Foreign Policy Blogs

People walk to pay their respect to a memorial for the victims of the genocide in the Armenian capital Yerevan (Karen Minasyan/AFP/Getty Images).

At a certain point in the near future there will likely be a moment of clarity that cuts through the fog of partisan politics on the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. To cement this clarity for future generations and prevent them from making the same errors, it would be prudent to subject biased policy perspectives to judicial review, when possible.

Establishing the facts in an objective review would assist in completing an appropriate narrative for our time in history, and could possibly achieve some form of justice for victims of war crimes and genocide.

While acts committed by combatants, militants and terrorists can be established with evidence, the intent of these actions is harder to define. With so much fog over the intent of the players in the Middle East, it must be considered that any actions that contributed to war crimes should be considered in the assessment of these events in world history.

While whether or not an individual in Western societies can be compelled to assist those in immediate danger is a thoroughly discussed issue, it has been determined that not helping another person is not a crime in most legal systems. The lack of a moral application when discussing genocide however leads to possible horrendous situations.

The discovery of concentration camps during the Holocaust was met with inaction to help the victims of that mass genocide, leading to additional deaths due to lack of assistance. While absolving one’s responsibility to a victim group would surely be easier, it is against natural justice to avoid victims of genocide as they are too human to ignore.

To form a holistic legal precedent on mass atrocities committed against communities living in Iraq and Syria, it would be a matter of equity to acknowledge and apply legally binding precedents over third parties that have indirectly contributed to the further genocide of victim groups in the region.

Firstly, if it was established that the third party was aware of the mass atrocity to a greater or lesser degree, and actively worked to alter or fade out information about the acts taking place there for a reason that benefits that set of policymakers, then it should be considered as partly contributing to the acts taking place on the ground. Knowledge of an atrocity is the first step to help prohibit those actions, and it is why knowingly diminishing the brutality of the act should be a crime in itself.

Secondly, if the third party took indirect actions that should have been known to likely prolong the genocide taking place or prevents the rescue or assistance of that known community subject to ethnic cleansing, it should be taken as a partial contribution to the act itself. This should be applied to all victims of the targeted group during the time frame in which those contributory third party activities took place.

Thirdly, if a third party knowing of the genocide that took place puts undue bias and pressure on members of the groups that were subject to acts of genocide, murder, torture, sexual assault, acts against minors, planned extermination and others atrocities in the process of ethnically cleansing those groups that have been targeted, and discriminates in the process of assisting individuals from that group, then they should also be acknowledged and charged to respond in the greater trials on crimes against humanity against the individuals of that community.

Targeted groups and individuals should never been re-targeted by discriminatory policies before or after the resolution of the greater conflict. Ignoring the actions against them is the source of the initial discrimination and is tantamount to taking further actions against their community.

Unfortunately, many of the above third party actions have knowingly been taking place and have been blanketed over due to political games in many countries, even those founded on justice and the rule of law. While all sides accuse the others of not having clean hands, the case for justice against atrocities committed in 2016 and previously may not come to fruition in 2017 without strong public condemnation of the genocides committed in our current generation.

The post The Fog of Politics and Denied Justice appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Taiwanese president Tsai Ing wen, pro-Beijing opposition leader Hung Hsiu-chu (ETLife)

An intensified “David versus Goliath” battle appears to be brewing between democratic Taiwan and authoritarian mainland China. That battle will come to the United States this month, as Taiwan’s president and pro-China opposition leader make competing U.S. visits just in time for Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States.

At issue is the international status of Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province that must be “reunified” with the mainland by any means necessary including military force. The problem for China is that the overwhelming majority of Taiwan’s 23 million citizens consider the island a free and independent country, and have no interest whatsoever in “reunifying” with a one-party dictatorship. Despite Beijing’s insistence to the contrary, the island’s people increasingly “see themselves as Taiwanese, not as Chinese.”

In early December 2016, Taiwan’s democratically-elected president, Tsai Ing-wen, enraged mainland China’s dictators by making a congratulatory telephone call to U.S. president-elect Trump. Trump further angered Beijing by accepting the call from Tsai and challenging the “one-China policy” that Beijing unilaterally considers “the cornerstone of Sino-U.S. relations.” That Beijing would be so upset by a mere phone call illustrates the weakness of its position in the matter.

Tsai Ing-wen (Radio Free Asia)

Now, Tsai has again irritated China by announcing stopovers in the United States during a January trip to visit allies in Latin America; and the United States has in turn angered China by allowing the stopovers. Tsai plans a stop in Houston on her outbound journey January 7 followed by a stop in San Francisco on her return journey January 13. China’s foreign ministry called on the United States to block Tsai’s U.S. stopovers, “warning that such a visit would embolden independence activists in Taiwan.”

The plot thickens: Coinciding with Tsai’s trip will be a U.S. visit by Hung Hsiu-chu, leader of the opposition Nationalist Party (KMT) favored by Beijing but resoundingly defeated by Tsai’s more pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan’s 2016 election. Tsai and Hung will both arrive in San Francisco on January 13, with competing events planned in the San Francisco Bay Area for January 13-15. Hung will then visit Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles before returning to Taiwan on January 21.

Hung has been noted for her “extreme pro-unification views” and “radical pro-Beijing policy.” In a December 30 speech at a Taipei university, Hung insisted that Taiwan and the mainland are “not two countries” and that “Taiwan’s future lies in China.” In November, Hung led a KMT delegation to Beijing and met with Chinese Communist Party officials including President Xi Jinping. No such meetings have taken place with DPP leaders, whom Beijing considers illegitimate despite their landslide victory in the 2016 election.

While Beijing “has attempted to punish Tsai and the DPP” for their refusal to bow to mainland Chinese demands, it has increasingly relied on the Hung and the KMT “to be its proxy in the fight against Taiwanese independence.” Unfortunately for Beijing and the KMT, Hung’s visit to the United States is likely to be of little consequence beyond pro-Beijing propaganda circles, since Tsai is an elected president and Hung is not.

Hung Hsiu-chu with Chinese president Xi Jinping (Xinhua)

Said Tsai at a year-end press conference on December 31: “Step by step, Beijing is going back to the old path of dividing, coercing, and even threatening and intimidating Taiwan.” Indeed it would appear that China has dropped all pretense of cross-strait “friendship” and now sees the majority of the Taiwanese people and their democratically-elected government as an enemy that must be brought to heel. The clearly-expressed will of Taiwan’s people means nothing to China’s autocratic leaders.

As Reuters reported on December 31, China is “considering strong measures to contain Taiwan.” According to sources close to senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers, “China’s military has become alarmed” at the direction U.S.-Taiwan ties might take under the incoming Trump administration, and is anxious to head off any moves by Taiwan toward formal independence.

“We’re ready. If Taiwan wants to make trouble so can we. Let’s hit them hard,” one unnamed official told Reuters, “We can hold exercises close to Taiwan, and show them the damage we could cause. Taiwan will have to give in then.”

Said a retired PLA officer: “We can just cut them off economically. No more direct flights, no more trade. Nothing. Taiwan would not last long…. There would be no need for war.” None of this sounds much like “brotherly love” between cross-strait “compatriots.”

In a December 25 editorial the state-run Global Times likewise called for “military pressure” and other coercive measures against Taiwan and its elected government. In addition to military air and sea exercises designed to intimidate Taiwan, the editorial recommended in absentia criminal trials for Taiwanese independence leaders under China’s “anti-secession law” enacted in 2005.

Causing further consternation in Beijing is Trump’s suggestion that he might agree to meet face-to-face with Tsai after he takes office as President of the United States. Such a meeting, according to Liu Xiangping, director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at Nanjing University, would be a “deliberate provocation” that would “harm China’s core interests and the feelings of the Chinese people, and directly endanger the development of Sino-U.S. relations.”

More such frothing-at-the-mouth can surely be expected from China as President Tsai visits the United States and Hung attempts to upstage her. As for the future direction of U.S.-Taiwan ties under the incoming U.S. administration, “We’ll see,” according to America’s unpredictable president-elect.

The post Taiwan’s President and Pro-China Opposition Leader both Plan U.S. Visits appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, posited that Israel could be Jewish, it could be democratic and it could control Greater Israel (all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea), but that it could only choose two out of the three; they were not all possible concurrently. When given the chance in the late 1940s, he readily—if not woefully—sacrificed the third in order to create a state that was both Jewish and democratic.

And that state grew and even flourished.

In 1967, Israel preemptively struck the armies amassed at its borders and suddenly found itself in control of Greater Israel. But with the land came a lot of new people. Ben-Gurion’s insightful theorem was once again relevant.

It’s been just shy of fifty years since the Six Day War, and Israel is still coming to grips with the difficult predicament that Ben-Gurion spelled out so long ago.

In 2009, I saw Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ettinger speak about the future of the Jewish State. I had the opportunity to ask him about reports saying that by 2020, Arabs would outnumber Jews between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. He responded by challenging the numbers, claiming that the Palestinian Authority had greatly overestimated the numbers of Palestinians living in the region. It is a position he still holds.

I did not have a chance at a follow-up question, but had I, it would have been this: If the Palestinians numbers are as minimal as you claim, why not offer them citizenship? If the Jews of the region significantly outnumbered the Palestinians, Ettinger could bring about his vision of Israel by annexing the Palestinian Territories and simply accepting a bi-national state. Everyone would have an equal vote and with a safe Jewish majority, Israel could finally achieve a Jewish, democratic state that controls all of Greater Israel.

Of course, Ettinger’s analysis only works if you reject the actual demographic realities of the region.

New numbers released this week show that while Palestinians are still on track to be a majority in the region by 2020, they will actually pull even THIS YEAR.

Including Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as those living in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the report projects that by the end of 2017, Palestinians will have parity with the Jewish population at 6.58 million.

President Trump will preside over a situation in the Middle East that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry foresaw but were powerless to act on. President Obama’s abstention at the UN and Secretary Kerry’s recent speech were clearly geared at waking Israel up to a new reality, one that is no longer in waiting but has virtually arrived.

Following the UN vote, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin tweeted:

This is an old argument, but one that has been very powerful for Israel. For decades, Israel has sought peace, at times through great sacrifice, at other times simply going through the motions. But Israel always had the benefit of time on its side; the demographic make-up of the region meant that Israel enjoyed a Jewish majority. While peace was always sought, it never carried an existential demographic imperative. This may just be the year that changes.

President Rivlin was upset with the international community. His threat however was leveled directly at the Palestinians. Even if the PA orchestrated the vote and lobbied for it, they didn’t cast it. Those votes were cast by China, Russia, France, England, Spain, Japan, Ukraine, et al.

Responding with threats to the peace process implies that the Palestinians need a negotiated peace agreement while the Israelis can live without it. But everyday that rolls by makes this current evaluation less and less accurate.

Today the Palestinians yearn for a state. But in a year, or three, it may well be Israel who is anxious to come to the table to fight for two states while the Palestinians are busy advocating for a one-state solution. A new survey found that two-thirds of Palestinians no longer believe that a two-state solution is possible. If Prime Minister Netanyahu thinks it’s hard to build—and hold—a coalition today, wait until he tries as part of the country’s Jewish minority.

As with so many issues, PEOTUS Trump has never made clear his exact goals or plans for this part of the world. Following the UN vote, he tweeted his unwavering support for Israel.

But he has also spoken about his desire to solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, referring to it as “the ultimate deal.”

Shortly after declaring that he wanted to solve this complicated conflict though, he chose David Friedman as his Ambassador to Israel. Friedman, Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer, supports Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

And Friedman is in good company. What was once a fringe concept amongst Israelis is now supported by Israeli Education Minister and MK Naftali Bennett, head of The Jewish Home, amongst others. And without an Obama bogeyman to pick fights with, Bibi will be forced to continue pulling to the right to fend off challenges by Bennett, his one-time ally, and others.

Bennett supports annexation of parts of the West Bank and continued settlement expansion. He is open about the fact that he does not support Palestinian statehood. He even met with member’s of Trump’s team, just days after the election, to ask them to explore alternatives to the two-state solution.

Assuming Trump doesn’t decide that he knows what is best for Israel, opting to push back hard against settlement expansion, one could assume that the settlement movement has in him the American President they always wanted. And, at least for now, they control the Israeli government.

A majority of Israelis still support a two-state solution. But Israel is being backed into a corner by the settler movement, who despite being a minority of the country control a big seat at the table. For many, their end game is unclear. While there are plenty of pro-settler Israelis who support the Bennett model, Netanyahu is still on record supporting a two-state solution. But the path toward that outcome is harder to visualize with every new settlement expansion.

