Foreign Policy Blogs

People take part in an anti-China protest to mark the 43th anniversary of the China’s occupation of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea in Hanoi, Jan. 19, 2017.

Last month’s visit by Vietnamese Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong to Beijing appeared to smooth over differences between the two countries who have competing claims to the Paracel and Spratly island chains in the South China Sea. Both sides pledged to settle disputes peacefully and to work toward a code of conduct for maritime operations. The pledge for peace followed “war-like rhetoric” on trade relations with Beijing and confrontational comments on Taiwan expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump and some of his nominated cabinet members. 

The first test of this renewed friendship between Hanoi and Beijing came quickly after their meeting, as several Vietnamese assembled for protest in Hanoi on January 19. This time around, Vietnamese authorities were well-prepared for this annual protest, scheduled to commemorate the lives of Vietnamese soldiers who lost their life trying to protect the Vietnamese-controlled Paracel islands, which were seized by China on January 19, 1974.

According to Reuters, some 20 protesters were dragged onto a bus after they ignored a warning to disperse. Reports said the protesters had been marching with banners and chanting “Demolish China’s Invasion” along with other nationalistic slogans.

The swift crackdown on protesters signals an improvement in Vietnam’s relations with Beijing, which sank to a low after China moved an offshore oil rig into disputed waters in May 2014. At that time, protests around Vietnam broke out, resulting in the deaths of some Chinese workers and the evacuation of thousands of Chinese out of the country. 

Despite improved relations, the Vietnamese have long distrusted their biggest neighbor, and have been quietly building up their military defenses with the assistance of India, Israel, Japan and the U.S. During a visit to Vietnam last month, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered Hanoi a concessional loan to help pay for six new coastguard patrol boats, worth some $338 million.

Just days before Abe’s visit, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in Hanoi, where both expressed satisfaction over the development of Vietnam-U.S. ties after the 2013 establishment of comprehensive partnership. How the new U.S. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, will approach the South China Sea disputes has drawn some criticism, although in Tillerson’s recent letter (PDF) to Senator Ben Cardin, Tillerson seemed to back off this week from his threat of force to prevent China from accessing islands it occupies, stressing: “the United States seeks peaceful resolution of disputes.”

However Chinese President Xi Jinping or the new Trump administration decide to handle disputes in the South China Sea, Hanoi appears to be hedging its bets by making friends – a diversifying foreign policy which has served it well in the past. Yet Hanoi will need to maintain a careful balance between mollifying a nationalist Chinese leadership up north and Vietnam’s own nationalistic population.

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The so-called post-truth era was a fundamental element in shaping international relations in 2016. There is no doubt that Russia actively helped spread a malicious post-truth worm to put the world out of kilter. Through its actions, Moscow targeted multiple institutions, organizations, and countries.

Russia also made an extraordinary effort to undermine the coherence, unity, and indivisibility of NATO. Moscow accused the alliance of being unable to adapt to an emerging new world order. In fact, Russian actions were aimed at holding NATO-Russia relations hostage in a post-truth world. Unexpectedly, at the beginning of 2017, the Russian Foreign Ministry spoke out in favor of a reset with NATO. Yet the Kremlin’s maneuvers in previous months suggest this may be just another post-truth ruse.

In July 2016, despite Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine and bombing of Syria, NATO decided at its summit in Warsaw to put a genuine offer of dialogue with Russia on the table. NATO’s approach would be geared toward “periodic, focused and meaningful dialogue . . . on the basis of reciprocity.” The alliance’s goals were clear: to discuss the Russia-Ukraine conflict; to avoid misunderstanding, miscalculation, and unintended escalation; and to increase transparency and predictability. Most importantly, as stated in the summit communiqué, this dialogue was aimed at “a Russia willing to engage.”

A NATO-Russia Council meeting was convened on July 13, 2016, just four days after the summit. The alliance presented a briefing on the outcomes of the summit, a move that—based on the principles outlined by NATO—Russia should have reciprocated. To increase transparency in mutual relations, NATO would welcome a briefing on developments such as Russia’s decision to create three new military divisions in its Western Military District. At the same time, allies continued to suggest concrete options to enhance predictability and transparency in the Euro-Atlantic area.

After six months, it is clear that Russia, by contrast, has chosen a path of confrontation. The NATO-Russia Council meeting on December 19, 2016, proved that the West is still waiting for a Russia willing to engage. The Russian Foreign Policy Concept approved on November 30, 2016, shows how Moscow’s priorities pivoted from the economy to security and defense. And Russia’s actions in the last half year demonstrate that Moscow continues to treat the West like a rival in a zero-sum game.

Russia has interfered in the domestic affairs of Western states by combining cyberattacks with information and intelligence operations. In an unprecedented way, Russia intentionally subverted the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as was ultimately confirmed by the FBI, the CIA, and the director of national intelligence.

Moscow has further destabilized eastern Ukraine, including through ongoing direct involvement in the conflict by providing military, organizational, and financial support to militants. Russia neither complied with the Minsk agreements aimed at ending the conflict nor showed willingness to de-escalate the tense situation on the ground. On the contrary, in November 2016 alone, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine recorded the highest number of explosions caused by mortars, tanks, artillery, and rocket systems since the beginning of the conflict.

Elsewhere in Europe, Russia has heightened its military activities near NATO borders, including large-scale drills involving up to 120,000 military personnel and civilians and snap exercises. Russia continued to provoke dangerous military incidents and violated allied airspace. It deployed offensive missile systems—including the nuclear-capable Iskander system—and warships to the Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions. These deployments enhanced Moscow’s existing anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) capabilities.

Russia has also strengthened its aggressive nuclear-related signals, including through statements and bomber flights. Moscow has used this nuclear muscle flexing and saber rattling as a tool of psychological influence.

In October 2016, Russia allegedly participated in a plot to kill the prime minister and install a new government in Montenegro, soon to be a member of NATO.

Meanwhile in Syria, Russia’s approach to the conflict has included both massive bombing campaigns and the impediment of a political process. Also in October 2016, Moscow for the fifth time vetoed a UN resolution aimed at stopping the bombing of Aleppo.

The year 2017 might be a watershed moment for the liberal global order. NATO, a crucial transatlantic anchor, has a vital role to play in restoring a truth-based world. NATO-Russia relations will be instrumental to reaching that goal. In 2017, NATO and its allies need an action plan based on three pillars.

First, the alliance must fully implement the decisions made at the Warsaw summit on deterrence and defense. NATO needs a strategic six pack of measures to strengthen its long-term adaptation to a new military reality at its borders. This toolbox should embrace defense expenditure; capabilities to counter A2/AD systems; an ambitious policy of exercises; robust intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities; a revised NATO command structure; and a fully integrated approach to strategic communications.

Second, NATO should deepen dialogue with Russia on issues that require immediate attention. Among them are the snap exercises that Moscow uses as a tool of intimidation but that might also serve as camouflage for military action. Russian snap exercises are a dangerous escalatory instrument that could further destabilize the Euro-Atlantic region. A meaningful discussion on that issue might bring back the necessary elements that could help dismantle the post-truth world: predictability and transparency.

Finally, allies need to continue to constructively engage with Russia in the OSCE framework. At the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Hamburg in December 2016, all members, including Russia, agreed to launch a structured dialogue on the challenges and risks to security in the OSCE area. This initial positive signal from Moscow requires special attention, as the declaration might boost the organization’s role as a platform for a dialogue on security issues. Such a structured dialogue should be reinforced by the modernization of existing instruments.

Together, these three steps would show NATO’s ability to enhance deterrence and conduct dialogue as it waits for a Russia willing to engage. Strategic patience has always been NATO’s strong suit.

Dominik P. Jankowski is head of the OSCE and Eastern Security Unit at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The views and opinions expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the institution he represents.

This article was originally published by Carnegie Europe.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive orders with regards visa restrictions for people from seven Muslim-majority states has generated heat across the globe. At the same time, Bangladesh—a Muslim majority state in the Indian subcontinent—is planning to send refugee Rohingya Muslims from neighboring Myanmar to a low-lying island in the Bay of Bengal that critics say is ‘unlivable’.

According to available records, nearly 70,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar’s Muslim-majority areas in the north have fled to Bangladesh ever since the Myanmar military launched a fierce crackdown last October that led to the killings of over 100 Rohingyas and widespread damage to their protests.

The government action was aimed at nabbing unidentified Rohingya insurgents who were alleged to have killed nine Myanmar police personnel on October 9th at three border posts in the district of Maungdaw.

About 2,500 Rohingya families have since taken refuge at a makeshift camp in eastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar near the border with Myanmar—taking the number of Rohingya in Bangladesh, both the old refugees and the current ones, to an estimated 500,000 as per some estimates.

But in January, Bangladesh brought out an old and much-maligned 2015 plan from the cold storage and proposed to move all Myanmar refugees, old and new, to the island of Thengar Char, which is totally isolated and gets easily flooded on high tide days.

Defending the move, Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh’s junior foreign affairs minister, said that the “move is temporary, as Myanmar would eventually take back its citizens”.

News agency Reuters quoted him saying, “After considering all aspects, we have taken a firm decision to shift them to the island.”

The move, however, does not have a clear timeframe currently—and might begin after proper shelters are in place on the island. But one thing that Alam was adamant upon was this: “Myanmar will have to take them back.” Read ‘soon’ between the lines.

More than the current place of residence, it is the question of their identity itself that has placed the Rohingyas between the rock and a hard place. The Myanmar authorities often call them ‘Bengali Muslims’, thereby inferring that they are actually (illegal) immigrants from Bangladesh. Bangladesh, in turn, refers to them as ‘Muslim nationals of Myanmar’.

Compare it with the global umbrage directed at non-Muslim nations for identifying refugees by their religion.

Giving a sense of déjà vu with regards the turmoil in the developed world about the issue of refugees, Bangladesh is resisting the prospects of the Rohingya refugees ‘mixing with Bangladeshi citizens’.

In a January 26th release on a Bangladesh government website, it was informed that several panels were being set up by the government to examine the influx of Rohingya Muslims, which the country fears could lead to law and order issues as they mix with residents.

