Foreign Policy Blogs

Asia Bibi was accused of blasphemy after rowing with two Muslim women in her village in Punjab in 2009. (Reuters/Mohsin Raza)

I have previously written about the archaic blasphemy laws of Pakistan and its consequences. One such consequence was the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer (whose son was later kidnapped, and escaped years later); and another, was the extrajudicial killing of the Minister of Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti. Both were killed for defending Asia Bibi.

In my previous post, I talk about how blasphemy laws have no place in Islam and how they are used in Pakistan as a political ploy to gain power, and a personal tool to usurp neighboring lands of minorities. This is what happened to Asia—she was a berry-picker who dared to drink out of the same cup as her fellow berry-pickers. Outraged, they accused her of uttering blasphemous statements about the Prophet; statements so blasphemous that her lawyers dared not repeat them in court, lest they be tried for the same crime.

In 2009, Asia was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death by hanging. It was her case that Mr. Taseer was serving as a mediator for—he had sought to get her a Presidential Pardon, whilst Shahbaz Bhatti sought to eliminate the blasphemy laws through the legislature. The irony is that they were dubbed blasphemers for doing so, both killed by civilians in an act of protecting Islam’s honor.

Taseer was shot by his own bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, a murderer who admitted to the crime, and was hailed by masses as Islam’s savior. The story goes that Taseer’s wife went from lawyer to lawyer, pleading for someone to take her case to prosecute Qadri, but was turned away out of fear. The judge who, two years later, sentenced Qadri to death, has had to flee the country after repeated death threats following his verdict.

Protesters greeted Qadri with rose petals as he was driven off from the courthouse to the jail. In March this year, five years after the first trial and after a superior court too found Qadri guilty of murder, Qadri was hung to death for the murder of Salman Taseer. 10,000 protesters blocked the Capital for days.

But what of Asia Bibi? She never did get that pardon; her case was an open one in the High Court when Taseer attempted it. After his assassination, no one braved that stance again. Her final appeal to the Supreme Court was scheduled to be heard earlier this October, but has been postponed, as one of the three judges on the bench recused himself for a conflict just days before the hearing. Although his conflict is legitimate, there is speculation that he was threatened.

150 clerics have petitioned the government to hang Asia. Hundreds of thousands have signed online petitions to save her. Meanwhile, Asia sits in solitary confinement, as although no one has been sentenced and hung in Pakistan in a blasphemy case, many have been killed by cellmates in their search for atonement. Talking to The Guardian, Asia’s husband said: “If Asia is acquitted we will never be able to return to our previous life, as my wife has been labelled an infidel and an infidel doesn’t deserve to survive in a society full of hatred,” he said. “Too many want her dead and have put a bounty on her head.”

While Asia waits for a new judge to be appointed, the problem persists. Day after day, a member of the minority community is persecuted for blasphemy and either publicly ridiculed, beaten, or prosecuted. Human Rights Watch reported that in 2014, 17 people were on death row with another 19 serving life sentences under blasphemy laws; all from the a minority community.

The Center for Research and Security Studies in  Islamabad reported 60 cases of blasphemy related extrajudicial killings between the years of 1990 and 2014. That’s more than two people killed outside of the justice system a year—and these are cases that are reported; scores of others remain unreported for fear of further bloodshed.

Although the likes of Bhatti and Taseer have been moving to change the legislation that allows such cases to exist, the problem will not end there. The 150 clerics that are demanding Asia be hung are part of the problem, and therefore, must be part of the solution. Until the masses are continually led to believe that the honor of Islam is theirs to protect, legislation will not solve extrajudicial killing.

So while Asia waits for her justice, the government needs to take multiple measures—it needs to amend the legislation, yes, but it also needs to regulate the preachers and ensure what they are professing is not hatred in the garb of religion.

The post The Blasphemy Behind Blasphemy in Pakistan appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Chinese fishing boats are bound together with ropes to thwart an attempt by South Korean coast guard ships to stop their alleged illegal fishing in the Yellow Sea off the coast of South Korea (AFP/GETTY)

Waters are heating up again in Asia, as Chinese fisherman came under fire last Tuesday some 92 kilometers (57 miles) southwest of South Korea’s Socheong Island. The incident took place near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) maritime border with North Korea, and within 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) of South Korea’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).  

The warning shots came from four M60 machine guns of the South Korean Coast Guard, in an attempt to crack down on illegal fishing by the Chinese boats. According to reports in South Korean media, the Coast Guard fired shots at the sky and in the sea to ward off a group of 30 Chinese fishing ships attempting to rescue two 98-ton Chinese vessels seized by South Korean speedboats.

Despite repeated warnings to back off, some of the Chinese boats attempted to ram a 3,000-ton Coast Guard patrol ship, and shots were fired toward the ships’ hulls in response. After some 600-700 warning shots were fired by the Coast Guard during a 45-minute standoff, the Chinese fishing vessels finally sailed away, and the two vessels and 20 Chinese crew were transferred to Incheon.

The conflict follows months of escalating violence and marked South Korea’s first significant use of combative force since last month’s authorization by South Korea’s Ministry of Public Safety and Security to use martial force (including ramming). Seoul approved the authorization following the sinking of a 4.5-ton Coast Guard speed boat by two 100-ton Chinese fishing boats early last month.  

The ramming of the South Korean Coast Guard boat came days after three Chinese fishermen died in a fire, which broke out in their steering room after the South Korean Coast Guard threw flash grenades. The Chinese fishing boat had refused to stop while illegally fishing in Korea’s EEZ without a permit. Previous incidents have led to chases and escalating violence against Chinese fishermen, who frequently resist capture by using hacksaws and knives.  