The modern Jewish State was born out of radical optimism and a dream: Ben-Gurion and his peers created a state out of nothing more than sweat, grit and brain power. A kindred people came together after thousands of years in the wilderness and they enacted a miracle. They (re)invented a language and created institutions, infrastructure and an economy out of nothing. And they did it not just for the Jews living on the land, but for all the Jews of the world to know that they had a safe haven from persecution.

Israel must grapple with the fact that it is not only responsible to its current citizens, but also to all future generations of Jews, globally. No other nation on earth is faced with such a heavy and complicated task. Israel must thrive today, in part so that it can exist tomorrow should the Jews require refuge in an unpredictable world. That was the vision of the early Zionists, and it is one that lives on today.

A two-state solution means walking away from holy lands specifically mentioned in the bible. A one-state solution means either accepting a Jewish minority in a bi-national state or a Jewish minority ruling over an Arab majority. Ben-Gurion and Israel’s founding fathers saw these three choices and they made their decision.

Short of a radical shift in Israeli or American policy regarding the settlement movement, it would seem that today’s Israel has resoundingly, if accidentally, reversed course. Today’s Jewish State is opting to exist throughout Greater Israel. Now it will simply need to decide between remaining Jewish and remaining democratic.

Follow me on Twitter @jlemonsk.

The post Israel’s Impending Demographic Reality appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

With the selection of Peter Navarro, a harsh critic of China, as the head of the White House National Trade Council, some economic and geopolitical analysts are alarmed over the potential for a U.S. trade war with China. Navarro, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine, was selected to direct the activities of the newly-created council which will advise President-elect Donald Trump on trade issues. The 67-year-old Navarro was one of the most vocal on Trump’s economic advisory team, despite having four unsuccessful tries for public office in California as a Democrat.

Navarro, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, has written a number of books critical of China, and has directed a documentary called Death By China: How America Lost Its Manufacturing Base, parts of which I watched on YouTube. His last three books were The Coming China Wars, Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World, and Death by China, which I read a few years back after it was published in 2011. From what I remember, the facts were mostly correct but I was struck by the acerbic tone and one-sided arguments.

President-elect Donald Trump also read one of his books years ago, and commented on the book’s documentary saying “ ‘Death by China’ is right on. This important documentary depicts our problem with China with facts, figures and insight. I urge you to see it.” Trump has also declared he “was impressed by the clarity of his arguments and thoroughness of his research,” and believes Navarro “has presciently documented the harms inflicted by globalism on American workers, and laid out a path forward to restore our middle class.” Indeed, Navarro seems a logical pick for the president-elect, who has threatened to impose punitive tariffs of up to 45% on imported goods from China for unfair trade practices.

Navarro considers Beijing to be a currency manipulator and an unfair trade partner, and claims, “The epiphany for me was when I began to notice in the early 2000s a lot of my fully employed [former] MBA students [at UCI business school] were becoming fully unemployed. And it was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ And as I began to look more deeply into it, all roads led to Beijing.” 

But if we look into that statement more deeply, it seems difficult to reconcile fully employed MBA students losing their jobs with lower-wage manufacturing jobs shifting to China. MBA students typically command higher-level management positions less susceptible to attrition, and many of those MBAs on Wall Street who lost their jobs during that decade cannot complain their jobs in finance relocated to Shanghai.

Trump’s top economic cheerleader also has a ways to go in explaining how the next president will “bring American jobs and factories home” from the “planet’s most efficient assassin”, which can “pick off American industries, job by job.” Many of these jobs have not been lost to foreign competitors like China and Mexico, but to automation, according to one study last year by Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research. The study revealed that trade accounted for just 13% of America’s lost factory jobs, with some 88% of lost jobs taken by robots and other homegrown factors. Whether or or not Trump and Navarro can reverse this dependence on robotics and automation will prove to be one of their major challenges.

The post Peter Navarro and the Coming China Trade Wars appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The last week of 2016 saw the passage of three seemingly unrelated events. These were: 1) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s historic visit to Pearl Harbor, 2) the U.S. expulsion of Russian diplomats in response to allegations of Russian interference in the recent U.S. Presidential election, and 3) the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning’s debut into blue water territory.

The first two events juxtapose the current U.S. administration’s willingness to treat a former enemy as a friend in the form of Japan, while treating a former enemy as a present and future enemy based on unsubstantiated allegations in the form of Russia. When combined with recent Russo-Japanese diplomacy, it is clear that Japan’s strategy to recruit Russia to better balance China (typified by the Liaoning’s maneuvers) at the very least is less likely to fail than comparable U.S. efforts to do the same.

Shinzo Abe made headlines last week with his historic visit to Pearl Harbor, widely seen as reciprocating U.S. President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima earlier last year. While condolences, but not apologies, were expressed by the leaders at both events, the picture is much broader. Abe was the first foreign leader to actually meet and congratulate President-elect Donald Trump in person, even before the latter’s being formally sworn in to office. Abe’s Trump visit reflected Japanese uncertainty with the new incoming U.S. administration’s stated ambivalence with supporting Japan militarily in Asia. With Abe’s Pearl Harbor visit, however, the Prime Minister is trying to start off Japan’s relationship with the new U.S. administration on the best foot possible, despite the uncertainty. This is critical to overall Japanese strategy in balancing China.

In contrast, the current U.S. administration has recently expelled several Russian diplomats in response to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. This move, coming on the heels of extended sanctions against Russia for its role in Crimea, eastern Ukraine, and Syria, symbolizes the U.S.’ determination to not let Russia out of the “enemy” camp anytime soon, unlike Japan. While diplomatic expulsion may be considered only symbolic by some, it’s critical to have as many avenues of communication remain open, not closed, between Russia and the U.S. currently.

Lest anyone underestimate the role of diplomats in international relations, the recent Russian Ambassador to Turkey’s assassination threatened to derail Russo-Turkish communications regarding the Syrian Crisis. Luckily, this did not occur as Russia, Turkey, and Iran, are all currently brokering a deal to resolve the crisis. Equally luckily, Russia has, as of yet, not reciprocated by expelling U.S. diplomats, most likely a nod to improving ties with the next U.S. administration.

U.S. accusations of Russian interference in elections are apparently not only limited to U.S. territory, however. There are currently U.S. claims that Russia may try to influence upcoming European elections in 2017 as well. While there are several European states where Euroscepticism is taking root, concerning the U.S., upcoming French presidential elections clearly garner more attention. This is because Front National’s Marine Le Pen has threatened not only EU withdrawal (“Frexit”) if elected President, but possible NATO withdrawal as well.

Russia will be a factor in the French presidential election, but not in the way articulated by the U.S.. France, like all EU states, has to make a decision regarding not only its own place within the EU, but also the EU’s place as a whole within global politics. Because Russia trades more with Europe than with the U.S., continued anti-Russian sanctions have had and will continue to have a disproportionate effect on Europe’s economy, not the U.S.’. As a Le Pen victory may be even more possible in the wake of the unforeseen Brexit and Trump victory, Russian election interference accusations by the U.S. are meant to preempt even this remote possibility. France, like all of Europe, will have a major decision to make regarding how far it is willing to let its own economy continue to suffer, as with the failed Mistral carrier deal, in order to tow the geopolitical line with the U.S..

Unlike Europe, Japan is clearly making more moves independent of the U.S. in strengthening its own strategy to balance China. Similar to the U.S.’ “Diamond of Democracies” to balance China (Japan, Australia, and India), Japan is developing its own stable of powers to serve this very same purpose. In addition to its historical treaty ally, the U.S., and India, Japan is looking to promulgate better relations with Russia in order to create strategic uncertainty on China’s northern and western borders. Japan is doing this despite U.S. reservations due to U.S.-Russian hostilities.

Although a formal peace treaty between Japan and Russia has, as of yet, not been signed, this has not deterred either party from mutual diplomatic outreach. As with Japan, Russia is also looking for outside powers to better balance China’s rising military capabilities. To date, a major sticking point on the Russian side is uncertainty as to whether Japan would actually allow U.S. forces to create a base on any of the islands turned over to Japan in a potential deal. This mirrors Russian concerns in the Black Sea regarding a possible NATO presence on the Crimean peninsula in the worst case scenario.

If China is indeed the longer-term threat to overall U.S. interests according to some, it is highly illogical of the U.S. to continue to antagonize Russia. Even though Western colonialism left its legacy on China, culminating in the Opium Wars, China has historically been focused on threats from its mainland Eurasian neighbors, with the Mongols and Manchus as examples. Because of this, China decided that if it were to achieve its full economic and military potential, it needed to have peace with its many land neighbors. These diplomatic efforts have enabled China to refocus its economic and military energies towards the maritime domain.

This refocused energy has recently borne fruit as China’s sole operational aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, recently made its maiden voyage into the Western Pacific Ocean on a training mission. This symbolizes China’s desire and ambition to no longer be content with only coastal water defense capabilities (“green water”), but to expand its naval capacity onto the high seas (“blue water”). If the U.S. is serious about containing Chinese naval capabilities to the First Island Chain, of course it will need to have strong military ties to Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, all of whom form the strongest part of the chain. However, mainland partners such as Russia will also be critical to this effort because of the historical issues outlined above.

It’s been speculated that the incoming U.S. administration is looking to foster better relations with Russia in order to better balance China over the long haul. However, if this is the case, the U.S. has its work cut out for it as it not only needs to work with Russia in order to address the immediate regional concerns outlined above, but will in all likelihood have to also truly treat Russia as a respected world power with legitimate security interests and concerns going back to the end of the Cold War, if not earlier.

Unfortunately, even if the U.S. starts to do all this now, there is no guarantee that its efforts would eventually be successful as it would need to be clearly demonstrated (to Russia) that overall Russian interests would benefit. Additionally, China has a long history of playing outside powers against one another (“Use Barbarians To Fight Barbarians”). U.S.-Russian hostilities only make this easier. Because of this, Japan’s farsightedness currently places it ahead of the U.S. and its nearsightedness in the race to enlist Russia to help balance China.

The post Japan Outpaces U.S. in Race to Enlist Russia to Balance China appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The year-end foreign policy analyses that routinely rank the threats America faces are unique in 2016. An unexpected U.S. President-elect creates a host of unanswerable questions. Each analysis is incomplete unless it mentions the “uncharted waters” in which we find ourselves, or how “we simply don’t know” what President-elect Trump’s unique approach, his lack of political experience, and his penchant for improvisation will yield in the foreign policy arena.

America’s foreign policy leaders are used to mapping out the looming uncertainties America faces. They are less accustomed to an environment where, in many ways, America’s incoming leader is that looming uncertainty.

The standard scrutiny of a president-elect’s nominations is sharper for President-elect Trump. Two of his top nominations in the foreign policy arena—National Security Advisor-designate Gen. Michael Flynn and attorney David Friedman to be Ambassador to Israel—have bred new worries with their controversial views. Flynn has endorsed suspicion of Muslims; Friedman would upend any effort at a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.

In this atmosphere, President-elect Trump’s nomination of retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, formerly Commander of U.S. Central Command, to be secretary of defense, is critical. Secretaries of defense, of course, always are. However, serving a president-elect with no military or political background, Gen. Mattis’ own outlook and temperament will likely be scrutinized at his confirmation hearing, and they are of interest to those anticipating what changes to expect in U.S. military policy.

Mattis is on record criticizing President Obama’s Syria policy. Obama’s reticence to commit ground forces after the turmoil of the Iraq War is interpreted alternately as prudent caution based on U.S. experience in Iraq, or as a lack of American leadership and assertiveness. Mattis believes the latter. Trump has praised him as “a general’s general”, compared him favorably to Gen. Patton, and sees him as the point person for a muscular U.S. foreign policy. Does Gen. Mattis’ own rhetoric fit Trump’s casting call?

Reviewing two of Gen. Mattis’ major public statements over the past two years—testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2015 and an appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in April 2016—reveals four key ways in which Mattis’ outlook differs from Trump’s.

1) Mattis talks about strategy. One predominant fear about President-elect Trump is his impulsiveness and unwillingness to discuss strategy. Pressed by NBC’s Matt Lauer during a televised candidate’s forum, Trump refused to articulate any elements of the plan to defeat ISIS he claimed to have formulated. During the campaign, Trump expressed a willingness—to some, an eagerness—to “bomb the hell out of ISIS.”