“There’s a fear that the influx of Rohingya Muslims from time to time will lead to a degradation of law and order situation, spread communicable diseases … and create various social and financial problems,” the notice elaborated.

Going a step further, Alam said to Reuters in an almost Donald Trump style, “They are getting involved in drugs and other unlawful activities. If we could have confined them in the camp, it would not have happened.”

Apart from Trump, many of the nationalist leaders of Europe have said something similar. The outrage directed at them has been soul-numbingly deafening. Maybe it would have helped if they were all spokespersons of Muslim nations too.

Meanwhile, Myanmar says it is “ready to talk” about the repatriation of Rohingyas—but only of those who left the country after October 9th, 2016. It says it cannot take Bangladesh’s word about all the refugees being Myanmar nationals.

In other words, a certain group is being allegedly persecuted by its native administration. But when that group tries to seek refuge in another country, it finds itself unwelcome there. But then, there is no way back home either.

Sounds familiar?

And therein lies the point. This writing is neither about the actions of Bangladesh and Myanmar, nor the current and historical state of affairs of the Rohingya Muslims. It is about requesting all of us to stop being both savage and (savagely) holier-than-thou on the issue of refugees. It is a matter of a monumental human challenge, and taking sides blindly and fanatically would not be, well, human.

Listen to the opposing voices of the host nations too. It is not always merely about xenophobia/’religio’phobia.

The post Muslim Refugees and a Muslim (Host) Nation in South Asia appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer speaks during the daily briefing. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Recent comments at a press briefing from White House spokesman Sean Spicer on the South China Sea seem to have riled the Chinese and confused others who follow developments in the region.

When asked to remark on Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, and Tillerson’s earlier threats to deny China access to man-made, militarized and disputed islands it occupies in the Spratly island chain, Spicer assured, “The U.S. is going to make sure that we protect our interests there.” He added, “It’s a question of if those islands are in fact in international waters and not part of China proper, then yeah, we’re going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country.”

Beijing quickly responded to Spicer’s comments, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying telling a regular press briefing the following day, “the United States is not a party to the South China Sea dispute” and reiterating China had “irrefutable” sovereignty over disputed islands. She added, “We urge the United States to respect the facts” and defended Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea as “reasonable and fair”.

Bonnie Glaser, an expert on the South China Sea at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Spicer’s remarks “worrisome,” adding the Trump administration was “sending confusing and conflicting messages.”

Other littoral countries of the South China Sea, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have often argued China’s actions are anything but reasonable and fair, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying’s pleas for the U.S. to “respect the facts,” is confusing in this era of “alternate facts”, a term put forth by Kellyanne Conway, as Counselor to the President. And Spicer, in defending his claims of the size of Trump’s inauguration during Monday’s press briefing, said “I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts.”

But a fact is actual occurrence, not an opinion on a fact, and actions under the new administration will speak louder than heated rhetoric. The fact remains on both sides that China has occupied and militarized these disputed islands, and blocking China’s access to those islands could spark a serious confrontation.

In his vague comments, Spicer may have realized he was sailing into dangerous waters. When pressed over how the United States could enforce such a move against China, he responded: “I think, as we develop further, we’ll have more information on it.” Hopefully, we can take some comfort in this last sentence, and that more information will lead to true facts prevailing over alternative facts, when a new and untested Trump administration determines what actions, if any, to take over the disputed South China Sea.

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Thousands gathered at JFK airport in New York City in protest of people detained under Trump’s executive order. (Stephanie Keith/Getty)

Despite the frenzy over the recent controversial immigration policies, delegitimizing America and its institutions—the presidency, the media, and the political process—has been going on for decades, and is worsening.

In recent days, both the left and right have accused their opponents’ supporters in the media as being increasingly illegitimate.

Conservative radio talk shows attacked television and newspapers in the “mainstream media” as being deceitful and partisan. The left responded with identical counterclaims against conservative radio. A cable vs cable debate followed, where Fox News took on the role of defender of conservative values against CNN and MSNBC. The left responded that their critics were the irrational ones. As blogs and other forms of social media developed, people increasingly drew their news from sources that reflected their own political opinions, and their Twitter and Facebook feeds became siloed echo chambers.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, “fake news” became the allegation du jour. Some fake news was clickbait allegedly generated from the Balkans merely for profit-making. But other partisan sites, and sometimes mainstream sites, were assailed as fake news also. Candidate Trump was frequently seen to be careless, hyperbolic, or deliberately deceitful, with a professed disdain for the media. In the first days of the new Trump administration, White House spokesperson Sean Spicer and key counselor Kellyanne Conway seemed to elevate the use of “alternative facts” in their official roles.

Attacks on the legitimacy of other American institutions continue as well. Debating the legitimacy of education goes back at least to 1955’s Why Johnny Can’t Read, through de-segregation and bussing, Lean On Me‘s urban decay, charter schools, blind hostility to or embrace of teachers unions, and universities as lounges for left-wing radicals and their young acolytes.

Despite the “thank you for your service” gestures today, the military has been criticized (sometimes rightly) for its military-industrial complex and overpriced contracting, abuses in Vietnam and Abu Ghraib, as well as the drones strategy. The intelligence community has been delegitimized for missing 9/11 but seeing Iraqi WMD, massive domestic surveillance programs, and recent criticisms by candidate Trump. American industries—agriculture, pharmaceutical, finance, energy, to name a few—have also come under a long train of attacks.

This weekend’s immigration fiasco, based on the President’s executive order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” was the next stage of delegitimizing the American political process itself.

Previous presidents have made significant achievements with an opposition Congress. President Reagan signed laws on tax cuts and immigration reform (including amnesty for three million) with a Democratic House. President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with 1990 Disabilities Act with a Democratic House and Senate. President Clinton managed tax cuts, immigration reform, and the creation of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as part of the Balanced Budget Act, all with a Republican House and Senate. President George W. Bush signed a major education reform bill with a Democratic Senate.

For a variety of reasons—depending on one’s perspectives, an absolutely obstinate Republican Congress or a lack of skill or will to build bipartisan consensus—some of President Obama’s largest achievements came without Republican support. Not a single Republican Senator voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act, for example.

Obama came to rely on the executive prerogative to implement major policies. Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) when he could not get the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform through Congress. He signed the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal without submitting them to the Senate for treaty ratification.

In rapid succession, Trump has followed Obama’s example, even though his Republican party is in the majority in the House and Senate. On the Affordable Care Act, international trade, federal hiring, and other issues, he has not waited for the deliberative process of working with the Congress, executive branch departments, or outside experts.

The weekend’s so-called “Muslim ban,” the executive order on “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” was controversial, misunderstood (and occasionally mischaracterized) in the mainstream and partisan media. But the policy was made worse by the seeming haste and carelessness with which it was promulgated: without the deliberation of the Congress, without careful input from terrorism or immigration experts, without consultation with allies, and without detailed instructions for the front-line personnel who were supposed to implement it in airports in the United States and abroad.

Opposition to the policy “went viral.” Protests and immigrant assistance efforts were broadcast globally by activists using social media, including the relatively new Facebook Live. Kathleen M. Vannucci, a prominent immigration attorney from Chicago, broadcast via Facebook Live to draw attention, activists, and media to O’Hare International Airport. Behind the scenes, people like Erin Kilroy Simpson, inspired by an expat friend, used social media to spread the call for Arabic, Kurdish, and Farsi translators to hustle to local airports to assist detained passengers.

This immigration restriction seemed to bring together the delegitimizing of American institutions—the presidency, the political process, and the media response. It built on decades of U.S. failure in the Middle East, withdrawal of global leadership, allegations of Russian influence in the election campaign, and a loss of faith in what news to believe. For America and President Trump to regain balance, progress, and legitimacy, they will have to undo not just what has happened since January 20th, but what the two parties have done to society and each other for more than 20 years. People like Vannucci and Simpson may provide some hope for the rest of us.

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President Donald Trump, accompanied by  Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, White House press secretary Sean Spicer and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, speaks on the phone with with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Similar to the two prior U.S. Presidential administrations, the current administration is making overtures towards Russia in the hope of improving U.S.-Russian relations. However, any penchant for deal-making must be buttressed by the clear understanding of other great powers’ legitimate security interests. Additionally, the realization by the U.S. national security establishment that other great powers’ national security architectures consider their own interests no less important to them than the U.S. does its own is critical.

President Trump has recently signaled his new policy orientation towards both China and Russia in two unorthodox moves. With respect to China, the administration has indicated that unless U.S.-China trade relations are better balanced in favor of the U.S., then the “One China” policy might be under review by the U.S.. Similarly, the administration has hinted at possible removal of U.S. sanctions against Russia in return for a new agreement on nuclear weapons.

While there are indeed some calls for the U.S. to review its “One China” policy, most of these have been voiced without consideration of the Chinese standpoint. Fundamentally, China has spent a generation gradually improving the economic benefits for its citizenry, resulting in more people being lifted out of poverty than ever before in human history. With the end of the Cold War, this economic development has been the basis for the continued legitimacy of China’s leadership in the eyes of its people.

Why, then, would it proceed to jeopardize this legitimacy for the the sake of a trade deal more favorable to the U.S.? As China has itself voiced multiple times, domestic considerations will override global perceptions of itself if given a choice between the two. Lastly, governmental legitimacy is surely a (if not the) prime example of this stark choice.

This pattern of attempting to leverage resolution over immediate issues into questions concerning other states’ overriding national security objectives continues with Russia. As stated above, the U.S. has indicated that it may be amenable to removal of Russian sanctions if a deal can be reached on nuclear armaments between the two sides. However, this deal will be next to impossible to reach, much less actually implement because of two key factors.

First, Russia’s nuclear superiority to the U.S. is a key plank in its bid to re-establish itself as a great power. What sane great power would make any deal towards nuclear weapons reductions when faced with conventional forces massing on its borders in the form of NATO? Additionally, any true progress towards any kinds of mutual arms reduction on both sides would require mutual trust. As is quite evident, there is absolutely zero strategic trust between the U.S. and Russia currently. Again, there is a tendency here by the U.S. to overestimate the importance of issues such as trade (increased or decreased) to a particular country when that country’s own core security interests are at stake.

