ultimately benefit from relations with both powers.

The post Eastern Europe’s Duplicitous Tango with Moscow and Brussels appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

A new documentary series about the Cold War called Cold War Armageddon is currently being broadcast at a time when a new Cold War may emerge between the United States and Russia. The Clinton campaign pulled no punches in linking hacks to the DNC and within the U.S. Government to Russia, even claiming that President-elect Trump is directly tied to Putin himself.

While the claims about Mr.Trump’s Russia connection have quieted down since the end of the election, the espionage era of the 1980s seems to have reasserted itself to some degree in recent years. With Edward Snowden taking refuge in Russia and the Obama administration being linked to hacking even close allies, including Chancellor Merkel’s private phone, Cold War era politics seem to be familiar once again, but with a lot better gadgets.

In the series Cold War Armageddon, the evolution of the conflict between Americans and Soviets are described in great detail, with a keen focus on the effects the Cold War had on allies of the two superpowers. Intense competition in a global chess match, marked by deadly neutron bombs and mutual assured destruction also showed how leaders were measured and deliberate in their responses to their opponents. SALT I and SALT II treaty talks enabled a reduction in the most deadly of human weaponry in the late Cold War period. These treaty agreements gave rise to further agreements, capping the nuclear threat up until recently.

At the end of October 2016, news reports of the new Satan rocket, the next generation of rockets was revealed. The RS-28 Sarmat, or the Satan II is able to wipe out an area the size of France or Texas and is a further development of the multiple warhead systems that pushed logical minds to the peace table at the time. An accident with such a weapon was likely to happen, evidence of which has come out since the Cold War of several close calls during that era.

While the new Cold War may be more present as a cyber-threat as opposed to a tank melee in the near future, the goals and desired results of U.S. and Russian foreign policy abroad in places like Syria have more commonalities than differences it seems. While Ukraine remains a tense standoff that receives a lot less attention than it deserves, the fight against a common enemy may likely take place initially before the resumption of any Cold War rhetoric in 2017. Measured responses by leaders is extremely important, even more so, the decision to mire a country in a foreign conflict zone must be taken with great contemplation.

Using US-Russia relations as a way to push votes in one or another direction or simply trying to prove who the biggest kid on the block is will likely increase the chances of a more intense Cold War, but will also hinder any agreed upon solutions to other international problems.

The pre-Cold War era may be a better lesson for great powers in 2017, as the Americans, British and Soviets liberated millions of people from genocide and fought against tyranny in Europe. In 2016, that act of simple humanity is difficult to achieve. That is a good place to start new talks between the U.S. and Russia.

The post Are Cold War Politics Back? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. (Associated Press)

Despite Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai’s comments during an interview with CNN on Tuesday, in which he stated “we take no sides,” outside the Chinese leadership, the Chinese have indeed been taking sides.

In a survey of 3,300 respondents in China conducted by the state-owned newspaper Global Times in March, some 54% preferred Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Another poll in May conducted of 24,449 people by the Chinese language Phoenix TV website showed 61.5% supported Trump, with only 7.8% favoring Clinton.

Perhaps behind Trump’s initial popularity among Chinese were his isolationist foreign policy views—unlikely to stand in the way of a rising China. During an interview with The Economist in 2015, Trump brushed aside China’s construction of airstrips on reefs in the South China Sea, calling them: “very far away” and “already built.” Also, his perceived status among Chinese as a successful businessman may have also helped explain his popularity even after a number of anti-China statements, as he was seen a more pragmatic dealmaker on trade issues “election talk is just election talk,” than as an ardent human rights advocate and defense hawk like Hillary.

Yet while many Chinese distrust Hillary as an aggressive hawk, and may be happy she lost the election, other Chinese may now be rethinking their earlier support for a Donald Trump presidency as fears over a trade war grow in recent days.

One of those concerned is Chinese President Xi Jinping, who spoke with Trump on Monday to congratulate the new leader. According to the Financial Times, during the conversation Xi emphasized that cooperation between the two countries was the “only correct choice.” 

Some pundits believe Xi was advising and warning Trump to back down on his campaign rhetoric, accusing China of “raping” the U.S. and promising to impose a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. Trump has also promised to abandon the Paris climate change agreement ratified in September by U.S. President Barack Obama and Xi.

In recent days, president-elect Trump has attempted to soften some of his earlier campaign rhetoric, and may yet issue new statements to calm Beijing’s nerves. Yet the often extreme and contradictory positions taken on some issues, and his relative inexperience as a politician and diplomat have created uncertainty over his governance. In a Pew Center survey released on October 5, some 37% of those Chinese polled expressed confidence in Hillary “to do the right thing regarding world affairs”—compared to 22% expressing confidence in Trump.

To the Chinese, Hillary Clinton was the devil they know. Now Beijing and the Chinese, financial markets, and geopolitical pundits must all adjust to this new uncertainty and hope for the best.

The post Be Careful What You Wish For, China appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(REUTERS/Gretchen Ertl)

Could President Trump’s inaugural speech have a passage on foreign policy that runs something like the following?

“… U.S. foreign policy is action taken in the name of the American people as a whole. That’s why we all want so badly for it to show America as we see it.

I’ve said my Presidency is about taking back our country, about putting it first and making it great again. Overall, the way to do that is to focus again on our amazing Declaration of Independence.