By contrast, Mattis’s Senate testimony centered on strategy. He addressed the fitness of the U.S. intelligence community to respond to emerging threats, including cyber, at a time when President-elect Trump has been dismissive of intelligence institutions. He identified the national debt as perhaps the biggest security threat facing the U.S., after the debt was absent as a presidential campaign topic. Writing in the New York Times, author Thomas Ricks described Mattis as “far more disciplined than Patten was, and a far more strategic thinker.”

2) Mattis talks about international institutions. Trump made campaign headlines undermining international institutions and alliance relationships. He criticized America’s role in NATO, and accused long-term U.S. allies like South Korea of ‘free-riding’ on America’s protection. Mattis’ rhetoric (again, prior to his nomination) contradicted Trump directly.

Mattis began his 2015 Senate testimony addressing the UN, NATO, and the Bretton Woods institutions as “elements we take for granted.” The post-World War II international order, Mattis argued, “reflected the wisdom of those who recognized no nation lived as an island and we needed new ways to deal with challenges that for better or worse impacted all nations.” This is a clear rebuttal of the “America First” rhetoric of Trump’s campaign. Mattis’ contradiction of Trump’s rhetoric on U.S. allies was equally direct. “I would just say that for a sitting president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts”, Mattis said at CSIS. This direct pushback suggests Mattis might work to preserve and enhance America’s relationships abroad.

3) Mattis talks about Congress’ foreign policy leadership. Fears that President-elect Trump will be “trigger happy” are founded in the fact that military power has concentrated in the presidency under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Tellingly, Mattis spoke about the need for Congress to reassert its role in crafting and overseeing U.S. foreign policy. In particular, he challenged Congress to expand the range of U.S. options to confront an aggressive Iran. In his Senate testimony, Mattis said: “When the decision is made to employ our forces in combat, Congress should ask if the military is being employed with the proper authority.” As he re-enters the Pentagon, Mattis will be reminded of this view, and his inclusion of Congress in constructing foreign policy as a check on an over-active executive is now timelier than ever.

4) Mattis talks about nuclear proliferation. Trump has also raised alarms with statements that seem to welcome nuclear arms races in Asia and the Middle East. On this point, Mattis’ experience will be key. Again before the Armed Services Committee, Mattis asserted that the nuclear deterrent must be maintained. However—and crucially—he discussed ways to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons use by suggesting whether land-based nuclear missiles are in fact obsolete, and should be dismantled. In any event, he called for clarity in nuclear policy in a way that would help to curb proliferation fears instead of fostering them.

It is too low a bar to praise Mattis simply for not adopting the xenophobic and bellicose rhetoric of his colleagues. However, his outlook towards engaging the Islamic world appears to be based on America’s Cold War-approach to the citizens of communist countries. “I too think Radio Farsi has to be dusted off and we need to get back at it,” Mattis said at CSIS. “The Iranian people need to know right up front every day: we have no problem with you.” It is tough to imagine a more effective antidote to the Trump campaign’s indulgence in rhetoric targeting Islam.

Given his views on the Obama Administration, it is safe to assume Mattis will bring a more hawkish outlook to the Pentagon than his predecessor. However, he is steeped in an experience of foreign affairs and military command that the incoming administration otherwise lacks. That is welcome.

Taking Mattis at his word last April, change seems inevitable. “The bottom line on the American situation, though, I think is quite clear,” Mattis said at CSIS; “The next president is going to inherit a mess. That’s probably the most diplomatic word you can use for it.”

The post How Hawkish is Gen. James Mattis? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Tomomi Inada (Katehon, 2016)

Japan’s “hawkish” defense minister Tomomi Inada (稲田朋美) has been called the “Japanese Joan of Arc” by her admirers and “Japan’s Sarah Palin” by her critics. She is considered a likely successor to current prime minister Shinzo Abe. In any case, Inada’s visit on December 29 to Tokyo’s ‘war crimes shrine‘ following her “tour of reconciliation” to Pearl Harbor with Abe has sparked anger among Japan’s neighbors—particularly China and South Korea—that suffered under Japanese occupation during World War II.

The visit is also certain to provide a nice wet lump of red meat for the Chinese government’s anti-Japanese propaganda machine. By extension, China’s anti-Japanese ire will likely be turned for propaganda purposes against Japan’s close ally, the United States; and used by China as a wedge in its efforts to pry South Korea away from the U.S.-Japan orbit. This is obviously highly unhelpful for U.S. efforts in the region.

Built in 1869, the Yasukuni Shrine (靖國神社) honors millions of Japanese soldiers who died in wars since the second half of the nineteenth century. Among those enshrined, however, are more than a thousand who are considered war criminals, including fourteen convicted Class A war criminals secretly enshrined in 1978. A visit by Prime Minister Abe to the shrine in 2013 was condemned by China, South Korea, and the United States, the latter of which had strongly advised Abe against the visit. Abe has since sent offerings but has made no further personal visits to the shrine.

Other officials have made visits, however, including the latest visit by Japan’s defense minister. For its part, the South Korean government denounced as “deplorable” Inada’s visit to the shrine. Said a statement from South Korea’s defense ministry: “We strongly condemn the Japanese defense minister’s visit to Yasukuni, which beautifies Japan’s war of aggression against its neighboring countries and honors war criminals.”

“It is deplorable that Japan’s responsible politicians visit Yasukuni Shrine that glorifies its past colonial invasions and war by housing war criminals,” said a South Korean foreign ministry spokesman, “Unless Japan demonstrates humble introspection and sincere self-reflection on its wartime past, it will not be able to gain the trust of neighboring countries and the international community.”

Tomomi Inada and Shinzo Abe (China Daily, 2016)

China likewise condemned Inada’s visit to the “notorious war-linked Yasukuni Shrine.” A statement from the Chinese foreign ministry said that “China is firmly opposed to the visit to the Yasukuni Shrine by Tomomi Inada, and China will make solemn representations to Japan.” Further outrage from China should be expected in the days to come, likely extended to the United States for its alliance with Japan.

For the moment, Chinese media seem content to depict the Americans as dupes of the wily Japanese. “Perhaps it is the Obama administration and the Americans who should feel insulted most by Japan’s tricks, rather than China and South Korea,” said the state-run Global Times, “The Americans are just a bargaining chip the Abe administration can make use of.”

Inada’s hawkish, far-right views and associations have been widely noted. She has frequently defended Japan’s actions during World War II and denied Japanese war crimes including the Nanjing Massacre and the use of women and girls in occupied countries as sex slaves (“comfort women“). In 2014, Inada and far-right politician Sanae Takaichi appeared in photos with Japanese neo-Nazi leader Kazunari Yamada.

People in China, South Korea, and other Asian nations that suffered under Japanese occupation are rightly outraged at Inada’s actions and statements. Unfortunately, however, this hawk is also a golden goose for anti-Japanese and anti-U.S. propagandists in the Chinese government with their own expansionist agenda, and an albatross around the neck for America’s Asia-Pacific alliance.

The post Japan’s Defense Minister Visits ‘War Crimes Shrine’ Following Pearl Harbor Trip appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(L-R) Leaders of Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand at the BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach Summit, India.

Trade blocs across the globe have often been just as much, if not more, instruments of geopolitics as they have been about commerce. A gradual but definite swell in cooperation between the South Asian nations east of Pakistan currently is playing witness to the age-old truism.

With South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) currently lying comatose due to the India-Pakistan conflict, India is now citing the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) as an alternative that may potentially isolate Pakistan in South Asia.

India’s increased activities within and with BIMSTEC nations is a clear warning by India to Pakistan over the current deadlock of dialogue between the two countries because of the terror attacks on Indian soil, almost all of which emanate from Pakistan.

After pulling out of the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad in November 9-10, 2016, which led to pull outs by all the remaining member nations too, India – along with Bangladesh – did not attend a three-day regional conference held in Islamabad beginning December 19 to  promote innovation for sustainable development and discuss strategy of the Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology (APCTT). The conference, significantly, was held under the aegis of the United Nations.

On the other hand, India went out of the way to promote BIMSTEC at the 8th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) Summit in Goa, India on October 15-16. Dubbed as one of the highlights of the Summit by many in India, the host nation facilitated a BRICS-BIMSTEC Outreach Summit, where the BRICS leaders met the heads of government of the BIMSTEC countries.

The selection of BIMSTEC for engagement with BRICS was both significant and deliberate by India.

While it fits India’s long-term Act East Policy, which aims at strengthening trade and bilateral relations with the South-East Asian nations, with India’s northeast region as the transit base, the October invitation to BIMSTEC to the BRICS summit also suited India’s immediate concerns.

In a major victory for India against Pakistan, BIMSTEC Leaders’ Retreat 2016 Outcome Document reiterated its stand:

“We strongly believe that our fight against terrorism should not only seek to disrupt and eliminate terrorists, terror organisations and networks, but should also identify, hold accountable and take strong measures against States who encourage, support and finance terrorism, provide sanctuary to terrorists and terror groups, and falsely extol their virtues. There should be no glorification of terrorists as martyrs.”

The statement was a near replica of the one released later by the boycotting SAARC member states at the time of pulling out of the Summit in Islamabad in November.

In other words, by trade or by trick, India had managed to get all the South Asian nations—and indeed Thailand and Myanmar—together to send a message to Pakistan to put a lid on terror activities emanating from its soil.

It was as much a diplomatic victory for India as it was an expression of exasperation of the other nations with regards the comatose nature of cooperation in South Asia via SAARC due to the conflict between the two biggest member states of the Association.

The boycott of events and the pointed nature of joint statements is not an ad-hoc development. As stated earlier, it is India taking a lead out of the general exasperation of the South Asian nations – particularly India and Bangladesh—with the issue of Pakistani-originating terror completely bringing to halt any future-looking trade and development issues of the region.

To that effect, India in September 2016 approved $1.04-billion for constructing and upgrading 558 km of roads to link it with Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal and ease the movement of passengers and cargo within the region.

Funded equally by India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the primary purpose of the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) road initiative is to increase the intra-regional trade by over 60%.

A much more expansive project than BBIN is the  Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC), which though was established way back in 2000 in Laos, is receiving renewed attention. Named after Ganga and Mekong, the two of the largest rivers of the region, the grouping is about building tourism, culture, education and transportation linkages between India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

While MGC might not be moving as well as the promoters would’ve liked it to, there are other examples that actually are.

The Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project has been identified for special focus by the BIMSTEC Transport Infrastructure and Logistics Study (BTILS). It will connect the eastern Indian seaport of Kolkata with Myanmar’s Sittwe seaport by sea in the first phase – and then link Sittwe to Paletwa in the same country via Kaladan River route, before connecting Paletwa to the Indian state of Mizoram by road. Originally scheduled to be completed by 2014, it is running behind schedule, but moving well now.

Another one identified by the BTILS is the India–Myanmar–Thailand (IMT) Trilateral Highway, an under-construction highway that will connect Moreh in India with Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar. The road had a trial run in November 2015 itself, with Indian vehicles traveling to Naypyidaw in Myanmar via the Imphal-Mandalay-Bagan-Naypyidaw route and back. Myanmarese vehicles had joined the Indian vehicles on the return journey.

With a clear view of expanding the India-ASEAN Free Trade Area trade, India has proposed extending the highway to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

The most interesting one, however, is the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor. The multi-modal (road, rail, water and air linkages) corridor will be the first expressway between India and China and will pass through Myanmar and Bangladesh—covering a total area of about 1.65 million square kilometers.

This is interesting because it brings together two traditional and intense rivals, India and China—and also because China has put all its eggs in the Pakistani basket in the longstanding India-Pakistan conflict, the very reason for which India is looking and leading other nations eastwards.

There remain many miles before all the mentioned projects lay the final brick. But it is amply clear that the terrorism emanating from Pakistan—and indeed the steadfast refusal by the Pakistani government to both stop supporting the terror groups and acknowledging their presence on its soil—has led to a steady rise in activities on the east of South Asia. At the moment, it is indeed ‘Eastward Ho’ for the India-led South Asia.

The post ‘Eastward Ho’ for India-led South Asia? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(War on the Rocks)

On December 27, 2016, China’s State Council Information Office published a white paper outlining the plans for a new and expanded national space program which aims to become the first country to soft land a probe on the far side of the moon. The white paper states that Change-4 spacecraft will, through the new lunar exploration project, better examine the evolution of the moon and will carry out a low-frequency radio astronomy observation around the landing site.

It also restated China’s ambitions to send a mission to Mars by 2020. According to the white paper, in the next five years, China will continue to enhance the basic capacities of its space industry, and strengthen research into key and cutting-edge technologies.

Since sending its first satellite into orbit in 1970, almost two decades after Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1, China has been consistently funding its space program, with ambitions to both compete in the U.S. dominated global satellite networks and also to boost its military modernization.