Secondly, and more importantly, U.S. sanctions were initially imposed on Russia because of the Ukraine Crisis, not any nuclear issues. Again, the Ukraine Crisis is but a symptom of much larger issues between the U.S. and Russia going back to the end of the Cold War. There will be zero progress on issues such as Ukraine and Syria unless these underlying issues are addressed holistically.

Lastly, at the recent CSIS event, “Russia in Global Affairs”, the panel chair actually thanked the U.S. for the role of its sanctions in bringing Russia and China closer together. At the same event, yet another panelist made it quite clear that even if U.S.-Russian relations were improved, this would have absolutely no bearing on Sino-Russian relations. Again, this is evidence of the strategic mistrust between the U.S. and Russia.

In the end, perhaps the most immediate obstacle to the new U.S. administration’s outreach towards both China and Russia is the U.S.’ own national security architecture. Labeled “The Blob” by the previous administration, it is apparently composed of elements of the defense establishment and the intelligence community, as well as various think tanks and media outlets. The fear is that any intrinsic deal-making expertise brought to bear by the new administration will be ultimately countermanded by The Blob, which apparently is impervious to the desires of The White House, irrespective of any actual party affiliation.

Similar to the national interests of both China and Russia, The Blob is responsible for upholding the national security interests of the U.S.. These interests are many, but surely the paramount interest must be to retain hegemony in a liberal, rules-based order, while simultaneously preventing the rise of peer competitors in East Asia (China) and Eurasia (Russia). Unfortunately for the U.S., even some its staunchest allies have recently voiced a reluctance for further “nation-building”, where Western values are imposed on sovereign regional states. It’s far too early to tell how this game will play out, but what is clear is that unless the new administration understands and respects the national security interests of all three states, there will be no progress at all.

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Bones, suspected to belong to members of Iraq’s Yazidi community, are seen in a mass grave on the outskirts of the town of Sinjar. 30 November, 2015. (Reuters)

The Western countries refugee policy of the last three years has given rise to a great deal of debate and political maneuvering in individual countries and altered the political fortunes of certain politicians. Refugee policy, however, should produce a consensus, as most fair minded individuals agree that helping those in serious need is an obvious response. While hyperbole abounds, no one on either side of the debate wishes to contribute to additional crimes against those fleeing conflict, war and genocide.

A realistic approach to refugee policy should take into consideration that a nation state will not be able to bring in every refugee that it would wish to take in, as the number of conflicts and victims continues to grow. Also, governments should not give assistance to one region of the world while not doing so in other regions that are burdened with more difficult situations. Assistance needs to be concentrated on those who are worst off, as there is a limit to the number of funds and places that a country can provide to individuals under their refugee protection regimes.

Taking in as many as possible without planned consideration will likely have the effect of leaving the worse off in a continued state of threat. For that reason, economic migrants and refugees who have already been settled in safe second countries need to be given opportunities to come to a new state only after the most vulnerable have been assisted. Unfortunately, that is not the case under the current refugee policies.

Three considerations on whether or not to prioritize individuals under a refugee program should be made an inherent part of the process. Before any of those considerations are applied, it must be established that the refugee is not an economic migrant, as a lack of employment is not a consideration for refugee status.

Firstly, refugees that are not be able to return to their region due to threats against them and their community must be given priority. In addition, refugees who will never be able to return to a region due to threats of genocide or continued violent discrimination should be taken in and settled in a different manner as their entire culture and community no longer has a homeland. Transplanting an entire society from one region to another involves a greater degree of trauma and endured issues as an entire society could be eliminated without proper assistance. Recent cases highlight problems that are still not understood by many refugee programs in Western countries, and errors in resettlement that can lead to further abuse.

The second consideration that must be applied is that refugees who are victims of genocide must be given first priority. There are differing degrees of safety for refugees and those that have been settled in safe second countries are not under direct threat. Those safe from the initial cause of conflict that make it to refugee camps should be given priority over those already settled in safe second countries, as taking in those who are already removed from conflict still keeps the less fortunate in danger.

The most vulnerable individuals—at risk of torture, genocide and ethnic cleansing—must always be given priority as they are labelled and targeted by those in their region for death or enslavement. It is often the case that assistance in the same region cannot be properly administered as long as they are a discriminated group in that same region. This even takes place in refugee camps themselves, as assistance to unfavored groups in the region is given last in a discriminatory process that continues the oppression of that group post violence.

This leads to a third consideration. Treating individuals or groups from cultures that are a target of being exterminated should take priority, and actions to assist them should be administered as soon as evidence of even an attempt at ethnic cleansing is found. So serious is that type of situation for refugees, that blocking, blurring or stalling assistance to those vulnerable groups should be taken as a legal violation within Western countries themselves as it would likely contribute to further genocide.

Working even passively against assisting refugees that are in a situation that is tantamount to events that led to the Nuremberg Nuremberg goes against the very fibers of modern democracies and the essential elements of human rights. When considering your own policy position on refugees, their region, language and color should not make a difference, the situation and the above criteria should be critical in deciding who receives assisting and is accepted into the limited spaces available for refugee protection in individual nation states.

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The main conference room inside South Korea’s National Assembly Building. (Wikimedia Commons)

The four-party system resurrected under the post-impeachment climate complicates the parties’ political calculus of carrying the ‘torch’ of participatory democracy. The political maelstrom is expected to turn more volatile with a possibility of an expedited presidential election cycle. Yet, the journey to permanently end ‘imperial presidency’ continues.

Out of the blame game over President Park Geun-Hye’s bizarre plummet to political perdition, the party in power, Saenuri, gave reluctant birth to the Barun party, pioneered by the anti-Park clique. The newly formed centrist-right party’s quest to establish their party label as the reformist representation of the conservative camp adds a third-way zest to the South Korean party system.

The People’s party entered the National Assembly during the 2016 parliamentary election by riding the increasing tide of conservative ‘dislodgers’ who were at the time dissatisfied with Park’s queenish management of party politics. Since then, the third major party has so far successfully walked a tight-rope, with considerable bargaining power independent of its mother party, the most long-established in the liberal camp, the Minjoo party. Barun’s abrupt parting with the dead-duck leader Park Guen Hye is expected to further boost 2016’s People’s party-led swing voter movement. This time, however, it is fueled by the explosive and anger-based Candlelight Revolution.

After seven weekly vigil-like mass protests, in one of which as many as two million people participated in one day, the National Assembly obeyed the ‘rhyme’ of the people’ participatory democracy. President Park was impeached for her part in a corruption case on December 6, 2016 by a 234–56 margin. The exposure of Park’s synchronization of national governance with her own household management infuriated especially young people with little money, but also their parents, drawing them onto the streets to exercise their civil and constitutional right to protest.

On the one hand, the success of the so-called Candlelight Revolution displayed the strength of participatory democracy in South Korea. Peaceful street demonstrations employing nonviolent, orderly and even artistic ways of communication intrinsically demanded democracy (pluralistic equality) at face value and civil and constitutional justice in eradicating corruption.

On the other hand, it created an impending lapse in high-level policy management and destabilized politics by setting the clock forward for this year’s presidential election cycle. The constitutional court now has up to six months (from December 6, 2016) to come up with the final decision (allegedly, the court will reach its decision by March 13, 2017). Once the ruling is reached, the presidential election must be held with the following two months.

The glory of participatory democracy shines only when pluralistic equality is maintained. Still, the parties are vigilant not to miss the post-impeachment opportunities to herd angry swing voters. The liberal camp, especially the Minjoo party, is eager to carry the torch of the Candlelight Revolution to win the presidential election based on a strategic claim of ‘regime change’. In coping with the legitimacy crisis, the disintegrated conservative camp in contrast seeks ‘constitutional-reforms’ to ‘imperial presidency’, seen as a post-1987 political malfunction, as a catalyst to form a grand coalition, a ‘big tent’, across centrist parties and what is now the façade of the ancien regime, Saenuri.

Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s recent return has lifted the curtain on this dramatic framing war between the liberals and conservatives. Although having never officially expressed his interest in running for the presidency, during his return speech at Incheon airport on January 12, 2017, Ban called for ‘political change’ based on an ‘inclusive integration’ of Korean society.

Ban, a 50-year veteran diplomat yet a novice in South Korea’s domestic politics, lacks a firm support base that can mobilize resources and collective action on his behalf. Still, his experience as a networked global leader, preparedness in security issues, and relative socio-economic progressiveness compared to other presidential candidates are centrist strengths. These strengths have so far made him one of the top two presidential candidates.

In differentiating his candidacy from that of Ban, the Minjoo party’s Moon Jae-In, the leading presidential candidate in the liberal camp and the former chief of staff to the Ro Moo-hyun administration, emphasizes that, unlike Ban, his competency as a candidate has already been verified. Indeed, Ban’s candidacy will come under great scrutiny both from the public and the parties. Despite this hurdle, once Ban officially declares that he will roll the dice, it is highly probable that he will be the pivot for the conservatives’ grand coalition (Ban dropped out of the race on February 1, 2017, and it seems like there is no one to challenge Moon’s monopoly at this point in time).

In the aftermath of the Candlelight Revolution, the Korean people’s demands for constitutionally restructuring the post-1987 five-year-term presidency framework have heightened. Although parties’ and presidential candidates’ stance on this political hot potato differ with respect to how and when, no one disagrees over the urgency of implementing relevant remedies.

South Korea’s ‘winners-take-all’ majoritarian party system, leveraged by an ‘imperial’ president’s power, has been long criticized by many minority party leaders and even by faction leaders within the party in power. Pundits have blamed the predominant political culture in the country, under which the hegemony of the predominant regionalist party has a firm grip on the control of both the executive and the legislature. This prevents opposition parties from functioning effectively, and causes extreme legislative gridlock and filibuster.

Reforming such defects of the majoritarian party system was one of the core campaign agendas of the left-centrist DJP coalition in 1998, which helped liberal presidential candidate Kim Dae-Jung to win the election. Nevertheless, the Kim Dae-Jung administration’s DJP coalition was short-lived, leaving the impression that the coalition peddled the promise just to win the election.