We are caught up in our arguments, but we all agree that this nation was founded on rights, and on government dedicated to serve those rights. Those principles define the nation; we take our country back when we put them back above the arguments. When we observe them, when we do what we must to defend our freedom, when we make every effort to show our deepest nature, then we are as great as America is meant to be.

So every foreign policy action must trace back to how it fits our founding principles. I will judge our foreign policy options on that basis, and I will decide, and explain our actions, in those terms.

We will not all agree on every measure: we might hate each others’ interpretation of the Declaration. But we can remind ourselves that we agree on the principles; our differences are about interpretations and means, not ends.”

Anyone might be tempted to imagine more, but if only this much is expressed, it would be a first step in building common ground. Setting the Declaration as policy criterion would also promote coherence in foreign policy, across issues and over time. Even as our doctrines and world conditions evolve, and as our politics ebb and flow, the undercurrent of America’s nature will be clear.

This language would set the terms in which we address the world in a way that keeps the basic commitment of America’s founding in view. Its implied images, whether of deep friendship, of acceptable conduct toward us, or of hostility to be resisted, fit the broad patterns of our values throughout history.

Moreover, President Trump could say these words without compromising candidate Trump’s themes. Some specific ideas may become indicators of priority rather than concrete proposals. But the greatest force of his mandate comes from a general sentiment, for old-fashioned ideas of right and good to take priority. This language, in reminding everyone of America’s underlying consensus, carries that sentiment.

President-elect Trump could also use this criterion to manage the tangled masses of expertise that will be thrown at him. He need not be expert in the field; he could take the role of questioner in chief, requiring every proposal to include an accounting of how it fulfills or supports America’s founding tenets. He wouldn’t need to ingest the nuances of our deceptively simple creed: competing proposals will have to present their interpretations, and those nuances, to him.

Language like this would tender the prospect of real public discourse. Re-voicing the basis of our founding will also remind everyone of the deep appeal of America’s nature. It’s worth hoping for.

The post Something To Hope For In An Inauguration Speech? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(CNN Politics)

For Hillary Clinton supporters the inevitable arrival to Washington, D.C. of the man many of them see as a real-world Darth Vader feels like the tense wait prior to the landfall of a Category 5 hurricane. Liberal prognosticators, pundits and minority communities strain for any information that could provide fidelity on the trajectory of the terrifying tempest. They speculate on its likely impact on their lives and ask themselves, “Should we stay in place hoping for the best or should we get the hell out the way fearing the worst?”

Beyond U.S. borders, leaders of multilateral institutions like the United Nations, security alliances like NATO, clutch trading partners like Mexico and China are also gazing beyond the horizon nervously anticipation the storm surge and squalls that might be coming their way.

But will Trump really be the devastating hurricane that will reorder big chunks of the American and global economic and security architectures or will his impact on the status quo be more like a reshuffling of card decks via a dramatic flipping over of the entire table?

Predicting Trump’s decision-making on major foreign policy issues especially will make hurricane forecasting seem like kinder-garden math in comparison—far more abstract art than blue print interpretation. The reason for this is that like his recently vanquished democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump appears to maintain “both a public and a private position” on key issues.

For example, consider his public opinion on the United Nations. In March of 2016, the then republican front-runner blasted the United Nations ideological orientation before a powerful pro-Israel lobby group. He tongue lashed the U.N system stating that, “The United Nations is not a friend of democracy…. It’s not a friend to freedom. It’s not a friend even to the United States of America, where as we all know, it has its home. And it surely isn’t a friend to Israel.”

But in 2005 he sung a far different tune about the world’s premier conflict resolution body and leader of international climate change resiliency. The occasion was his testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee where he was invited to testify as a commercial development expert regarding out-of-control renovation costs of the U.N. headquarters. In his testimony, Trump the business man remarked:

“I have to start by saying I’m a big fan, a very big fan, of the United Nations and all it stands for,” Trump told  the senators. “I can’t speak as to what’s been happening over the last number of years, because it certainly hasn’t been good, but the concept of the United Nations and the fact that the United Nations is in New York is very important to me and very important to the world, as far as I am concerned. So I am a big fan.”

So on how many other policy matters does Trump maintain a public and private positions? It might be far more than his supporters could have ever imagined. Consider that just after meeting with President Obama two days after his epic electoral victory Trump roll backed his proposal for a total repeal of Obama Care stating that there are parts of Obama’s flagship domestic accomplishment that he really likes.

He has also quietly defanged his proposal to deport 11 million undocumented people residing in the U.S. It is insightful that his First 100 Days manifesto only discusses removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and applying penalties for people trying to reenter illegally. There is no mention of a “deportation force” or much feared draconian proposals that continue to cause millions of undocumented residents considerable angst.

Further, Trump has also recently suggested that he would revise his Muslim ban so that it targets people from countries “linked to terrorism” rather using their Islamic faith as a disqualifying criterion. So are the post-election shifts in tone and substance of flagship policy propositions a harbinger of what is to come? That is hard to know, however, what is certain is that the political Right’s change candidate has already begun to defang the most controversial of his policy proposals.

Lastly, it might be premature to say that Hurricane Trump won’t be packing a big punch, however, I think it’s safe to take the shutters down—almost.

The post Will the Real Donald Trump Please Stand up appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.