China’s recent increased focus on enhancing its military and space capabilities are not without basis. The space environment is more competitive than ever as states are striving to benefit from space-enabled technologies and move their defense capabilities above the earth to gain a clear-eyed look at the conflict-ridden world.

Even though the militarization of space started during the Cold War years, technological developments and (unclassified) tests proved that we are now closer to an actual warfare in space. Over the past few years, China and Russia have been gradually strengthening their space-provided weapon capabilities, specifically focusing on anti-satellite defense strategies and technology.

(War on the Rocks)

For example, Russia recently launched an anti-satellite weapon into the space, the latest in a number of weapons led under Putin’s administration. The test of the PL-19 Nudol missile was carried out on December 16 from a base in central Russia, and was monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies. It was the fifth test of the Nudol missile and the third successful flight of a system Moscow has claimed is for use against enemy missiles, said officials familiar with the reports of the launch.

With modern armies and much of the world’s economy dependent on the information, imagery and communication systems supported by satellites in orbit, it is no surprise that providing assets in space is a high priority for national security and provides a competitive edge in deterrence as part of defense strategies globally.

As a global force, Washington has many reasons to further explore technology options in space for military capabilities as well. Instead of exhaustive deployments, the space domain successfully facilitates the U.S. to overcome the financial and political borders, allowing for greater force projection. As a result, the U.S. military depends critically on its orbital assets for navigation, intelligence exercises, accuracy, communication, early warning and other activities.

While being the leader in space and military technologies provides advantages for the U.S., its heavy reliance on these technologies also entails dangers. The existing U.S. power in space could give challengers incentives to attack its infrastructure in orbit or develop technologies to obscure satellite vision, essential for military communications and location accuracy.

In the infamous 2007 incident, China tested and demolished one of its own satellites, resulting the largest recorded creation of space debris with more than 2,000 pieces. Irrespective of labeling it as a scientific exploration accident, this is a close example of what could become an anti-satellite weapon threatening to destroy U.S. investments in space.

(Vice News)

While historic rivals—even though how we label Russia and China may soon change—also depend on space for their military capabilities, they are less dependent on these assets since neither state has as much investments as the U.S. do on orbit and since their power is initially aimed within their geographic regions, they can successfully rely on earth-based technologies and traditional military capabilities for their short to medium term goals. In the long term, however, it would benefit any opposition to U.S. significantly if they could simply take down its satellites, essentially eyes and ears of the U.S. national defense.

“China’s aspirations are driven by its assessment that space power enables the country’s military modernization and would allow it to challenge U.S. information superiority during a conflict,” states the 2015 Report to Congress of the China-U.S. Economic and Security Review Commission and besides the national security concerns and military aptitudes, it underlines that the humanity depends on space systems for communication, exploration, navigation and a host of other functions essential to modern life.

If the U.S. wants to preserve its superiority, not dominance, in the face of increasing threats to its strength in space, it will need to invest in strategies to deter attacks on its orbital assets. And while working on deterrence strategies, it will also need to take additional steps to plan for a potential war in space, by providing the necessary financial and political support to defense forces and also administrating space programs with both deterrence and readiness in mind, all while keeping a close eye on what others are conducting in orbit.

A good place to start could be improving the space situational awareness programs and investing in technologies which makes managing and operating space systems more resilient. According to a Government Accountability Office report, situational awareness in space remains limited despite halting attempts at improvement. This means more land-based radar and optical telescopes, as well as space-based visible optical telescopes to track the 22,000 currently active and dead satellites, junk, and debris.

If the U.S. took no action at all, China and Russia would no doubt continue to grow their space-provided capabilities and could eventually undermine the American strategic advantage in space. Others would surely follow to catch up and take their place in the renewed space-front.

Striving to maintain American superiority in space does not just protect the U.S., but considering the alternatives, also makes the world a safer place.

The post Defending Space: Preserving U.S. Superiority in the Skies appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Donald Trump meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi. (Dominick Reuter / AFP-Getty Images)

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office next month, concerns about the direction of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is already looming in the air. With the Trump administration at risk of triggering tensions with traditional American allies in the region, in particular those in the Persian Gulf, there are also high expectations for a fresh start with the others. Indeed, Egypt’s strongman President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi could emerge as one of the potential winners of the Trump foreign policy.

There is little secret that relations between Obama and al-Sisi have been marked by persistent tensions that affected bilateral relations. The Obama administration’s support for the Arab Spring largely discredited the White House’s credibility among the higher ranks of the Egyptian political establishment and, in particular, within the Egyptian army.

Indeed, the Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East remained an epitome of “the divide and rule” strategy for many in Egypt. With a direct meddling into domestic affairs, it was viewed as continuation of efforts for causing a controlled havoc across the Arab world that started during the George W. Bush Presidency.

Despite friendlier recent statements from the White House towards Egypt, the relations between Obama and al-Sisi remain complicated. However, the situation might take a dramatic turn after Trump’s inauguration.

The “friendship” between Trump and al-Sisi began even before the Republican candidate won the elections in November. Al-Sisi met Trump in New York in September, and the meeting resulted in the Egyptian President calling Trump “a strong leader”, while Trump responded by calling al-Sisi “a fantastic guy.”

Meanwhile, many in the Middle East treated the news of Trump’s election with deep concerns; al-Sisi welcomed it with enthusiasm. The Egyptian President was the first world leader to congratulate Trump on his victory, highlighting hopes for a “new spirit into US-Egyptian relations.”

Al-Sisi’s support for Trump might come as a surprise to many. Egypt is one of the world’s most populous Muslim nations and Trump still maintains its hardline stance on implementing the ban on Muslim immigrants to the United States. However, the Egyptian President foresees future benefits of the President-elect foreign policy that outweigh its provocative statements.

Despite Trump’s hardline anti-Muslims rhetoric, he emerges as a game-changer to the Obama U.S. foreign policy in the region. For example, Trump’s views on Muslim Brotherhood resembles those of al-Sisi. The organization is currently categorized as a terrorist group in Egypt, and Trump labels it as “radical”.

Similarly to al-Sisi, Trump is also supportive of a Russian-led campaign in Syria and interprets it as a part of greater efforts of a “war on extremism”. Moreover, Trump seems willing to cooperate with the Kremlin in halting the expansion of radical jihadists across the Middle East. This is a crucial point for Cairo which is deeply concerned by the surge of extremists both in its immediate neighborhood and in the Sinai Peninsula.

Both Trump and al-Sisi also share a mutual appreciation for a strongman leadership. Trump has already demonstrated during the meeting in September that he does not intend on lecturing Cairo for its disregard for human rights.

In fact, the bilateral relations under the Trump administration might resemble those when George W. Bush was U.S. President and paid less attention, relatively to Obama, to the issue of “democratization in Egypt.” It is fair to say that Bush and Mubarak still butted heads over issues of human rights; but Trump is likely to be even less concerned.

Cairo is also hoping that Trump’s policy might contribute to opening ways for a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations,. Cairo and Moscow have become close friends over the past several years and their ties have grown even stronger after the Kremlin launched its military campaign in Syria.

Overall, the strategic rapprochement between Egypt and the United States could deliver a long-awaited balance to the Egyptian foreign policy while opening more opportunities for maneuvers between the White House and the Kremlin. Furthermore, the improved relationship will likely elevate Cairo’s stance within the regional balance of power, breaking away from its dependence on the Gulf monarchies—which became extremely burdensome after the Arab Spring.

Cairo’s expectations of the Trump’s policy could shed light on the Egypt’s recent decision to postpone a vote on a UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlements—a move that caused many in the Arab world to raise eyebrows. Indeed, while many in Egypt are extremely critical of Israeli actions in the West Bank, it was important for al-Sisi to accentuate on the readiness for a fresh start with the incoming Trump administration.

The post Trump and al-Sisi Set to Launch Strategic Rapprochement appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

We see images of them all the time: running up from the shoreline after disembarking, walking in large groups across a dusty road, sleeping in clumps in a refugee shelter tent. These are Syrian refugees fleeing a five-year civil war, but look just like images from the 1970s and 1980s when Vietnamese refugees fled a decade-long war.

President Barack Obama announced in September 2015 that the United States would accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over the course of a year. Governors of 31 out of the 52 U.S. states responded to Obama’s resettlement plan by denying Syrian refugees a place in their state.

Nevertheless, the 10,000th refugee successfully reached the U.S. at the end of August 2016. There have been no announcements to increase American assistance. With Donald Trump assuming office on January 20, 2017, it’s unlikely the United States will welcome anyone.

Forty years ago, almost two million Vietnamese refugees resettled in the United States, with no strong reactions to those refugees by local communities. Foreign Policy Association spoke to three Vietnamese-Americans to learn about their journey to the United States and what could have happened to the American sentiment towards refugees from the Vietnam War to the Syrian War. Their statements have been edited for clarity.

Being the captain of the boat with 22 people is what makes me the most proud in my life. I learned to navigate by using math from school to chart the course. We escaped Vietnam in a fishing boat to Thailand and then we were moved to the Philippines to a refugee processing center. I left Vietnam in February 1980 and arrived in the U.S. by November of that year.

I just saw my life slipping away, since there was no future in the jungle. My family had been forced into a new economic zone and our property and wealth were confiscated. My father was a high-ranking military officer for the South, so he was the enemy of the people. We were put in the jungle and I had to lead my brothers in cultivating the land. My father spent 15 years in a reeducation camp along with all the other officers.

We were lucky to be accepted by the US. A church in North Carolina sponsored me. Others weren’t accepted and had to stay in a refugee camp until they returned to Vietnam. The American policy was to find a sponsor to take in the Vietnamese refugees, not through the government, but through an NGO, usually a church. The refugees had to find churches to take us in, orient us, help us settle, and get us shots. The church that took me in was founded by Vietnamese-Americans in 1975.

I was baptized after I arrived. My family had no religious affiliations, so none of us had any problem converting to Christianity. The people in North Carolina were very friendly. They had fresh memories of the Vietnam War, so they were sympathetic. The Americans who welcomed me probably felt they had a debt to repay because the U.S. just left Vietnam so suddenly. Actually, my supervisor at my first job was a Vietnam War veteran. He understood me.

Since this country is a country of immigrants and refugees, the U.S. should accept Syrians. But there must be a process of doing things, like we had with the sponsoring churches. Having a clear plan would ease the angst in American people. The main difference between the resettlement of Vietnamese and of Syrians is religion. Vietnamese are Buddhist or ancestor worshippers, so we had no problem accepting Christian values. Muslim Syrians might have more trouble.

I was captured when I was ten years old and put in prison because my dad was in the South Vietnam military, so we were singled out and targeted. I was separated from my parents and stayed with my three younger brothers in a cell with close to 70 or 80 other people. We were allowed one hour to breathe fresh air and to shower. There was nothing in the cell except a small toilet and concrete floor. I was in prison for two weeks until my parents paid to get me out.

We were discriminated against and couldn’t advance in society because of the stigma of being the children of the traitor or American ally. My father was put in a reeducation camp after April 30, 1975, like many other military personnel. After he was released, we planned to escape by boat.

I was thirteen when I managed to escape with my father and five siblings. My mother and one sibling stayed behind. After six days and five nights, we made it to Hong Kong and stayed there for six months to fill out paperwork. A Catholic nonprofit organization, USCC, or United States Catholic Conference, sponsored us and I arrived in 1982. We were settled into a halfway house for shelter. There were 50 other people there already, the majority from Vietnam. Two months later, my dad was able to find a job as an auto mechanic and we moved out to our own apartment with two other families.

I had pretty neutral responses from neighbors when I moved to the U.S. I don’t recall whether anybody had negative feelings towards us. We basically stayed home by ourselves and my dad worked two jobs, so we didn’t really interact with Americans anyway. When I started eighth grade, no one teased me or anything, but I also didn’t really talk to anybody because everything was so new. As a teenager, I was uncomfortable and scared.

Refusing refugees is not a new problem and that’s why the wave of the boat people stopped. The Vietnamese refugee wave stopped in early 1985 because the U.S. stopped accepting refugees too. My mom wouldn’t have made it if we weren’t already here. All the camps in Southeast Asia closed and didn’t accept any more Vietnamese escaping.

I feel for the Syrian refugees. Most of them are very nice people running away from hardship and war. But I understand that with the current situation now and the problem of terrorists disguising themselves as refugees, Americans can’t have open arms like they had with the Vietnamese refugees.