Recently, optimism has been growing among Korean political scientists that South Korea’s party politics is ready to embrace Lijphart’s consociational democracy model. Indeed, analyzing through the lens of Sartori’s theoretical framework, South Korea’s relatively narrow spectrum of political cleavages, thus, more centripetal tendencies could render politics a multi-party-system-based ‘moderate pluralism’.

In theory, the new system might allow the grand coalition government and opposition parties to play the two-party system accountability game (since voters would easily figure out which of the two blocs is responsible for failures/successes), with more political voices represented (since cross-party deliberation is inevitable in forming a pre-election coalition, unlike in the two-party system where the two ‘catch-all’ parties simply do marketing to peddle their programmatic agendas to median voters). Such an experimental institutional design, however, needs to resolve the innate agency dilemma between elites and the people, and also come up with proper institutional devices to decentralize the current presidential power.

With regard to the latter challenge, the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Constitutional Reform is already examining whether the German-style semi-presidential system, the U.S.-style four-year-term presidency, or the U.K.-style cabinet system is best suited to reflect the country’s political reality. Nevertheless, ways to institutionalize the political solutions that narrow down the deliberation gap between elites and the people, as well as across the people, must also be taken into consideration.

The significance of the Candlelight Revolution’s success lies in the fact that the ‘rhythm (Hannah Arendt’s term)’ of participatory democracy, although unofficially, made the National Assembly accountable to the people. It is therefore important now to transform this unnatural rhythm into recurring, refined, and self-disciplined participatory institutional mechanisms in order to both ethically and functionally enhance elites’ accountability to the people. Direct-democracy tools like public referenda and popular initiatives such as are already widely practiced in advanced democracies are no doubt great examples of such mechanisms. Still more innovative political thoughts and experiments are pressing to preclude the agency dilemma, especially concerning the case in which the face value of democracy is lost in translation between undisciplined participatory democracy and polarized party politics.

The post Post-impeachment Consensus Calls for a New Political System in South Korea appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(Katie Park / NPR)

Last week, Trump’s Secretary of State nominee, Rex Tillerson, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands is also not going to be allowed.” The following day, I attended meetings at universities and government-affiliated think tanks in Beijing as part of a delegation of American graduate students studying the South China Sea conflict.

During these meetings, there was a spirited discussion of the Chinese and American perspectives among our delegation of American scholars and the Chinese scholars and government officials who generously hosted us. We sparred on issues like the meaning of the Nine Dash Line, the implications of American freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), and the validity of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea arbitration ruling, which had declared that China held no legitimate “historical rights” to the sea and its land features.

But in our meetings following Tillerson’s hearing, we abruptly found ourselves in agreement with our Chinese colleagues: Tillerson’s threat to attack Chinese forces in the South China Sea was ludicrously outside the mainstream of the foreign policy establishments on all sides. It is great if America’s chief diplomat can bring feuding parties into agreement, but ideally it shouldn’t be about how wrong he is.

And make no mistake: an armed attack is what Tillerson threatened. China has transformed rocks and reefs into massive military bases with airports, harbors, and housing for troops. Unless the Pentagon has a major announcement pending about force-field technology, denying China’s “access to those islands” means firing upon the ships and aircraft that supply them. It is a disproportionate escalation of force that few if any strategists or defense planners would advocate, because China would certainly respond to any such attack with force, as any nation would.

China views the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. This belief permeates not only the highest echelons of government but the entire population. The Chinese mindset, from peasant to party secretary, is shaped by a collective memory of the “Century of Humiliation,” during which foreign powers are perceived to have preyed on the dying Qing Empire, carving out semi-colonial concessions all over China.

The Communist Party derives its legitimacy from its restoration of China’s global status and, most of all, from its uncompromising defense of Chinese territorial integrity. The Chinese leadership views potential loss of territory in Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and the South China Sea all as existential threats. Would the Chinese people rise up and overthrow their government over its failure to defend previously uninhabitable rocks in the South China Sea? From a strategic perspective, it does not matter because Beijing has no intention of finding out.

In short, there is no bluff to call here: the Chinese are willing to kill and die for these rocks; Americans are not.

Nevertheless, Tillerson’s bellicosity on the South China Seas dispute is in-line with an emerging alt-right foreign policy consensus of extreme dovishness towards Russia and extreme hawkishness towards China. It is based not on reality but rather on a worldview that has been crafted to uphold the preconceived preferences of its standard-bearer, Donald Trump.

But here in reality, the truth is far more complicated. Though China has violated international laws and norms with its occupation of land-features (the Philippines v. China arbitration case concluded that they cannot rightly be called islands), so have American partners, like the Philippines and Vietnam. Despite this fact, while sovereignty is the central issue for China and America puts the highest premium on the maintenance of global norms like freedom of navigation and innocent passage, most other claimants are chiefly concerned with less lofty issues like fishing and hydrocarbon exploration rights.

What makes Tillerson’s proposed call of their non-bluff even more absurd is that the U.S. position in the South China Sea has never been weaker. Our chief ally, the Philippines, has elected an openly pro-Beijing, anti-Washington demagogue, and Duterte regularly repudiates the United States in public statements. His policy in the South China Sea has been to tacitly cede ground on sovereignty in exchange for fishing rights. Vietnam, another important American partner, is enjoying very close relations with the present administration in Beijing and thus unprecedentedly unwilling to push back against China on the issue.

By far our biggest prospect for curbing Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea was through greater cooperation between all of the non-China claimaints, namely the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, and Indonesia. The now-dead Trans-Pacific Partnership was the centerpiece of that approach. Its failure is utterly baffling to our partners in the region, and they view it as an indication that we are prepared to surrender the region to China. Truly, our position has never been weaker, nor our allies less confident in our support.

Still, there are policies we can pursue that will reinforce our commitment to both a peaceful resolution of the sovereignty disputes based in international law and the internationally-recognized right of freedom of navigation for both commercial and naval vessels. We should continue to conduct FONOPs to demonstrate concretely our rejection of China’s expansive and unsupported territorial claims. We should reiterate in unequivocal terms our commitment to the security of our allies. And we should ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, so that we do not appear to be hypocrites when we demand its enforcement.

We will soon find out whether Secretary Tillerson plans to pursue this radical reinvention of American Pacific strategy, or was merely completely ignorant of the state-of-play of the dispute due to a poor briefing before his hearing. Either suggests that surprises and upheavals maybe ahead for American diplomacy.

Ultimately, America’s top diplomat should know intuitively that when he makes outrageous threats on which America is obviously unwilling to follow through, he weakens his own credibility not only on this issue but also on every other. If Rex Tillerson is unable to comprehend that most obvious law of diplomacy, the quality of his briefings will be the least of our worries.

Nathan Kohlenberg is a Security Fellow at the Truman National Security Project, and a student of Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is a contributor to a book on the South China Sea dispute to be published by the SAIS Conflict Management Department in April. Views expressed are his own. 

The post On the South China Sea, Tillerson Suggests Going All In on a Losing Hand appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Donald Trump’s election as President signals, in Walter Russell Mead’s term, a “Jacksonian protest”, of nativist sentiment and mistrust of elites. Meanwhile, similar sentiments are rising in other nations, so that Greg Ip discerns an ideological conflict of globalism against nationalism. A world of nationalists rejecting globalism seems also to reject the liberal order that has kept peace and prosperity. Many worry that it could slide into economic decline, international suspicion, and war. Many fear for the global condition of rights and the rule of law.

The United States can forestall such consequences, and more, and not in spite of American nationalism. We remain the most powerful nation in the world. We can promote the global spread of individual rights by deploying that power, pointedly and coherently, to embody America’s national essence.

For this to occur, American politics would have to reach some degree of consensus. which looks highly improbable today. However, that very national essence offers the best logical base on which to build a moral center.

The American nation was founded on an abstract article of faith, that all persons have inherent rights. The signers of the Declaration of Independence divorced their ethnic ties, and ignored other markers of identity in favor of this principle; the bulk of the document argues that Britain had violated it. The principle, and the corollary that governments exist to secure the unalienable rights and so must have the consent of the governed, make up America’s founding creed.

The United States’ legitimacy rests on our validation of that creed. To embody it successfully, then, is the core of our national interest. That interest corresponds to our unusual, not to say exceptional, nationalism.

This unusual nationalism lays down a simple dual mandate for our leaders: to protect the freedom we enjoy and its essential conditions, on the one hand; and to express our creed in our conduct, on the other. Any political outcome that meets those demands fulfills the mandate. No particular ‘isms’ need be served, no current commitments or interests require our compliance unless this mandate does, and it is particularly open to new and even radical ideas, if they fit our purpose.

Henry Nau argues that America’s is an “International Nationalism”, citing a plethora of actions throughout our history. And we are accustomed to the idea that America did act in its nature in promulgating the post-World War II liberal world order.

But our founding on principle does not automatically tie us to the current liberal world order, or any particular mechanism or policy, or role in world affairs. Future embodiment of our creed probably will not come through familiar channels.

As Michael Mazarr says, ‘doubling down” on current mechanisms may only exacerbate their failings. Ip calls for globalists to recognize their neglect of peoples’ nationalistic needs. Mead notes how Wilsonians and Hamiltonians assume their views of American interest demand intervention abroad. Some of those fuel the Jacksonian protest, and may be unnecessary. Walter McDougall sees a century-old “civic religion” of intervention that weakens our grasp of our basic values.

Any President, including President Trump, could set policy to express America’s creed. In this case, a transactional President and a Secretary of State with a deal-making history will benefit if day to day diplomacy sets America’s creed as the backdrop to their initiatives. It could start—though certainly would not end—with a Presidential pronouncement that that creed indeed defines his deepest purpose. Working level policy guidance to this effect, and a formative regimen steeping U.S. diplomats in our creed, could cement the statement into a norm.

Administration opponents can help American conduct voice our principles, with or without Presidential action, by declaring the creed as their own ultimate purpose. Followed up sincerely, this casts disagreements with the administration as differences over interpretation or policy execution, while implying the common fundamental ends.

Either step seems unlikely. Only nuanced public discourse on the creed will keep the inevitable political posturing from reducing our creed to one more claim of partisan rhetoric. And the best ways to express our nationality may point toward novel and risky channels. But only by understanding the creed as America’s basic source of values will we build a base for our national moral narrative.

As of this writing the administration’s rapid measures to fulfill campaign promises unsettles many; it also reinforces the partisan divisions of political discourse. Once the immediate actions and reactions have played out, the question is whether anyone will focus on America’s fundamental nature.

The post A Take on American Nationalism appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The new president of Gambia, Adama Barrow (center, waiving), after being sworn in from exile in Senegal on Jan. 19, 2017. Barrow returned to Gambia a week later, and hopes to launch a new democracy. (Sergey Ponomarev/New York Times)

Gambia may be the smallest country in mainland Africa, but it has received a big spotlight recently after a historic presidential election and transfer of power. After suffering under the harsh, authoritarian rule of Yahya Jammeh for 23 years, Gambians ousted him in an open election in December 2016. Winning opposition leader Adama Barrow took office as president last week. Many are hoping what happened in Gambia is a signal that the days of other long-ruling African dictators could be numbered.

The story is remarkable. Yahya Jammeh took power in a 1994 coup in the tiny West African nation of Gambia, a small sliver of land bordering the Gambia River that is completely surrounded by Senegal (with a small outlet to the Atlantic ocean).

Throughout his tyrannical reign, he jailed journalists and political opponents and led a series of witch hunts—he thought that some critical of his regime were actual witches. Jammeh inspired such fear that thousands fled to neighboring countries, and some even thought he was monitoring their communications from abroad. Concerned for their safety, many citizens would not even speak of Jammeh in public, and a Gambian newspaper even reported he hid poisonous gas pellets in the country’s state house before leaving. (However after a comprehensive search, none were found.)

Leading up to the December 2016 election, Gambia’s multiple opposition parties decided enough was enough. They pooled resources and unified behind one candidate, Adama Barrow. As he was called during the campaign, “no drama Adama” promised democratic reforms and an end to Jammeh’s tyranny. In a shocking result, Barrow actually won. Jammeh agreed to peacefully step down, and Gambians celebrated the dawn of a new era.

Except a few days later, Jammeh changed his mind. He claimed the election results fraudulent and threatened to use the army to maintain his hold on power. Fearing a violent reprisal, many Gambians fled the country. Barrow left for Senegal, and was sworn in as president in exile.

The situation seemed bleak. Then, in another unexpected turn of events, the regional trading bloc Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened, sending in negotiators and a military force to ensure the transition of power took place.

In a surprise equal to that of the election result, it worked: without any violence, Jammeh accepted defeat and fled to Equatorial Guinea (along with a cargo plane filled with luxury cars and other results of his fleecing of Gambia’s economy). The ECOWAS troops did not face any notable resistance, but are expected to remain for a few months to ensure the transition remains peaceful. On January 26, Barrow returned to Gambia—as did many of his countrymen who had fled post-election—to a hero’s welcome.

ECOWAS has been hailed for its role in convincing Jammeh to relent, and peacefully step down. The group took action from the get-go, establishing a negotiating team immediately after the election in December. This team featured several presidents of countries in the region, including two who had directly experienced violent political change and military intervention: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (ECOWAS Chairwoman) of Liberia, and Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone. Their influence proved critical. Paulin Maurice Toupane, a researcher with the Institute for Security Studies in Senegal, points out:

“It helped very much that those regional actors presented a united front and a common understanding of the situation—that Barrow was the victor and Jammeh must go. It meant they could speak as one voice and also helped them to earn the support of international bodies like the UN and [African Union] as well.“

Outside of Gambia, many others took notice in the hopes that what happened there could be repeated in other nearby dictatorships (7 of 10 longest-serving rulers are in Africa). The hashtag #LessonsFromGambia took hold across the continent, with Twitter posts like “Time is up for dictators in Africa #LessonsfromGambia” and “If regional blocks in #Africa take the same lead as #ECOWAS did in #Gambia, dictatorships will become a thing of the past.”

But, of course, it’s not that simple. Just because a peaceful transition took place in Gambia doesn’t mean the same principles would work elsewhere. For one, Jammeh was considered a delusional outsider with few political allies. Also the ECOWAS military force outnumbered Gambia’s army 7 to 1, a situation unlikely to occur in other areas. And Barrow faces many challenges in rebuilding the economy and fulfilling the people’s trust.

Nevertheless the success in Gambia should not be understated. After decades of tyranny, a democracy seems to be taking root. Whether this is the start of a movement that will topple other dictators remains to be seen. But if it happened once, there is good reason for hope.

The post Gambia Offers Hope for African Democracy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(alkhaleejonline.net)

In 2004, Jordan’s King Abdullah II used the term “crescent” to warn against the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East. This was later picked up by then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who said, in an interview with Al-Arabiya, that Shias in Iraq and across the Middle East “are more loyal to Iran… not to the countries they are living in.”

However, what King Abdullah II had meant was the possible disruption of the balance of power in the region. He never used the word “Shia” in a sectarian sense; he was rather referring to the political alignments and violent bloodshed that might result from such divides.

Lately, the same kind of “alarm” has being sounded by the Chief of Staff of the Jordanian Army, General Mamoud Freihat, who highlighted the dangers of an “Iranian Belt” which could create a territorial link between Iran and Lebanon via Iraq and Syria. In a recent interview with BBC Arabic, Freihat expressed Jordan’s concerns about the possible establishment of a “land belt,” or contiguous territory, between Iran and Lebanon.

Martin van Creveld, a distinguished military historian, once noted: “In the future, war will not be waged by armies but by groups whom today we call terrorists, guerrillas, bandits and robbers, but who will undoubtedly hit upon more formal titles to describe themselves.” Since that statement was written, the Middle East has indeed seen a huge proliferation of proxy wars, stemming from various non-state actors.

Sunnis in the Middle East look at what is happening (especially in Mosul in Iraq, and Aleppo and Raqqa in Syria) as a strategic war designed by Iran to secure a “Shia corridor” or an “imperial bridge” in the region. They also point to the “demographic change” being “engineered” to transfer the Sunnis out of their areas, whether in Syria or Iraq. To Shias, it is nothing but a battle against terrorism.

The “Shia crescent” brings the violence of the Sunni-Shia battles into our daily lives in new, unsettling ways, as if such terms (the crescent, corridors, the bridge, and so forth) are becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. But measuring the phenomenon hardly tells us whether there is truth about its reality.

Those of us who take regional peace seriously face some important questions, among which is whether the policy findings emerging from statistical research still apply: that as national incomes increase, the risk of war declines. However, the Sunni-Shia divide predates the rise of nation-states or when conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran started to surface. Thus, if fundamental policy differences among capable nations arise, then warfare over ideology or religion can also be resurrected.

Maybe this is what King Abdullah II meant around a decade ago: that even if traditional geopolitical competition still plays a role, one has to take into account a significant and fluctuating number of non-state actors, motivated by various ideological or religious causes, mutating into new hybrid threats, and frequently shifting alliances among them.

But is war not a quintessential undertaking of the nation-state? Indeed, the relationship between the two was expressed in Professor Charles Tilly’s famous line, “War made the state, and the state made war.”

The two primary regional powers (Saudi Arabia and Iran) continue to project their geopolitical influence using their interpretations of Islam as instruments of foreign policy. The danger thus lies in the politicization of sectarian identities: such as picturing groups, like the Alawites in Syria and Zaydis in Yemen, to be orienting into the Iranian orbit and/or the Shia establishment, although these “new” Shia were previously considered heretics by Sunnis and most Shias themselves.

The Arab world has already decided to characterize Iraq, for instance, as an Iranian client-state; the Shia constituents as Iranian proxies; and the Alawites and Houthis as subsets of Shia. Whether Iran has influence over the region, such classifications and simplistic narration are ironically becoming instruments serving the continuation of wars. In fact, the “crescent” is helped by the way the Arab world has historically treated the Shia communities as threats to the regimes, not as citizens with national identity, natural rights and responsibilities.

The post The ‘Shia Crescent’ and Middle East Geopolitics appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

North Korea claims to be close to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as recently reported by the official KCNA news agency. During his annual New Year’s address Kim Jong-un expressed the country’s renewed ambition to foster its nuclear defense capabilities through the forthcoming acquisition of ICBM capabilities.

A North Korean ICBM would represent an additional fracture in the delicate regional security balance, not to mention a direct threat to the continental U.S.—potentially exposed to a direct nuclear strike.

Washington remains extremely vigilant about the threat represented by Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic defense program. As stressed by former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, the U.S. is ready to intercept and neutralize any missile “if it were coming towards our territory or the territory of our friends and allies.” South Korea and Japan have expressed their concern over their neighbor’s continuously provocative behavior, calling for stronger sanctions in response to a plausible ICBM test.

Pyongyang could decide to conduct a new ballistic test in the early weeks of the new administration to gauge President Trump’s response. According to U.S. intelligence, the intensification of the activities near North Korea’s Chamjin missile factory could be linked to an incoming ballistic test. Furthermore, Pyongyang has previously conducted ballistic tests during the early months of President Obama’s first and second terms.

While Pyongyang’s harsh confrontation with Washington and its allies has often been characterized by inflamed tones and warmongering propaganda, a successful ICBM test could have dramatic consequences, triggering a major crisis in the peninsula.

Although Trump has expressed his suspicions about Pyongyang’s real ability to reach such a relevant milestone, last year North Korea conducted 25 ballistic missile tests and five nuclear tests, threatening the peace of the region. North Korea’s ballistic arsenal is fully equipped with several Musudan (Hwasong-10) intermediate-range ballistic missiles, increasing its ability to strike Japan and the U.S. territory of Guam.

North Korea’s nuclear and military provocations have been condemned by the international community unanimously. Nevertheless, the imposition of new UN sanctions have not produced the expected result to bring back Pyongyang to the negotiating table.

Although the regime may be close to test a new ballistic test, the acquisition of a fully operative ICBM able to strike the continental U.S. would require several years to be completed. Many experts believe that North Korea will be able to produce an ICBM by 2020 and also has acquired enough plutonium to build ten warheads.

In recent years, North Korea’s leadership has resorted to the celebration of the country’s nuclear power status to prevent any shift in the Korean peninsula while maintaining the centrality of the divine right of the Kim family unchallenged. As it appeared evident during Obama administration, North Korea leadership has shown no intention of giving up its nuclear program—its best bargaining chip—in exchange for energy, food aid and other economic benefits.