My dad worked for an American company and when the communists took over the South, they saw that my family supported the Americans and we were shunned. My dad didn’t work for a political company, so they put him in jail for six months. He was lucky. They kept a log of what our family did and kept tracking us.

We lived in a small town and we were very poor when I was young. We went to the field every day and tried to find something to eat for that day.

My aunt was American and brought my uncle back to the U.S. and we connected 17 years later. They sponsored our family in 1993. The first year when I came to the U.S., I was just trying to survive. I had to start over. I couldn’t go to school because I was working hard to have money for an apartment. My parents never worked and can’t speak English or drive. They live with me and I take care of them. My brother is still in Vietnam and when he asks me to visit, I say I’ll think about it, but I don’t think I’ll ever go back. It’s just bad memories there.

I graduated and am now the branch manager at Boat People SOS Houston. My wish came true and now I can help the people who were once in my situation. BP SOS helps with cases of domestic violence, elderly aid, welfare, human trafficking, et cetera.

There was a language barrier, but I worked hard, studied hard, and learned English. The Americans I met had good hearts, maybe because they had experience already with Chinese immigrants and others. In my opinion, I don’t think the U.S. will close their doors because this country has always welcomed refugees. There’s no reason to reject them. Other governments have never allowed foreigners in the way the U.S. does. God bless America—I can say that.

Trinity Episcopal Church is helping resettle a Syrian family now, actually. They’ve been waiting since 1998. In the early 80s, the church helped a Vietnamese family and again in the 90s. The congregation at the time was very supportive and eager to help. Outside the church, the community is still very comfortable.

I’ve been working in some way with the U.S. refugee program for almost 20 years and I’ve met some of my best friends through that program. I mean, they’ve even babysat my kids. These are Muslims and I trust them.

People are really just confused about the religion of Islam and there is a lot of lumping everyone into one bad corner. I haven’t heard a negative comment, but quite a few people have contacted me genuinely asking me about why I’m comfortable having Muslims here.

A local person running for office in Texas wrote a campaign comment about how it’s not okay to bring more Muslims into the country when the ones that are here aren’t assimilated. And I’m like, what do you mean by assimilation? What do you want to happen? Do you want them to all be white Christians? That’s not really an appropriate request for all Americans.

The post How the U.S. Sentiment Towards Refugees Shifted appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

As the media focuses on the many crises in the Middle East, Jordan’s capacity to endure the instability next door is noteworthy. Yet the Hashemite Kingdom faces tough challenges at home and abroad that make its future precarious.

Despite regional turmoil testing Jordan’s borders and population, the Hashemite Kingdom has remained remarkably stable. The resource-deprived country has largely weathered Iraq and Syria’s instability to the north, Israel and Palestine’s tensions to the west, and Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula to the south. Under the leadership of King Abdullah al-Thani, Jordan has also endured the domestic dangers of a swelling refugee population as well as growing political and economic volatility.

Central to Jordan’s stability is its exceptionally sophisticated national security enterprise. With a $1.5 billion military budget underwritten by Western aid, the Kingdom boasts some of the most elite special forces and counterterrorism units in the region. All this is bolstered by the Kingdom’s extensive mukhabarat, which identifies foreign and domestic threats by carefully monitoring the country’s regional situation while penetrating the deepest levels of Jordanian society.

Jordan’s security establishment has effectively deterred most of the region’s unrest from spilling over into its borders. The Kingdom plays a pivotal role in preventing foreign jihadists from entering or exiting the Syrian conflict through Jordanian territory, and leverages its military might as part of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS and its affiliates in Iraq and Syria.

As instability has increased in the Middle East in recent years, U.S. military and police assistance to Jordan has grown accordingly, peaking at $662 million in 2016. The growing threat of ISIS and its affiliates also prompted a Pentagon-funded, $100 million program between Jordan and the U.S. defense contractor Raytheon to improve security along the Kingdom’s northern border.

King Abdullah of Jordan shakes hands with former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen

Although these measures have strengthened Jordan, they also have coincided with an intensifying threat environment. In June 2016, two terrorist attacks linked to ISIS were carried out near Syrian refugee camps in Baqa’a and al-Rukban, killing five Jordanian intelligence personnel and six Jordanian military members respectively. In December, gunmen presumably affiliated with al-Qaeda or ISIS also killed seven Jordanian policemen and two civilians in the southern city of Karak. The success of these attacks despite Jordan’s comparative advantages suggests that the Kingdom will face an increasingly fragile security situation in the short to medium term. This is more likely as ISIS and its affiliates’ priorities shift from holding territory to performing more traditional terrorist operations.

Jordan has shouldered a swelling refugee population. The country plays host to 1.27 million Syrian refugees, which compose nearly 13% of Jordan’s population. Lack of resources and available opportunities in refugee camps have disadvantaged many Syrians, forcing them to find employment in criminal networks, militias fighting in Syria, or terrorist groups. This creates high rates of violence and sexual abuse in refugee camps, and further threatens Jordan’s security from within.

The refugee population also burdens the Kingdom’s already struggling economy. Jordan’s debt-to-GDP ratio is over 90%, and unemployment is around 16% with youth unemployment nearly double that. The refugee influx has further increased youth unemployment by 30% and has grown demand for basic commodities by 40%. The security risks linked to disenfranchised refugees have also shrunk Jordan’s vital revenue streams like tourism and external remittances.

The Kingdom has consequently depended on humanitarian aid from the United States, Gulf countries, and international agencies: the United States alone provided nearly $800 million for refugee assistance in 2015. While the combined aid flows have enabled Jordan to meet existing refugee-related costs to date, it will be increasingly difficult to meet the needs of  the country’s growing refugee numbers.

King Abdullah has continually stressed that job creation and foreign investment in Jordan can benefit the economy and the refugee situation more than direct aid. One promising initiative along these lines is a recent trade arrangement that incentivizes foreign companies to invest in Jordan and export products to Europe tariff-free if those companies derive at least 15% of their labor from Syrian refugees.

Another risk posed by the refugee crisis is that it has facilitated Jordan’s continuing reliance on short-term surges in foreign aid and investment, preventing the Kingdom from engaging in long-term, structural economic reform. As the country edges towards insolvency, Jordan must trim deficit-enabling redundancies in government, gradually wane unsustainable commodity subsidies, and improve ease-of-business measures for small-to-medium sized Jordanian enterprises—which make up 95% of Jordan’s private sector but are typically ignored by the government’s focus on initiatives for large and multinational enterprises.

Although Jordanian’s anxieties about their safety and finances are intensifying, the political system is fairly stable. The royal family is well-regarded, and the monarchy’s position is bolstered by the knowledge that the United States, Britain, and others need Jordan more than ever in a region wracked by various crises. King Abdullah has also maintained a firm grip on power since the 2011 Arab uprisings. Part of this is due to the monarchy’s clientelism; the King has recruited Bedouin leaders into military leadership and offered them monopolies on parts of the tourism trade. This has helped solidify tribal loyalty and maintain security in rural areas outside Amman.

Another source of the monarchy’s stability is the parliament. Most government power resides with the King, yet many Jordanians fault their elected officials for their economic gripes instead. In one recent survey, 87% of polled Jordanians were unable to name single positive achievement of the last parliament. The monarchy can accordingly deflect blame from itself, and even dissolve the parliament and call for elections to satisfy calls for political change—as it did in May 2016.

Yet politics is breeding unpredictability. Young Jordanians’ lack of economic opportunities and dissatisfaction with government has been repeatedly linked to support for Islamism in addition to Salafi-jihadism. Over a thousand Jordanians are estimated to be fighting for ISIS or al-Qaeda’s affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in Syria. Law enforcement’s strict crackdown on those who simply praise ISIS on social media further breeds an antagonistic relationship with government among Jordan’s disenfranchised youth.

King Abdullah seemed to consider this in the September 2016 parliamentary elections. These elections returned to bloc voting (last used in 1989), where voters could select lists of candidates prepared by political parties instead of having one vote per one candidate. The hope was that empowering political parties will make Jordan’s parliament more technocratic and less of a hostage to patronage and tribal ties.

The September elections also allowed Islamists to run, particularly from the political arm of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood – the Islamist Action Front. Unlike past Brotherhood messaging, the Islamist Action Front pushed a reformist brand instead of the standard, ‘Islam is the solution’ line. It also fielded contenders alongside women, Christian and minority candidates. This perhaps hints at coinciding goals for Jordan’s monarchy and Islamists. For Islamists, liberalizing their message could appeal broadly to a restive population and gain acceptance from Jordan’s leadership. For the monarchy, allowing Islamists in politics could generate legitimacy from disenfranchised refugees and the millions of devout Palestinians living in financial strain, all while tempering the more extreme Islamist ideologies among them.

Yet the election’s actual results were largely uneventful. Voter turnout was 37% compared to over 50% in 2013. Islamist candidates gained 15% of parliament’s lower house seats, but the legislature is still dominated by individuals with tribal affiliations or loyal to the monarchy.

While the monarchy could view the election results as a sign of stability, high voter apathy may also indicate widespread anti-establishment sentiment and signal greater political risk. Many young Jordanians—which make up 70% of the population—have been mobilizing and openly challenging the Kingdom’s political system. Deployed by a restive youth, these ideas—alongside emergent Islamism—could generate political volatility in the short to medium term.

While Jordan’s outlook remains optimistic, its situation looks increasingly risky for the coming year. As ISIS and its affiliates disperse through the region, the Kingdom’s deteriorating economic climate and testy political environment will produce an atmosphere that breeds insecurity from within the country’s borders. Containing these risks while addressing their causes will continue to be paramount.

This article was originally published by Global Risk Insights and written by  Azhar Unwala, an analyst for government and corporate clients based in Washington, D.C.

The post Despite a Neighborhood on Fire, Jordan Remains Stable appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(Japan Times, 2016)

Much noise has been made about U.S. president-elect Donald J. Trump’s recent telephone conversation with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen and about Trump’s challenge to the “one-China policy” that Beijing unilaterally considers “the cornerstone of Sino-U.S. relations.”

While state-run mainland Chinese media arrogantly declared that the “mainland must shape Taiwan’s future,” a cadre of professional China apologists in the United States attacked Trump for “provoking China,” and the current U.S. administration rushed to reassure Beijing that America still respected its precious “one-China policy.”

The one thing we mustn’t ever, ever do, according to much of the foreign policy establishment, is anything that might upset or offend mainland Chinese dictators. Above all, we must be sensitive to China’s easily-hurt feelings regarding its unilateral claim of sovereignty over Taiwan (aka the “one-China policy” to which all the world is expected to kowtow). However it may bully its neighbors and abuse the human rights of its own citizens, we must always keep China a happy panda.

More recently, China lodged “stern representations” against content in the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 including a plan to conduct high-level military exchanges with Taiwan. According to a December 26 editorial in People’s Daily, U.S. military cooperation with Taiwan “clearly violates the one-China principle, interferes in China’s internal affairs, infringes upon China’s sovereignty, endangers China’s national security, undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and treats the Taiwan issue as a card to play against China.”

(Cagle Cartoons, 2016)

Let’s get real: Taiwan has never been a part of the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is officially the one remaining part of the Republic of China that did not fall to communist rule in 1949. Previously, Taiwan was a colony of Japan from 1895 to 1945. Of the more than 120 years since Japan occupied Taiwan in 1895, the island has spent only four years (1945-1949) as part of a unified China.

While mainland China self-destructed under Mao, slaughtered its own young on Tiananmen Square, imprisoned dissidents, and constructed the world’s most extensive system of internet censorship, Taiwan underwent a normal course of development into the modern democracy and free society that it is today. Taiwan therefore has a very different history and a very different national identity from mainland China.

Nor do most of Taiwan’s 23 million citizens have any interest in being part of the People’s Republic of China. In every recent public opinion poll on the question, the vast majority of the island’s citizens are opposed to “reunification” with mainland China and consider themselves to be of “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese” nationality. Tsai Ing-wen’s landslide electoral victory in early 2016 was furthermore a “clear call to remain separate from China.” Increasingly even the official name, “Republic of China,” is being rejected by independence-minded Taiwanese in favor of “Republic of Taiwan” to signify a complete break from China.

None of this matters to authoritarian Beijing, which insists that “Taiwan society ought to understand and attach importance to the feelings of the 1.37 billion residents of the mainland.” Funny how the opinions of the mainland’s 1.37 billion residents seem to matter to Beijing only when they can be turned against a smaller population that it wishes to subjugate. Like self-entitled brats, state-run mainland Chinese media have declared that “it’s Beijing who has the final say between peace and war on cross-Straits relations, not Taiwan or the U.S.”

(Sakura Jade House, 2016)

Mainland China is a one-party dictatorship, a human rights disaster area, and a clear adversary of the United States. Taiwan is a modern democracy with a positive record of respect for human rights and, at least potentially, a valuable U.S. ally in a region where the United States is losing allies almost by the day. While autocratic mainland China is rewarded for its bad behavior with full diplomatic recognition and full membership in the international community, however, democratic Taiwan is punished with diplomatic isolation.

For a nation such as the United States that considers itself a beacon of democracy and human rights, it doesn’t get much more ass-backwards than that. Beijing’s “one-China policy” is not merely a polite “diplomatic fiction“: It is an authoritarian absurdity, and continued U.S. obeisance to it is an insult to American values.

The post Beijing’s ‘One-China Policy’ is an Authoritarian Absurdity appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Ignatian Family Teach-in for Justice, Washington, D.C., 2016.

President-Elect Donald J. Trump is following his iconoclastic campaign with an irregular and irreverent transition period. With a controversial nominee for Secretary of State (an oil executive decorated with an award by the Russian government), a renewed commitment to track Muslims, and tweets about “nukes,” the shaping of the future of U.S. foreign policy has been notable.

A distinction might be made, though, between the hard power of U.S. foreign policy and the soft power constructed daily from unofficial American foreign policy. Presidents make speeches, host summits, sign executive orders, and send troops into battle. But thousands of ordinary Americans serve as unofficial ambassadors of the United States—many counter, or oblivious to official policy.

Americans made over 73 million international trips in 2015. These included 12 million to Mexico, 12 million to Europe, 5 million to Asia, 2 million the Middle East, and more than 300,000 to Africa. Over 300,000 thousand American university students study abroad each year, including more than 10,000 in Africa, 30,000 in Asia, and nearly 50,000 in Latin America. More than 100,000 Americans serve overseas as Christian missionaries. Thousands more serve abroad in non-evangelical roles with organizations like the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. (And there are 7,000 active Peace Corps volunteers, a U.S. government agency but whose work in 60 countries far from the daily business of the State Department.)

Unofficial foreign policy is made with money, as well. U.S. companies held over $5 trillion in overseas direct foreign investment in 2015, including over $400 million in Ukraine, $90 billion in Mexico, and $2 billion in Libya. U.S. companies generated exports of $2.2 trillion in goods and services in 2015, and imports of $2.7 trillion. Migrant workers in the U.S. sent home over $60 billion in remittances in 2015. The U.S. Government’s foreign assistance budget is $34 billion, but American individuals and private organizations donated another $16 billion.

Together, American companies and individuals intentionally or unintentionally drive a tremendous amount of public diplomacy and the foreign policy agenda. Among the many competing interests, the message of one group of young people has stayed consistent for many years. Students and their Jesuit universities remain passionately committed to social justice, and the United States government’s unique obligations.

Their 18th annual conference met recently in Washington. Begun as a protest movement at the U.S. military’s School of the Americas (SOA), a Cold War-era training facility for Latin American anti-Communists, the 2016 Ignatian Family Teach-in for Justice brought together over 1,800 high school and college students on a range of social justice topics, especially immigration.

The origins of this emphasis are rooted in the civil wars in Central America in the 1980s, especially El Salvador. U.S. foreign policy at the time was driven by a worsening of the Cold War, supporting anti-government Contras against the Soviet-supported Nicaragua, and the military government of El Salvador against Soviet-supported guerrilla groups.

Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass, after persistently advocating a “preference for the poor,” and just one day after he called for Salvadoran soldiers to stop killing their fellow countrymen. At Romero’s funeral, dozens more were killed by gunshots and the subsequent stampede.

In 1989, six Jesuits priests at the University of Central America in San Salvador were killed by the government death squads. As one observer noted, “It is frankly difficult to imagine anything more likely to spur American Jesuits to action than the complicity of their own government in the violent death of their fellow Jesuits.” The presidents of Georgetown University and Fordham University led the charge, and Jesuit universities across the country strengthened their commitment to peace in Central America generally and to the cause of Central American immigration specifically.

Immigration reform has new urgency as the Trump administration takes shape. The 2016 Ignatian Family Teach-in for Justice took place just days after Trump’s victory. Students and their social justice mentors shared a shock and dismay at what the results might mean, especially those young beneficiaries of President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, or those with parents and friends without legal status in the United States.

The focus of these conferences leaves some questions. They seem to give more attention to undocumented aliens in the U.S. than to those trying to follow the system’s legal paths, and a precedence for Mexican and Central American immigrants over refugees from Syria, Iraq, Africa, or elsewhere.

But their commitment is not in doubt. Jesuit schools have been working with generations of students on these and related issues, like fair trade, the environment, and criminal justice reform. And not just for discernment—for action. After celebration and education on Saturday and Sunday, on Monday more than 1,000 students had appointments with Congressional staffs to express their political passions—and to begin to develop their political advocacy skills.

The new President and Secretary of State will have a wide range of foreign policy issues to attend to, including immigration, trade, the environment, conflict, global poverty, and more. The professional diplomatic corps, lobbyists, and policy wonks will make their contributions. But millions of unofficial ambassadors—as students and scholars, business professionals, service volunteers, donors, and tourists—will help shape the image and expectations of America abroad, and the policies of the new administration.

The post America’s Other Foreign Policy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The recent public execution of ‘political correctness’ in the U.S. and other Western countries had an unintended consequence: it has removed the curtain of pretense and hypocrisy. This, needless to say, is one of the key factors that could help solve some of the most critical political, economic, and faith-based issues of our time.

However, this positive outcome might not be immediately experienced or appreciated since assertive ignorance and crude communication dominate the public space. President-elect’s supporters had this to offer for post-election consensus building: ‘Donald Trump is the President; deal with!’ And his Transitional Team and selected Cabinet had nothing substantive to add. So, we must deal with this world-changing reality.

And this makes the unpacking of these two concepts critical: ‘conspiracy theory’ and its less known archenemy ‘conspiracy realism’. Both are relevant to understand and to function with the new diplomacy.

Everything in life is not organized by clandestine cabals, secret societies, or sinister groups driven to achieve political, economic or religious objectives. And everything does not always have a wicked, illegal, or immoral motive. And yes, there are people who always look at authorities with a relentless antipathy and distrust; people who are obsessed in finding the evil geniuses behind everything in ways that borderlines, if not indicates, mental disorder. The notorious killer cult leader, Charles Manson is an example.

Much of the issues in politics and economics are multidimensional and complex. As such, it is too difficult for the average people to wrap their minds around them. Especially during the seasons of heightened uncertainties due to wars, economic downfall and such, it is easy to seek meaning through professional conspiracy theorists. These influence-wielding individuals such as Alex Jones of InfoWars often have packaged explanations to everything.

They—seekers and providers—never change their minds or admit being wrong when new facts emerge and new evidences are unveiled. To them facts are nothing more than convenient covers- hence their offshoot or the creeping effect of fake news websites.

The perennial question that puzzled great minds throughout the ages (Is man innately good or innately evil?) has never been more relevant. Most of us may have strong opinions on this matter. As a Muslim, I believe that the human being is hard-wired with divine nobility—moral conscience—and is granted the free-will to disgrace him/herself to the lowest of the lows.

Is man not capable of connivingly conspire to immorally and illegally claim power beyond his rights and thus impose his will on others or commit sexual violence to please his lust? In that case, who is haplessly naïve- the one who believes that man never conspires to control and exploit or the one who thinks he does?

Before the WikiLeaks on government and corporate exploitation and misconduct, Snowden’s expose of intrusive ‘Big Brother’, any such claim would’ve been easily dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Throughout history man has lusted for exclusive advantage in order to control, manipulate or exploit. Yet, most people are still robotically inculcated to disassociate themselves with anything that suggests conspiracy; they are likely to resort to knee-jerk reaction in defense of status quo- whatever that may be. Those in power are often the main beneficiaries.

Not all conspiracy claims are driven by far-left or far-right nutty mobs that have an inventory of conspiratorial misgivings and fantasies.

Unless one is locked into state of absolute conformity to one’s own biases or denial, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the cleansing of Native Americans, slavery, colonialism, geopolitics, al-Qaida, ISIS, Shabaab and other such mortal enterprises would not have been possible without some form of conspiracy. And this should compel us to have a frank and sensible discourse on this ever-present human controversy.

Nowadays, any credible challenge to the official narrative of any serious issue, policy, or action is met with resistance from devout conformists or is shot-down by professionals who should be called the conspiracy police. This intellect-policing force needs not to present facts or establish any pattern of analytical discrepancies. All they need is to unleash cold-blooded ad hominem.

There are some who vehemently deny the notion that there is a synchronized effort to collectively demonize Muslims and other minority groups. The growing number of mainly far-right politicians who cunningly use “dog whistle politics” to give subtle marching orders. The political operatives, and well-funded media institutions with colorful personalities whose jobs are to incite religious intolerance and to whip people into crippling hysteria, therefore dependency.

In the U.S. and some parts of Europe, anti-Muslim partners foster uniformed propaganda led by hate-mongering “hipsters”. Their motto is: “All Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are.” They insist that their motive is neither racist nor anti-Islamic. However, their thinly disguised racism falls apart as soon as one replaces “Muslims” with Jews, and “terrorists” with financial scammers. Was the latter not the malicious pretext that led to the holocaust?

In the current trend, Muslims are so demonized that individuals and mosques could be implicated arbitrarily and be condemned in the court of public opinion. And since neither media nor the law-enforcement is pressed to present evidence or establish clear trend before accusing any Muslim person or institution, whatever they present is often considered “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

In the spirit of conspiracy realism and trying out the new diplomacy, let me spread these cards on the table. There are mainly two phenomena that support the notion that Muslims are in political and economic crosshairs: First, geographical areas in which terrorists operate are almost always resource rich or are geopolitically important. Second, though terrorism presents real indiscriminate threat, all countries that succumb to political pressures to make counter-terrorism their principle domestic and foreign policies almost always grow more insecure. Are these random acts of nature or human intervention?

Against that backdrop, the President-elect and his selected Cabinet raise a red flag; especially with regard to their naïve world view and reliance on ‘security experts’ who are blinded by their hate of Islam and Muslims. To what extent are they going to abuse the authority vested in them is open for debate.

The known factor is that governments strategically keep society fearful, senseless, and disoriented in order to create sense of dependency or pass controversial policies or decrees? This is not something that only dictators such as el-Sisi of Egypt would do. Certain intelligence and law enforcement agencies within democratic states such the U.S. have historically fabricated and staged fearful dramas in order to achieve specific political objectives.

Like many Muslims across U.S. and Europe, when some Somali-American activists complained of being discriminatively targeted in the Twin Cities, they were swiftly dismissed as ‘conspiracy theorists’, until recently when a staff whistleblower exposed that TSA was indeed discriminating and “treating Somalis as a community of suspects.

Much of humanity, especially those who are digitally connected, is in state of trauma due to wars, economic uncertainty and excessive negativity.

Watching the Aleppo holocaust in real time and the empty political rhetoric of those who could end that horrific misery but would not act has exposed humanity’s corroding collective conscience. Mindful or not, most of humanity—those who are connected to the rest of the world—are suffering from collective trauma of different levels. Still we should not allow that to push us into a state of hopelessness where all we can sense are bloody spooks moving in the blinding darkness. The last thing humanity needs is reckless leaders to make situations more volatile.

Anyone who accepts the premise that all political initiatives are the works of one interest group or another can comfortably accept the suspicion that his counterpart is engaging in a self-serving conspiracy; even if the counterpart were to deny.

A healthy dose of skepticism is good so long as one maintains a balance and not goes off the rails with it. Runaway skepticism leads to a dangerous state of mind- uncompromising cynicism. It is in that psychological state of profound fatalism where conspiracy theories and theorists thrive.

There is a difference between skepticism and cynicism. The former is the obligation and moral duty of every professional journalist, law enforcement, and public official whereas the latter is an endless emotional wave of doubt, distrust, and pessimism.

In the course of the next four years, institutional attempts to derail or repress genuine discourse and debate on fault-line issues that could add fuel to a global burning fire is very likely. Here is where the non-conglomerate media could assume heroic roles. They should be loyal to the public and not the corporate interest or those in power.

Let us face it, it is not by sheer coincidence that man often performs his very best on stages and under spotlights, and his most vile in darkness or behind veils of secrecy. Keep the lights bright.

The post ‘Reality Presidency’ and New Diplomacy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

After a series of skirmishes, frantic deal making now looks to have brought about the surprise return to force of Libya in the oil export market.