Pyongyang has relied on the nuclear program to engage Washington and even explore the possibilities of a full normalization of relations as in the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework. The sudden rise of Kim Jong-un to the highest ranks of the KWP and as “Great Successor of the revolutionary cause of the Juche” and his later ascension to power marked a critical acceleration of nuclear and ballistic activities.

Since then, Pyongyang has maintained a strong priority on the acquisition of nuclear and missile capabilities, as a fundamental consecration of North Korea’s nuclear power status, already enshrined in its 2012-revised Constitution. Moreover, the North Korea elites strongly emphasize its manifest destiny as a nuclear power nation and consider the expansion of its nuclear capabilities the most efficient way to demand the universal recognition of its new status.

During his campaign, President Trump has several times questioned Washington’s security commitment overseas, stressing his willingness to withdraw American troops from South Korea while encouraging Japan to acquire nuclear weapons to enhance its deterrence. Trump’s election has indeed raised questions about the future of American pivot to Asia inaugurated by his eminent predecessor.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration will be extensively engaged to address North Korea’s nuclear assertiveness, reassuring critical allies such as Japan and South Korea about Washington’s commitment to upholding regional security and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Like the previous administration, Trump will be facing a difficult decision in defining the contours not only of the Korean Peninsula’s strategic balance, but also in renovating Washington’s commitment in the Asia-Pacific region, constantly exposed to fundamental changes in the security dynamics.

The Trump administration has already expressed its willingness to support critical strategic initiatives such as the THAAD while upholding the existing security alliance between Washington and Seoul, as stressed by US national security advisor Michael Flynn during a recent meeting with his South Korean counterpart Kim Kwang-jin.

This approach follows the footsteps of the Obama administration, whose “strategic patience” strategy has been strongly contested by Republicans who see it as the wrong approach to induce Pyongyang to abandon its dreadful intents as a precondition to return to the negotiating table.

Under the previous administration, Washington has maintained a solid commitment in opposing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, calling for a wider support from the international community, and particularly from China as a critical player, in demanding Pyongyang to comply with UN security resolutions.

A nuclear-armed North Korea remains a direct threat to Beijing’s core strategic interest and Chinese elites have already experienced frustration given their inability to persuade the former ally to restrain its nuclear ambitions.

The Obama administration has sought a closer cooperation with Beijing in imposing additional costs on Pyongyang for its belligerent activities, encouraging China to play a more effective role in implementing UN Security Council decisions against the North Korea.

Contrastingly, the Trump administration has already caused created frictions with Beijing, questioning the longstanding “One China Policy”, while considering more confronting strategies to challenge China’s presence in the South China Sea as stressed by the incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Mr.Trump’s harsh remarks over China’s economic policies have indeed raised questions about the future of Sino-U.S. relations and how this is going to affect the recalibration of Washington’s foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region.

Despite the initial criticisms, China remains a critical partner in ensuring the fulfillment of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Yet, Trump’s remarks over China and his threats to launch a trade war against Beijing could alienate Beijing’s desire to cooperate in dealing with the North Korea.

The Trump administration could have to confront as a serious crisis on the Korean Peninsula even before defying the new engagement strategy and the characteristic of its commitment in the region.

Strengthening the level of engagement with its close allies and defying a common and joint strategy to address the North Korean issue would be a valuable tool to mitigate the risk of a dangerous crisis in the Korean Peninsula.

Moreover, without a joint effort with Beijing in deterring Pyongyang through a marked increase of the economic and diplomatic pressure, little or virtually no results can be achieved on this issue.

The Trump administration might consider the implementation of partnerships and practices, inaugurated by the previous Administration rather than complying with his initial proclaims.

Despite the rising tensions, a renewed entente with Beijing is critical to deal with the North Korea’s nuclear program, whose spillover effects caused by Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic activities remains the most immediate threat to Washington’s security regional architecture and strategic interest.

Yet, it remains difficult to predict how the new administration will be able to define a new strategy without the contribution of Beijing in defusing such a dreadful scenario.

The post North Korea’s ICBM Threat and the Trump Administration appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). (China.org.cn)

The previous Obama Administration has long been opposed to joining the Beijing-led development bank initiative called the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). U.S. concerns over the bank include transparent procurement, environmental and social safeguards, good governance, and additionality—given the existing and wide-ranging operations of the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Despite U.S. objections and concerns, China’s $100 billion initiative seems determined in its quest for respectability and prominence. Now it appears that the U.S. will be one of the few major countries (along with Japan) not to back Beijing’s initiative. The Financial Times recently reported around 25 African, European and South American countries are due to join the bank this year, which was founded in January 2016 by 57 shareholder countries. Among the founding members are Singapore, Britain, Australia, France, Germany and Spain.

Following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it would seem to some that Beijing has superseded Washington in pushing forward a liberal, globalized order. Beijing is also using the AIIB to further its efforts at soft power. Jin Liqun, the Chinese president of the AIIB recently argued, “China needs to do something that can help it be recognized as a responsible leader.”

In light of the “America First” inauguration speech by U.S. President Donald Trump, and inflammatory rhetoric from his cabinet nominees toward China, it is highly unlikely the new Trump Administration will join any Beijing-led initiative.

Critics say in refusing to join, the U.S. will forfeit any say in how the AIIB is run, including any input on environmental safeguards, transparency on potential corruption. Hopefully, other responsible founding shareholder countries should be able to impose, monitor and enforce protective measures. In addition, some of the AIIB’s nine current projects involve co-financing arrangements with other multilateral banks such as the World Bank, which has its own set of rules to deter unfair play and abuses.

Yet other multilateral banks, such as the World Bank, have been faulted in the past for their association with environmentally questionable and potentially corrupt projects. Despite this potential, and with or without U.S. membership, the AIIB still deserves a chance to offer a new alternative and prove itself to be a viable development finance institution.

The post Beijing’s Development Bank Gains Momentum appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

For several places around the world, 2017 could be a watershed year, as various territorial disputes threaten to boil over amidst a climate of global uncertainty.

Much like fights over territory itself, the concept of territory has disputed roots. It is not uncommon to associate ‘territory’ with ‘terra’ as in terra firma (or terroir to wine connoisseurs). However, some scholars suggests an alternative root—‘terror’. Here, territory belongs to those who are able to instill fear such that those living within its boundaries are obliged to respect the laws and norms of their respective rulers. This is the very core of the Hobbesian concept of sovereignty and gets to the heart of territorial disputes. At the moment, fear may be the more useful concept when evaluating contested territories—fear present in governments, policy makers, and businesses.

More acutely, potentially significant shifts in policy from the incoming Trump administration have created significant ambiguity in the role the United States may play in these disputes. Other challenges have also served to fan the flames in several specific hot spots. Any such shift, from recent elections or other sources, will likely have follow-on effects as states, NGOs, and other actors alter their own positions in response. Below are five territorial disputes that may be exacerbated over the next year.

China claims large portions of the South China Sea. To bolster its position, the Chinese government has built artificial islands to turn a dispute about the ocean into one about land. This was investigated by an international tribunal in the Hague during the summer of 2016. Since then, Washington has taken a relatively cautious approach. However, during a Senate hearing on January 12th, U.S. Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, made it clear that he believes the Chinese stance to be unacceptable. “You’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands is also not going to be allowed,” he told senators.

Although the official Chinese response was to downplay the significance of this statement, its state run media interpreted Tillerson’s comments more aggressively. An estimated $5 trillion in trade travels through the South China Sea, meaning even a slight disruption can have profound effects on economies and investors across the globe.

The United States has long maintained that it acts as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While this was view has not always been shared by all parties, U.S. policy has remained predictable and stable for nearly 30 years. The incoming Trump administration appears to be signaling a clear and vocal shift.

Since the early 1990’s, the U.S. has generally viewed Israeli settlements as a barrier to furthering the peace process. Furthermore, U.S. policy on retaining its embassy in Tel Aviv, rather than Jerusalem is nearly as old as Israel itself. This may change abruptly with the appointment of David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel. In the past he appears to have diverged from U.S. policy on both issues. It is unclear if this signals a shift in actual policy or if there is simply a stronger voice in the incoming administration to do so. Either way, it is likely to increase uncertainty for Israeli and Palestinian governments, NGOs, and investors approaching key questions in their respective portfolios.

Since Russia’s 2014 intervention in Ukraine, global reaction has been near universal condemnation: the EU, US, and others began sanctions soon thereafter. These may have contributed to both the decline in the value of the ruble and Russia’s poor financial performance over the last two years.

On January 15th, 2017 Donald Trump signaled a willingness to lift sanctions in exchange for a nuclear arms deal between the U.S. and Russia. In recent years Russia has been among the three largest oil producing nations. However, sanctions have made it difficult for Moscow to benefit from oil exports; lifting sanctions would likely reverse this. Perhaps more importantly is the exchange of sanctions for a nuclear arms deal, which would further entrench Russia’s territorial claims in Crimea.

In August 2007, a Russian submarine descended nearly four kilometers (2.5 miles) under the Arctic to plant a flag on the seafloor. As many investors are no doubt aware, the claim is not only a way to gain access to the potentially vast natural resources under the ocean; rather it also has the potential to determine control of shipping lanes as Arctic ice melts.

Since 2015 Russia has attempted to legitimize this claim through UN recognition. However, it was not until August of 2016 that the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf began its evaluation. It is important to note that U.S., Canada, Norway, and Denmark have also made claims in the region.

Russian claims, however, are larger and are more developed than those of other nations. While the UN Law of the Sea governs many of these disputes, the U.S. is the only claimant that is not party to the treaty. Interestingly, the U.S. Department of Defense has urged the Senate to adopt the treaty, so that the U.S. can gain at seat at the table on Arctic (and other) deliberations. With a nearly unprecedented number of former generals set to play civilian roles in the Trump administration, such a shift is perhaps more likely than in years past.

Contested since the inception of India and Pakistan, Kashmir has long been a disputed territory. This turbulent history saw the addition of another sorry chapter in 2016, as unrest increased during the past year. One reason was the death of Burhan Muzaffar Wani—the leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen militant group—during an encounter with Indian military forces: protests erupted in the aftermath of the incident in July. Successive skirmishes have since led to a cycle of protest and violence leaving the territory in an especially volatile position as 2017 begins.

This article was originally published by Global Risk Insights and written by Barton Edgerton.

The post 5 Territorial Disputes to Watch Out for in 2017 appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(ZeroHedge)

China makes a big show of its presumed status as a strong, confident, rising world power. China’s stubborn refusal to allow its own citizens unrestricted access to news and information, however, reveals not strength nor confidence but weakness and fear. Now, China’s authoritarian rulers have again revealed their weakness and fear by censoring the inauguration of U.S. president Donald J. Trump and cracking down on censorship circumvention tools for Chinese internet users.

News outlets in China were ordered to “downplay” the U.S. inauguration, and to publish only reports from central state media. Live streaming of the inauguration on Chinese websites was forbidden. “All regions, all websites must strictly implement the above requests,” read the government’s official censorship instructions, “Any violating websites and the responsible network and information departments will be seriously held accountable.”

Domestic English-language as well as Chinese-language media coverage of the inauguration was censored: “Wasn’t allowed to discuss Trump today on my radio show, he’s now an official 敏感话题 [sensitive topic],” Elyse Ribbons, the American host of an English-language radio show in Beijing, wrote on Twitter, “Chinese leadership still trying to figure him out (sigh).”

(What’s On Weibo)

Meanwhile—even as Chinese dictator Xi Jinping touted himself as a “champion of globalization” in contrast to “protectionist” Trump—Beijing announced a “nationwide campaign against unauthorized internet connections, including virtual private network (VPN) services” that allow users to bypass the government’s internet censorship system, known as the “Great Firewall of China.” In double-speak typical of the Beijing dictatorship, the announcement from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that the crackdown was aimed to “strengthen cyberspace information security management” and cited an “urgent need to regulate disorderly development” of the internet in China.

What Beijing considers “disorderly” is, of course, what the democratic world considers “normal.”

When Xi recently appeared and spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, China-happy Western business media hailed his speech as a “robust defense of globalization” and a “full-throated defense of free trade.” Just as it violates the basic human rights of free expression and press freedom, however, China’s strict censorship of the internet hurts Western businesses in China, blocks internet market access, and hampers the free flow of information that is indispensable to free trade. While it serves an authoritarian purpose for China’s one-party state, the “Great Firewall” also serves a protectionist purpose for China’s crony capitalists.

“Rarely is authoritarianism a signal of strength,” writes China analyst J. Michael Cole, “Instead, it stems from fear, paranoia, and panic.” Despite their posturing to the contrary, China’s rulers are clearly afraid of the power of information.

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As the third largest country in NATO, and the only Muslim-majority member of the alliance, Turkey used to occupy a key role in the organization.

But that was before President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s single-minded pursuit of power by any means became unquenchable. Like many other autocrats before him, Erdogan understands that playing world powers against each other in a continuous geopolitical game of chicken is the most efficient way of securing his stay in power.

Over the past couple of years, Turkey has transformed into a completely different country. While Ankara was never a shining beacon of democracy—other than being held up by every Western leader as a poster child of the successful merging of Islam with the precepts of liberal democracies—its autocratic shift is nothing short of extraordinary. Turkey is not just a discordant note jarring the West’s political symphony, it has left the theater altogether.

But with the West in desperate need of regional counterweights to cope with the Middle East’s unending instability, for how long can Erdogan’s game last?

The refugee crisis and the July coup attempt were the turning points in Turkey’s thinning alliance with the West. Last year, in return for a commitment to improve its sea and land border controls to deal with the influx of refugees, the EU promised incentives relating to visa-free travel for Turkish citizens and a speeding up of accession talks. While the Turkish measures had a positive effect on dealing with the issue, the political reforms demanded by Brussels stalled, incensing European leaders and pushing the European Parliament to pass a motion demanding the freezing of accession talks.

The July 2016 coup and ensuing purges of army personnel, journalists, judges, professors and dissidents drove the final nail in the coffin. Many observers are now openly questioning whether the country’s autocratic government still meets NATO’s requirements for democracy and rule of law or whether Turkey will quit NATO.

Astonishingly, Erdogan stuck to his playbook and upped the ante: instead of mending fences with the West, he started making overtures towards the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Established in 1996, the SCO is a political, military and economic group comprising Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. With observer status granted to Iran, Mongolia, Belarus and Afghanistan, and both India and Pakistan set to join in 2017, this is a powerful and influential group that is seen as a vehicle to project Russian and Chinese security interests.

But that did not stop Erdogan from hinting that he would be interested in joining the organization. In November 2016, he told reporters: “[Turkey] shouldn’t say, ‘I’m for the EU no matter what.’ … For example, why shouldn’t Turkey be part of the Shanghai Five [SCO]?”

Just a year earlier, Russia and Turkey were teetering on the brink of war. The shooting of a Russian jet by Turkish forces had led to a range of retaliation measures by Vladimir Putin—from sanctions to an increased deployment of troops in the region. However, the troubles in Syria have seen a new entente develop between the two powers. The fall of Aleppo saw Turkey and Russia negotiate the evacuation of rebel groups, side-lining the U.S. and NATO in the process and creating a “Turkey-friendly” region in northern Syria.

It is no surprise that both China and Russia now support Turkey’s potential SCO membership. Not only would Ankara turn out to be a powerful ally in a strategically vital region of the world, but stronger ties with Turkey would also mean huge economic benefits for Moscow.

Turkey is an important energy hub between Eurasia and Europe, and was elected to chair the SCO’s Energy Club in 2016 despite not being a full member of the alliance. A deputy SCO representative for Turkey hinted at the growing relationship by stating “This is how Russians view Ankara’s membership in the SCO.” With Russia thus holding a particularly positive view of Ankara, Russian experts are justifiably betting on Turkey to continue its shift towards the East.

So what does all this mean for the future of NATO and the region? If Erdogan continues to play his games, NATO stands to lose its second largest military power as well as one of its key airbases. Consequently, as uncertainty about Turkey’s reliability as an ally in the region intensifies, NATO powers are beginning to establish new regional alliances that could serve the same purpose without having to deal with Erdogan’s erratic behavior.

The UK has already opened a new military base in Bahrain, in a marked reversal of its long-held policy of not permanently deploying forces east of Suez. Prime Minister Theresa May told the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman that she is looking to make a “more enduring commitment to the security of the Gulf” and pledging to invest more than £3 billion in the region.

And while continued political instability in Turkey has prompted the country’s economy to take a nosedive, pushing the government to peddle conspiracy theories that place the onus on Gulenists and other foreign enemies, the Gulf’s economies are rallying as oil prices inch back up. Saudi Arabia has shown to be quite receptive to new international partnerships since the government published its Vision 2030 in April 2016. Aimed at reforming the country’s economy by reducing dependency on oil, the Kingdom has been eager to attract foreign investments and lift the private sector. One the main topics of conversation when May came to the Gulf was how Britain could get in on the changes, and with a “hard Brexit” looming, Saudi’s reform initiative, Britain’s attempt to reach out for new markets coincide at a time when strong partnerships in a volatile region are more important than ever. As Turkey retreats into xenophobia, the West’s other key regional partnerships look to be restored.

If the arc of history bends towards justice, in Turkey it is now coming full circle. After almost a century of marching in lockstep with the secular ideas of Ataturk and the Kemalists, Erdogan is taking a hammer to the entire edifice. And with the West financially and morally weakened, it seems that nothing could prevent this from happening. It is time to find new allies in the region.

The post On Turkey, NATO and Needing New Allies appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

A bank teller distributes newly minted cash in Caracas, Venezuela on Jan. 16, 2017. A currency crisis is one challenge to stability in the troubled South American nation. (Miguel Gutierrez/European Pressphoto Agency)

Here is an update on Venezuela and its struggling economy. Sadly, the country’s woes continue and solutions have been few.

Governments in India and Venezuela may have little in common. Yet, in an effort to stem Venezuela’s economic crisis, its President Nicolas Maduro seems to be borrowing a page from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s playbook. The goal is to root out corruption. Whether or not it will be effective is the great unknown.

I wrote previously wrote about how Modi shocked the economic world and his citizens by invalidating India’s two most common bank notes in November 2016. It was a bold move meant to expose corruption based on the exploitation of cash currency.

Just a month later, Maduro did virtually the same thing in Venezuela. He outlawed the 100-bolivar note—the most circulated in the country—with little warning and to the shock of Venezuelan citizens. Long lines at banks and non-functioning ATMs became commonplace.

Yet, the chaos surpassed what happened in India. Because of a delay in printing and delivery of newer bills and banks refusing to exchange the old, defunct bills for new ones, 3/4 of cash in circulation became worthless overnight and led to mass looting, general disorder, and panic.

Maduro had pledged to introduce new bank notes in larger denominations to address Venezuela’s crippling hyperinflation, and make it easier for citizens to buy and sell goods in the largely cash-based economy (just like in India). Removing the 100-bolivar bill was supposed reduce the influence of organized crime, who Maduro claimed was hoarding the cash.

The transition, however, appears to have been handled poorly. After the backlash and unrest following Maduro’s first announcement of the plan in December, he postponed the currency changes to February to give banks more time to prepare (Maduro blamed the delay on his political enemies). The government announced that new currency would be available on January 16. Nevertheless, some banks still had not received the new notes by then, or got a very limited amount and ran out by the end of the day.

And then there is the oil industry. Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) has long been accused of harboring corrupt practices and mismanagement. I wrote about its impropriety last July and referenced a U.S. Justice Department investigation into PDVSA’s shady business dealings.

On January 10, two U.S.-based energy executives pleaded guilty to corruption charges for trying to secure contracts by bribing PDVSA officials. In total, eight American and Venezuelan conspirators have been exposed for corrupt practices in PDVSA dealings by the Justice Department probe, and all have pleaded guilty.

Perhaps as a response to the developments described above, in the last two weeks Maduro has moved to solidify his grip on power. On January 12 the government arrested several prominent opposition leaders, claiming they were neutralizing terrorists and coup-plotters. Maduro also claims his opponents are colluding with the United States to bring down his regime.