However Libyan oil coming back online could jeopardize a fragile production cut deal orchestrated by producers cartel OPEC to rebalance the global supply glut driving down prices and squeezing the revenues of oil-dependent economies.

A spokesman from the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) has confirmed that Libya will be sharply increasing its oil output in the near future, raising its total production to 900,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

Prior to the 2011 death of long-time dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the north African country exported some 1.6m barrels per day of sweet crude that required only slight refining. Output collapsed after Libya lapsed into revolution and then civil war.

While the new production level remains significantly lower than during Gaddafi-era heights it still represents a significant increase in Libyan output, which had already doubled to about 600,000 bpd since September.

The latest rise in production comes after two of Libya’s warring factions agreed to cooperate to raise output. A group within Libya’s Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) agreed to lift two blockades on oil pipelines which have been in place since 2014 and 2015 respectively as they realign themselves with the Libyan National Army (LNA), one of Libya’s strongest militia groups.

The LNA had held onto two crucial oil ports during factional fighting with the PFG in September, which may have convinced breakaway PFG members to strike the new deal.

Libya’s state-run National Oil Corporation (NOC) has recently prepared to restart oil exports from these ports. With the end of the blockade on pipelines to Libya’s Sharara and El Feel oil fields, national oil officials believe they can add 365,000 bpd to Libya’s production, though they caution this is dependent on the agreement holding.

However the prospect of a Libyan production surge comes shortly after OPEC members finally managed to negotiate a reduction deal.

Despite being members of the cartel, both Libya and Nigeria have been exempted from OPEC’s recent agreements because of their ongoing security and economic problems. However a rapid increase in crude exporting from Libyan fields might change this calculus.

The reopening of the two blockaded pipelines could even bring Libya above its official 0.9m bpd target, potentially straining OPEC deals and the cartel’s willingness to allow Libya to continue producing at pace to get back on its feet.

“OPEC’s agreement granted a Libyan exemption despite this stated production target… but this exemption is not likely open-ended,” warns Jonathan Lang, an analyst for Global Risk Insights.

Production increases will likely only be gradual as Libya’s technical issues and tenuous security situation put a damper on production potential. But if production reaches or even exceeds Libya’s target they could begin to hear sharp protests from other oil producing countries, whose economies are feeling the strain of sustained low prices.

“Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Fali, after the conference with non-OPEC producers, gave a very strong statement to the effect that he was willing to cut the Kingdom’s production even more than agreed in order to restore market balance. If Libyan output does increase more, he may need to do that,” says Bryan Plamondon, Middle East and Africa  director at IHS Market Economics.

“A return of Libyan production to world oil markets…on a sustained basis would hamper OPEC’s plan to restore oil markets to equilibrium and move prices upward. It is a serious issue for the organization.”

This article originally appeared in the Financial Times’ This Is Africa service and reappears here with kind permission.

The post Libyan Oil: A Bittersweet Return? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shakes with his Iran’s counterpart Hassan Rouhani. (Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images)

As Iran’s economy is likely to become a bonanza for foreign companies in the upcoming years, Russia is preparing to secure its share. In early December, Tehran became the gathering spot for the executives of top Russian corporations seeking to extract commercial benefits, as Iran—a country of almost eighty million people and an economy worth more than $400 billion—is set to open up to the world.

The meetings were carried within the frameworks of two major events: the Intergovernmental commission for Trade and Economic Cooperation and the Russia-Iran Business Forum.

While the permanent Russo-Iranian Commission has taken place in the past, this year’s business forum by all accounts is an unprecedented event, highlighting the growing bilateral cooperation between Moscow and Tehran. By various estimates, the Russian delegation to Iran consisted of almost 200 business representatives, making it the largest group of Russian businessmen to ever visit the Iranian capital.

The diversity in businesses represented was one of the peculiarities of the delegation. In addition to the expected representatives from major Russian oil and defense corporations, there were also members of the top banks, agricultural companies, as well as governors and even the head of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, an influential organization directly controlled by the Russian President. Overall, Russian and Iranian companies have signed nine deals that are potentially worth almost $10 billion, according to Bloomberg. Moscow and Tehran also signed agreements to construct a heat and power plant, and railway electrification worth more than €2.2 billion.

There are good reasons behind this. Year-on-year trade between the two nations has increased by almost 80%, according to the statement by Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak. Novak has also stated that the amount of bilateral financial payments has tripled in 2016 alone. Hence, both sides are hoping to further commercial ties, increasing bilateral trade from $1.6 billion in 2014 to around $10 billion in the upcoming years.

Interestingly, the trade dynamics between Iran and Russia indicates one of the largest increase throughout all international Russian commercial ties, percentage-wise.

As the West maintains its sanctions regime against Moscow—even though the sanctions might be removed or softened in the upcoming years—many Russian businesses are desperate to find new “friends” abroad. Therefore, as Iran gradually opens up to the world, many in Russia perceive it as an opportunity and, in contrast to Western counterparts, are not afraid of repercussions of such “friendship” in the foreign policy arena.

Indeed, the growth in bilateral trade is easier to achieve due to Moscow’s and Tehran’s similar views on a number of key foreign policy issues, in particular regarding the Middle East. The Kremlin supports the Assad regime in Syria and maintains friendly ties with the current government in Iraq. Most people that I personally spoke to in Tehran were enthusiastically pointing out to the fact that Russia and Iran were each other’s “best friends” at the moment.

Walking in the streets of Tehran, the abundance of Chinese cars and Korean electronics is striking. For Russians, who are seeking to diversify their trade, the success of these Asian countries in Iran shows the path for their own trade expansion. While the West is more timidly entering the Iranian market, Moscow has the opportunity to take a lead in areas where it has sufficient competence and even a modest competitive advantage.

For instance, one of the proposals during the business forum was to promote a Russian alternative to Visa payments technology called “MIR”. Furthermore, many Russian banks look for opening exchanges with Iranian counterparts and even establishing headquarters in Tehran. Russia’s attempt might be particularly fruitful, taking advantage of the fact that Iran is still cut off from the SWIFT network.

Indeed, Moscow is specifically interested in banking, an industry that is potentially worth several trillions of dollars. As Russia is just beginning to expand its influence within the area, Iran’s experience might be helpful in boosting Islamic banking in the southern Russian territories in particular.

The future of the Iranian economic and its growth potential remain uncertain, even more so in the light of the statements of President-elect Trump and his hawkish rhetoric against the Iran Deal. Nevertheless, Russians do not seem to be bothered.

The post As Sanctions are Lifted, Russia Eyes Trade Opportunities with Iran appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

President-elect Donald J. Trump and National Security Adviser-designate Michael T. Flynn. Flynn at the Republican National Convention in July.

Since the election, commentators have repeatedly voiced concern over the uncertainty of a Donald J. Trump administration’s foreign policy direction. This is true despite the fact that Trump focused on foreign policy issues during the campaign more than most presidential candidates. Even his proposed solutions to domestic problems—such as spurring economic growth by opposing foreign trade treaties and limiting immigration—have strong foreign policy implications.

Why, then, is there so much confusion about his intentions? I can suggest a couple of reasons.

The first problem is that Trump’s statements are not reliable. It is important to note that most politicians running for office try to be consistent in their statements and, once elected, try to fulfill their promises (although they may not always succeed in doing so or may be forced to make compromises). I know that is not the common wisdom, but it is generally true.

Also, most presidential candidates are closely tied to their party, share their party’s basic outlook and policy agendas, and will be encouraged and supported by their staffers and their party colleagues in Congress. This tends to bolster consistency.

Trump, however—as he and his supporters regularly boast—is not a politician, and he does not think like a politician. Part of not being a politician is that, instead of fretting about what the voters will say next election if he doesn’t pursue his stated agenda, he may very well believe the common wisdom that campaign promises are meaningless.

Indeed, in the days following the election he appeared to change his position suddenly on a number of seemingly essential campaign promises (although, to be sure, the new statements have often been vague and conditioned and may be just as easily dropped the next time he addresses a different audience).

He has little concern for consistency. NBC News has listed 141 positions that Trump took on 23 issues in the course of the campaign. His statements do not conform to any conventional ideological schema. As one political analyst put it:

“We probably know less about what the Trump administration will be like than any incoming administration in modern American history. Trump could end up being one of the most moderate presidents in a generation, or he could be one of the most extreme. He might be both.”

Moreover, members of his campaign staff have advised foreign dignitaries not to take everything he says about their countries, or about his intended policies toward their countries, literally. Overall, one cannot assume that he is strongly committed to anything he has said.

His supporters may not care—as The Atlantic’s Salena Zito quipped, “. . . the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

The people in Trump’s entourage have taken that perspective and run with it. Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager (who, somehow, continued to receive $20,000 a month from the campaign after allegedly being fired and becoming a paid commentator on CNN) castigated the press for believing what Trump had said during the campaign.

“You guys took everything Donald Trump said so literally. The American people didn’t. They understood it. They understood that sometimes—when you have a conversation with people, whether it’s around the dinner table or at a bar—you’re going to say things, and sometimes you don’t have all the facts to back it up.”

Leaving aside the question of whether comments made around the dinner table or at a bar constitute an accetable standard of truth for a presidential campaign, this leaves it up to all commentators, all citizens, all foreign observers to decide for themselves what Trump really meant. To suggest that they will all come to the same conclusion because that conclusion is so obvious is ridiculous.

Regarding his ties to his party, Trump regularly took stances opposed to standard Republican positions and occasionally denounced the party as dishonest and corrupt. Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., drew up his own legislative agenda as an alternative to Trump’s proposals, and despite his denunciations of the party, Trump has suggested that he may defer to Ryan on legislative matters. So, at least with regard to legislation, there may be a basis for predictability—based on Ryan’s positions rather than Trump’s.

Nevertheless, Trump, as president, will have the power to intervene on issues as the mood strikes him, and Ryan will have to deal with the relatively small but intimidating Freedom Caucus within his own party conference, which introduces whole new vectors of unpredictability. Beyond that, foreign policy is not like legislation; the president often has a freer hand to act without regard for the wishes of Congress.

Finally, we have to remember that Trump simply lies a lot. For some reason, many voters came to view him as more honest than Hillary Clinton, but in the hundreds of statements that it reviewed, Politifact found that Trump made more than three times as many “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants on fire” statements as Clinton. He regularly makes false statements of fact, such as the notion that “the murder rate in the United States is the highest it’s been in 45 years” (although there was an uptick in 2015, 2014 had the lowest rate in 54 years and 2015 was still among the lowest) or the notion that Trump won “one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history” (of the 54 presidential elections using the current Electoral College system, i.e., since 1804, his outcome ranked 44th, in the bottom fifth).

A reputation for lying will not benefit him in the conduct of foreign policy. Whether you hope to deter aggression through threats or solicit cooperation through promises, your efforts will be hindered if no one believes you mean what you say.

While Trump has exhibited considerable flexibility on policy details, however, he has shown greater consistency in a few underlying aspects of his worldview. For instance, his view of politics is highly personalized, highlighting the role of individuals. He sees dependence as weakness. His view of international relations is extremely transactional, suggesting that nothing should be done unless it generates a profit in real terms.

The abhorrence of dependence and the transactional view of politics promote a preference for isolationism. Based on this, he is skeptical of the value of alliance commitments. He is highly skeptical of the value of free trade.

Finally, he admires authoritarian leaders, not because we need them as allies in particular situations (a common justification for supporting authoritarian regimes in the past), but precisely because of their authoritarian characteristics. These perspectives have appeared consistently in Trump’s statements not only throughout the campaign but over the course of decades. While consistent, however, this worldview does not necessarily lead to a sensible foreign policy.

First, although it should not be necessary to point it out, I must say that the notion that it is vital to say the words “radical Islamic terrorism” is such utter nonsense that it barely deserves the minimal effort required to refute it. Even the people who repeat this assertion have not come up with a reason why it matters, nor have they even tried. It is simply something to say when you have nothing of substance to offer.

Moreover, it is practically designed to offend Muslim allies (the ones who do the actual fighting on the ground in the Middle East, including ones whom some might consider radical) and the millions of Muslims who may be sitting on the fence. In any event, “moderate” and “radical” are our terms, not theirs, and the notion that we can decide who is a moderate Muslim and that moderate Muslims will not be offended by all this is simply wrong. The suggestion that the terrorists represent Islam offends them. Constantly repeating this assertion amounts to doing the terrorists a favor.