At the same time Henrique Capriles, previously an opposition candidate in two presidential elections, announced his belief that the government intended to ban him from holding political office based on unsubstantiated accusations of malfeasance.

On January 14 Maduro oversaw a vast military exercise focused on practicing urban defense and safeguarding oil refineries. Maduro claims Venezuela is under threat of “imperialist invasion” going after its oil reserves. Critics labeled him delusional and “pathetic,” and unwilling to address the very real problems facing country.

Unfortunately for Venezuelans and those with interests in the country, not much has improved. Maduro seems to be actively restricting political freedoms. While his currency moves may yet have positive impact, the rollout of new bills has caused more upheaval. And the corrupt oil industry has made it difficult for the people to benefit from the country’s natural resources wealth, which is significant.

If Venezuela is to regain stability, internal and external support for an open political system and economic transparency are essential. The more attention paid to Venezuela’s situation from those who can have a real impact—such as the U.S. Justice Department work—the better chance the people will have of seeing improvement of their quality of life.

The post Venezuela’s Challenges Drag On appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Putin presents Tillerson with a Russian medal at an award ceremony in 2012 in St Petersburg. (AP)

As President Trump advocates frequently for a better national relationship with Russia—via his Twitter account, among other channels. Thus, it is worth taking a deeper dive into one area that could prove a sticking point: energy, which greatly affects Russia’s economy.

Part of the design of the economic sanctions imposed after the Russian annexation of Crimea was to weaken the country’s energy export market. However, the layer of unpredictability that Mr. Trump presents to policymaking, even after the intelligence briefing on Russia’s involvement in the election, leaves analysts alarmed.

Trump’s policies are currently more speculation than anything. His cabinet nominees during the Senate confirmation hearings have broken away from his campaign promises, and he has not yet ruled out reversing economic sanctions on Russia. Trump’s strange admiration of U.S.’ established foe, Russian President Putin, has many foreign policy experts—as well as Republican Congress members—scratching their heads.

Observed through the prism of geopolitics, the energy industry leads to rather interesting partnerships and conflicts. There is no doubt that the global nature of energy markets makes it necessary for leaders to be diplomatic with other nations. It is widely known that Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil and nominee for secretary of state, has deep ties in Russia (He was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship in 2013). This begs the question if conflicts of interest will remain even after he sells his stakes in the company.

Tillerson’s relationship in Russia stretches decades. His first successful deal in Russia was negotiated with Putin for the $17 billion Sakhalin-1 project in 1997, during the Yeltsin regime, which consists of three oil and gas field on sub-Arctic Sakhalin Island. It is operated by Exxon Neftegas Limited, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil and produces about 200,000 barrels of oil per day.

Tillerson has also previously expressed his skepticism with regard to the sanctions imposed on Russia. Indeed, the sanctions just so happened to stall a massive investment framework that Tillerson had negotiated. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2011 that Tillerson worked on a $500 billion Arctic oil contract between ExxonMobil, the Kremlin, and the Russian state-owned Rosneft oil company.

At Exxon’s 2014 annual meeting, Mr. Tillerson said: “We do not support sanctions, generally, because we don’t find them to be effective unless they are very well implemented comprehensibly, and that’s a very hard thing to do.” That statement was made before the Obama administration leveled new sanctions against nine Russian entities, restricted access to two properties in the U.S. and removed Russian individuals.

How will the new secretary of state and President handle U.S.-Russia relations going forward?

Despite Mr. Trump’s current efforts to rekindle a collegial relationship with Russia, natural gas could lead to conflicts during the potential reconciliation efforts. Natural gas exports provide a major stream of revenues for Russia’s economy and any further jolt will affect its already struggling finances.

Today, about 30% of the world’s consumed gas is traded internationally. Russia is a dominant supplier of natural gas to Europe, which is something many European nations have been working to move away from (it is important, however, to note that Germany has moved forward with the Nord-Stream 2 pipeline). Russia’s proven natural gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, are the largest in the world with nearly 1,688 trillion cubic feet (tcf)—compared to Iran’s 1,201 tcf and Qatar’s 866 tcf.

However, as experienced in 2006 and 2009 in Eastern Europe, Russia can limit the amount it exports despite contracts, during times of turmoil and turn off the figurative spigot. This background threat further stimulated the desire for those nations to search for alternative sources in order to reduce their reliance on Russian gas.

The LNG market could provide a solution. Indeed, it eliminates the need for sprawling pipeline networks and reduces energy reliance on Russia.

LNG is natural gas that undergoes a liquefaction process at specially constructed plants, is loaded on special tankers and shipped to regasification terminals where the new energy feedstock can be distributed to consumers. The global market for LNG increased about 7% per year between 2000-2012, according to Ernst and Young. LNG export capacity is forecast to increase by 45% between 2015 and 2021, 90% of which would originate from the U.S. and Australia, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The American LNG industry is in its infancy stages but, as noted by the IEA forecast, is predicted to grow and increase market competition. Advocates believe Trump will expedite the current permitting and approval process where about 30 applications are pending (there is 1 operating export terminal in Louisiana—Sabine Pass—and others in the Gulf Coast and Maryland under construction).

The EIA states that by 2020, the U.S. is set to become the world’s third-largest LNG producer, after Australia and Qatar. This is where the rub with Russia could start, granted it would take years to develop a large industry. Indeed,  the U.S. increased natural gas supply on the international market would cut into Russia’s market share.

In the past, it was thought that increasing consumption of natural gas in Europe would mean greater reliance on Russia. However, LNG loosens those constraints. And having the U.S. as a reliable trading partner could cement that expansion, as the new natural gas could also serve as a baseload power supply with the large amount of renewables being integrated across Europe to counter the currently accompanying intermittency. Thus far, the U.S. has exported to Spain and Portugal with companies capable of establishing floating LNG terminals in other European markets, as regasification terminals are costly and are long-term construction projects.

Russia does have LNG plans of its own, but its gas export business will continue to be pipeline dominant, limiting its flexibility. Today there are over 30 global markets for LNG, and possibly doubling by 2030. There is one large LNG project operating in Sakhalin, led by Gazprom, and construction is underway for a massive LNG facility, Yamal, potentially with a price tag of $27 billion, helped with funding from the Chinese. Even then, Russia still may need to discount their gas price to meet rising competition. 

To be transported, as noted, LNG needs a specially designed ship. Thus, as demand has grown, LNG has added a new dimension to the maritime industry. Maritime shipping is vital for trade and the global economy. More than 50,000 ships are in operation around the world, trading across waterways and carrying 90% of all goods, commodities, and products, according to the International Maritime Organization. The new vessels enable LNG to be transported across large swaths of ocean to buyers. Of course, being able to transform the gas to a liquid eliminates the constraint of needing a pipeline for transit to specific points.

With LNG being shipped out from the Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana, the new expansion of the Panama Canal, completed in 2016 after many delays, can facilitate those vessels and offer competitive prices enabling efficient transit to Asian markets. Indeed the old Panama Canal locks were too small for these vessels.

The route provides the ability for a shipment from the Gulf Coast to Japan to be reduced from the current 34 days to 20. In fact, the Panama Canal Authority instituted separate tolls for LNG vessels in order to promote route attractiveness.

Avoiding any need for canals, Europe, and potentially the west coast of Africa in the future, is a natural fit for LNG shipments leaving the Gulf Coast and Maryland.

All and all, with the increased natural gas demand and new sources of production, U.S. industry could cut into Russia’s economic lifeline, potentially impeding bridging the sought after closer national ties.

The post Energy Could Keep U.S.-Russia Ties On Ice appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Over the next year, a new and serious threat against the United States’ west coast may emerge. North Korea has announced its intention to develop a nuclear capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that would be able to hit the mainland of the United States. North Korea is known to have theatre-wide nuclear missiles capable of hitting targets in South Korea, Japan and China. The possibility of reaching mainland United States may become a reality as early as 2017.

Negotiations to push China into taking action against North Korea or taking direct diplomatic or military action against Pyongyang are possible options. Nevertheless, a solid line of defense against ICBMs must also be put in place in an era where nuclear weapons are being sought by smaller countries.

The United States and NATO often focused on air defenses that are very effective in small areas of conflict. They were designed against a hypothetical Soviet mass armor and air assault on a region or even a single battlefield. The Soviet and Russian doctrine differed in their development, as the trauma of being invaded during WII prompted a culture of missile defense that remains to this day.

Medium range weapons like the SA-3 and SA-8 gave rise to more modern systems like the SA-15 TOR medium range system. These systems could be used in smaller theaters of war, and currently focus on shooting down aircraft as well as medium range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

Longer range systems like the SA-2 and SA-4 were substituted by the S-300 and S-400 system, as well as the SA-11 and SA-17—also known as Buk. The Buk missile system gained notoriety after being used to shoot Malaysia airlines MH17 over eastern Ukraine. Finally, an Anti-Ballistic Missile shield (ABM) system is currently operational around Moscow to defend the city against ICBM strikes.

Russian A2/AD Range: August 2016. (Institute for the Study of War)

NATO and their allies have been lacking in the development of a proper ABM system. Only in recent years has there been a big push to develop an effective system against ICBM attacks.

More modern ICBM types like the Russian SS-27 Topol-M are capable of carrying multiple warheads and hitting several targets upon re-entry into the atmosphere. Systems used by the U.S. and NATO like the Patriot missile system were not very effective in the 1991 Gulf War, despite claims that it was able to stop SCUD missile attacks from Iraq on Israel and Allied bases in the Gulf. Israel’s Iron Dome has had success shooting down small artillery rockets on a limited scale and its Arrow system is designed to intercept theatre wide ballistic missiles, but has yet to be tested in battle.

The basis for U.S. defense against a North Korean missile attack could be developed from successful technology coming from its allies, but Washington has been slow to develop a system that could properly defend against a serious ICBM threat. While development may have to take place, a system like Moscow’s ABM ring or a return to the policy that motivated an innovative “Star Wars”-type program may be in the cards. With new techniques to shoot down satellites being successfully developed by countries like China, a new solution will have to be quickly devise to keep up with technological developments.

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