Now, let’s examine just one of the positions rooted in Trump’s consistent worldview. In an interview with the New York Times in July 2016, Trump discussed his position on NATO. He stressed that he did not want to say whether he would come to the assistance of NATO members under attack, regardless of treaty obligations, because he saw it as better to keep the Russians guessing about his intentions.

He also complained: “Many NATO members are not making payments, are not making what they’re supposed to make. That’s a big thing. You can’t say forget that.” He then suggested that the United States should come to their assistance only if “they fulfill their obligations to us.”

There are problems with this on many levels. It is true that the issue of burden-sharing has been argued and debated within NATO for as long as NATO has existed. The current standard is that each NATO member should contribute 2 percent of its GDP to its own defense budget, and nearly all—not all, but nearly all—fall short of the mark.

The burden-sharing issue is rooted in the common problem of collective goods: The smaller countries in a deterrent, or collective-defense, alliance often invest suboptimal amounts in their own defense if they believe that a large ally is going to defend them anyhow. They will often argue that they have other fiscal obligations, cannot afford large military outlays, and could not contribute enough to have a meaningful impact on the collective defense in any event. This has given rise to years of debate, negotiation, and deal-making within NATO and other U.S. alliances.

Trump seems to be addressing this issue, and many analysts view his statements from this perspective. Yet, while it is often difficult to ascertain what Trump is thinking from what he says, that does not appear to be what he means here. In this and related statements, he seems to expect allies to make cash payments to the U.S. Treasury in return for our defending them. If they don’t make those payments, we will not be there for them.

This questioning of commitments undermines the very purpose of a deterrent alliance. (Without any evident recognition of the irony, in a speech in April, right after making this argument—“The countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense, and if not, the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves. We have no choice.”—he then went on to complain that under Obama, “our friends are beginning to think they can’t depend on us.”)

Elsewhere he has spoken more specifically of how much the United States spends on bases overseas to defend allies and has suggested that we should bring those troops back home to save money.

Yet even as a narrow fiscal calculation, this argument does not make sense. He is not talking about demobilizing those troops; he intends to expand the military, so they would have to be stationed here in the United States. According to a 2013 RAND report, it does cost $10,000 to $40,000 extra per person per year to station troops abroad, but the host countries cover most of it.

Regardless of what Trump suggests, countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea (the countries where most U.S. overseas bases are located) actually do spend considerable amounts to defray the costs of the U.S. military presence, albeit in the form of free land, tax and fee waivers, or in-kind payments of services, supplies, and facilities, not direct payments to the Treasury. Last April, the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, all things considered, it is actually cheaper to keep our troops in Korea than to bring them home.

Yet all of this still misses the main point. There is a reason for stationing troops overseas—even if it were to cost more. The purpose is to show a commitment to the common defense; the purpose is deterrence. A single U.S. battalion stationed in, say, Poland or a Baltic state, cannot defeat a Russian invasion directly, but it can convince the Russians that an attack on that state automatically means a larger war with the United States—something best avoided.

The United States benefits from the maintenance of peace and stability. It costs far less not to fight a war because it never happened then to let it happen and then get dragged into it. (See World Wars, I and II.) If Putin were to consider Trump’s frequent praises of him, put them together with Trump’s questioning of the U.S. commitment to NATO, and then conclude—mistakenly—that he could intervene with impunity in the Baltic states, you could very well end up with World War III.

As a businessman, Trump is accustomed to negotiating about dollars, maximizing revenues and minimizing expenditures, but national security, and politics more generally, is a different kind of beast. The goal is rarely in the form of dollars or anything else that can be quantified and calculated in the same way. Nor can success be measured easily or precisely when success means the absence of action (e.g., not being invaded).

Deterrence, stability, peace—these are valuable goals, but they are achieved through perceptions and other amorphous psychological processes as much as through hardware; and the key perceptions, being the perceptions of the other side, cannot be precisely manipulated. Trump may think he is being clever and improving his bargaining leverage by keeping his commitments vague and fostering an image of unpredictability, but such tactics can easily backfire.

Remember, in 1950 Kim Il Sung had been pestering Stalin for a year to let him invade South Korea, claiming both that he had prepared uprisings in the south and that his military could seize the entire peninsula before anyone had time to react. Stalin put him off repeatedly—until a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops and a speech by Secretary of State Dean Acheson put into doubt our commitment to the south’s defense.* The result was the Korean War. Would something similar happen in the Baltics today? We should make an effort to assure that we never find out, and Trump’s approach is not the best way to go about it.

So, in conclusion, it is worth repeating: It is difficult to know what Trump will actually do as president. On the one hand, it seems that he doesn’t really mean many of the things he says. On the other hand, the underlying beliefs of his worldview have such dangerous implications that they might never get through the foreign-policy bureaucracy. At least, that’s what I like to tell myself.

*Other factors were the failure of the United States to intervene in the civil war in China, which was generally considered more significant than Korea, and the Soviet testing of its first atomic bomb.

The post The Donald J. Trump Foreign Policy Enigma appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution to impose sanctions on the DPRK in order to curb the country’s nuclear and missile programs. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

Of all Donald Trump’s transitional appointments, perhaps the least controversial has been his choice of South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for UN ambassador.

Haley, who will need to be confirmed by the Senate, is a seasoned politician at the national level but has far less foreign policy expertise, an experience gap that could quickly make itself felt as the governor juggles dealing with the UN bureaucracy while handling major rivals like Russia and China.

First on Haley’s plate will be turning her boss’s mostly unarticulated views on the United Nations into a coherent approach to the global body. During the campaign, Trump indulged in strident criticism of the UN, denouncing it in a speech to AIPAC as “not a friend” of freedom, democracy, the US, or Israel.

In that same vein, the President-elect has threatened to dismantle some of the Obama era’s key multilateral accomplishments. He pledged to pull the US out of the Paris climate and tear up the nuclear deal with Iran, fatally undercutting two of the UN’s banner accomplishments. This would anger the other members of the Security Council, who backed the Iran agreement unanimously, as well as the UN leadership who helped bring both to fruition.

Trump has also denounced Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba, widely supported at the UN, and vowed to “veto any attempt by the U.N. to impose its will on the Jewish state.”

For diplomats used to Obama-style multilateralism, Trump’s victory has been a harsh shock. The UN has long had a fraught relationship with Republicans, but Obama had mostly shielded the organization from their reach.

Even Obama, though, has at times found himself at odds with the UN. He has consistently shielded Israel from UN criticism, and is the only president since 1967 to not allow a single Security Council resolution specifically condemning Israel. During Obama’s tenure, the US also defunded UNESCO after the agency admitted Palestine to its ranks.

Where Obama’s approach to the UN has been muted, the Congressional Republicans who will need to confirm Haley’s nomination have been far more outspoken. To that end, Florida representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced a United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act in 2015 that would have pushed for voluntary US funding of the UN and required an itemized justification of the funds the US government was contributing to the UN budget. Those demands aren’t new: Marco Rubio introduced an identical bill in the Senate in 2011.

The opaqueness of American contributions to the UN, as described by Rubio and Ros-Lehtinen, is a major sticking point. The most recent example involves the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which operates as part of the World Health Organization and receives substantial funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is currently leading a Congressional inquiry into NIH’s funding of IARC,  which has been criticized by other scientific bodies over a series of controversial findings that break from those of regulators in both the US and Europe.

These include glyphosate, a common herbicide IARC determined “probably carcinogenic” in contradiction of recent findings issued by the EPA and international health authorities. Alongside glyphosate, however, IARC has also found itself on the defensive for its evaluations of processed meats and especially coffee, which it insinuated was carcinogenic for well over two decades before changing its mind this year. The agency’s critics, Chaffetz among them, say the agency lacks transparency and scientific rigor and is too quick and too liberal with the carcinogenic label.

With a fellow skeptic replacing Obama in the White House, initiatives like the Chaffetz investigation are likely to pick up steam. While a stricter approach to America’s share of the UN budget will ruffle diplomatic feathers, the new administration and its Congressional allies have a strong hand to play.

Namely, the US is the single largest contributor to the UN budget, with its mandatory and voluntary payments amounting to about $8 billion annually. With Washington on the hook for 22% of the UN’s regular budget and 28% of the peacekeeping budget, American lawmakers have considerable power of the purse: UNESCO, for example, had to forego over a fifth of its operating budget when it lost US funding.

As US ambassador, Haley will be the embodiment of America’s attitude to the UN apparatus. After all, one of the main sources of relief among diplomats in New York at the news of the Haley appointment was that Donald Trump would not be sending another “angry white man” in the mold of John Bolton.

That honeymoon might not survive an era of intensified Congressional scrutiny and lower contributions, but the measure of influence that the US maintains over the UN structures will depend in large part on Haley and her ability to channel her gubernatorial experience in dealing with an entrenched bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, the US in general and Haley in particular will be bringing far less firepower to the UN Security Council. The new ambassador will have to navigate pressure from both Russia and China; Moscow has repeatedly reminded the rest of the Security Council who calls the shots in the Syrian war, stonewalling resolutions from the other permanent members and agreeing to UN observers in Aleppo only after its allies took most of the city.

Of course, the new president-elect’s professed willingness to work with Russia on Syria could mean Haley spends less time arguing and more time acquiescing. In either event, Beijing will continue quietly gaining ground on Washington and Moscow within the UN bureaucracy, making moves like increasing its funding for UN peacekeeping operations to increase its influence while its main rivals focus on mutual recriminations in the Middle East.

While the particulars of Nikki Haley’s ambassadorship will remain a matter of conjecture until she takes her seat, one thing is for certain: come January, things are going to get interesting in New York.

The post Nikki Haley Steps into the Turtle Bay Meat Grinder appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Anastasia Lin (Wikimedia Commons)

Recent events surrounding Chinese Canadian beauty queen and human rights activist Anastasia Lin‘s participation in this year’s Miss World pageant illustrate the negative effects of China’s growing global influence. Nominated twice to represent Canada in the pageant, Lin was banned from participating in the 2015 contest held in China; and has now been barred from speaking on human rights at this year’s contest in the United States (See Boston Globe, Epoch Times, New York Magazine, New York Times, Toronto Star, Washington Post).

A native of mainland China who immigrated to Canada as a teenager, Ms. Lin has been outspoken in her criticism of China’s atrocious human rights record. As a practitioner of the Falun Gong spiritual practice banned in China, she has dedicated herself particularly to fighting religious persecution in China. China’s efforts to silence her have included threats by Chinese authorities against her father in China. In 2015, Lin was denied entry to China to participate in the contest held in Sanya on Hainan Island.

“The Chinese government has barred me from the competition for political reasons,” said Lin when she was banned from the 2015 contest, “They are trying to punish me for my beliefs and prevent me from speaking out about human rights issues…. The slogan of the Miss World competition is ‘Beauty with a purpose.’ My purpose is to advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves—those who suffer in prisons and labour camps, or whose voices have been stifled by repression and censorship.”

This year’s contest was held in Washington D.C., where free speech is guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. Under Chinese corporate sponsorship, however, the pageant’s U.S. organizers and the London-based Miss World Organization have now become enforcers of Chinese censorship.

Lin has been barred from speaking with the media, and even a U.S. State Department official was refused access to Lin unless “accompanied by a pageant employee, who insisted on attending the meeting.” A friend of Ms. Lin’s reported: “They have specifically told her not to talk about human rights during the pageant, even though that is her official platform…. She is very frustrated.”

Boston Globe writer Jeff Jacoby describes the scene in a Washington DC hotel lobby, as pageant officials behaved exactly like Chinese government thugs when he tried to interview Lin: “A Miss World employee saw us talking, and demanded an explanation…. The employee instantly called in reinforcements. Soon there were three officials. Two of them hustled Lin from the lobby, angrily accusing her of breaching the rules and causing trouble. The third blocked me from talking to Lin, and assured me that my interview would be scheduled the next day. It wasn’t, of course.”

The increasingly “long shadow of Chinese censorship” has been noted for several years. China’s efforts at silencing its critics around the world have included harassment of exiled Chinese dissidents, pressure on international film and literary festivals to bar works by Chinese dissidents, economic pressure on international news media to produce more “positive” China coverage, and cyber-attacks on news and human rights websites. Now even the Hollywood movie industry appears ready to submit to Chinese censorship for access to the Chinese market.

“We all live under threat from the Chinese regime,” Lin wrote in 2015, “Too easily we accept this kind of coercion as the social norm, blaming those who speak out rather than those who wield the batons…. Leaving China doesn’t make one free, not when friends and family there become hostages. Freedom comes when we stop accepting tyranny and challenge those who would preserve it.”

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