And the potential for further violence grows as the number of Chinese boats fishing in South Korea’s EEZ and near the NLL expands, exceeding some 100,000 for the first time last year. As of September, 50,022 Chinese boats have been detected so far this year, with few detained.  Chinese media outlets refer to the fishermen as “Those who desperately need to make a living”. Yet these same fishermen are likely responsible for significant overfishing which has driven them into the EEZ waters of other nations.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has plenty enough on his plate, from a shrinking economy and laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises, so is unlikely to rein in the fishermen – especially after Seoul’s plans to deploy a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea next year. And demonstrations by tens of thousands of South Koreans in Seoul demanding the resignation of President Park Geun-hye over a corruption row are sure to distract the South Korean government and people. All of which could suggest more violent confrontations between Chinese fishing boats and the South Korean Coast Guard in the near future.

The post Seoul’s Aggressive Plan to Combat Illegal Fishing appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

President Rodrigo Duterte and People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping shake hands prior to their bilateral meetings at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 20. (King Rodriguez/PPD)

Diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Philippines have been especially sour ever since China claimed Scarborough Shoal in 2012. But now, Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte is exploring a new bilateral relationship with China, effectively conceding that territorial issue in the interests of setting a more independent foreign policy course in the region, much to the consternation of the United State, which regards Duterte as a loose cannon.

Duterte, for his part, has long distrusted Washington for a variety of reasons, and sees China as a bargaining chip in his contest of wills with the U.S. and local elites opposed to his rule.

Duterte selected China as the destination of his first state visit. This symbolic move received a warm welcome from China, as the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines, Zhao Jianhua implied, “The Clouds are fading away. The sun is rising over the horizon, and will shine beautifully on the new chapter of bilateral relations.” To make this even clearer, Beijing offered the Filipino delegation a $9 billion loan during the course of its recent visit.

Duterte’s four-day state visit held a full schedule. Mr. Duterte held meetings on separate occasions with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, and the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. He also attended the opening ceremony of the China-Philippines Economic Trade Forum together with Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.

Is Mr. Duterte trying to end the alliance with America? Not necessarily. Although he has insulted American officials on multiple occasions, including telling President Obama to “Go to Hell”, and calling him a “son of a whore”, it is unlikely that he will abandon this longtime defense ally, a nation that also has longstanding economic ties to the country and is home to a large population of Filipino expatriates.

As Duterte’s Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay noted, “The president, on many occasions, has said categorically that he will only have one military alliance, and our only ally in that respect is the United States”. Officials such as Yasay have often found themselves trying to walk back their boss’s remarks since he took office.

“Only China can help us,” Duterte said during an interview with Xinhua News. And he truly believes that mending relationships with China is the right choice for his country. As much as it is about flexibility and breaking with the past, the animosity he feels towards the United States is real.

“We want to talk about friendship, we want to talk about cooperation, and most of all, we want to talk about business.”

The United States remains the largest source of foreign investment for the Philippines. With a total net flow of investment of $4.2 billion, U.S. investment to Philippines dwarfed the number from China ($0.05 billion) from 2005 to July 2016. Currently, this Southeast Asian country receives around $170 million aid from Washington annually. Yet this figure is nothing close to what U.S. has fund its strategic alliances elsewhere: Egypt and Pakistan each receives annual funding of $1.5 billion each.

This October, the U.S., the EU, and other Western investors put projects on hold in reactions to Duterte’s controversial “war on drugs”, in which killed more than 3,500 suspects within months. Several investment and trade missions from the U.S. and the EU were aborted, meaning there will hardly be any new business deals made in the near future.

The economic future for the Philippines is not promising under such circumstances. Unwilling to temper his campaign—modelled after his mayoral policies in Davao City that sharply reduced the crime rate while imposing draconian punishments on offenders—Mr. Duterte has good reasons to turn to China, one of the largest business partners for other ASEAN countries and one which is not going to harry him with diplomatic protests or human rights inquiries over his “war on drugs”.

While Beijing of course expects its payments to have real returns and not mere “goodwill” value, and also knows it too does not benefit from the island nation’s instability in the long run, the breaches in Manila’s Western diplomatic relations are too good opportunities to ignore.

Together with more than 200 business representatives, Mr. Duterte is hoping to boost Philippines economy with help from China and so far he has not been disappointed. China has promised to bring Philippines on board to its “one belt, one road” economic development project in Southeast Asia. Specifically, this visit to Beijing will bring 13 trade agreements with China, with total worth of $31.5 billion, back to Manila. Agreements of these trade deals included foreign direct investments on infrastructure, expanding Chinese tourism in the Philippines, and lifting previous import restrictions on the country’s agricultural and fishing products.

“There is no sense fighting over a body of water. It is better to talk than war.”

Relations, never very warm, worsened between the two countries after Beijing took claim of the Scarborough Shoal. Not only sending regular patrols in the troubled water, Beijing has also been building artificial islands for military purposes. The former president, Benigno Aquino III, allowed for a large U.S. military presence in his country expecting to counter China’s aggressive behaviors and to eliminate domestic insurgents. He brought the Scarborough Shoal case to the international tribunal at the Hague during his presidency, which ruled in favor of Philippines this July. In retaliation, Beijing put a ban on importing Philippine’s agricultural products, now lifted with the warming of ties under Aquino’s successor, Duterte.

Territorial claims over South China Sea. (Wall Street Journal)

Ironically, the Chinese government also warned its citizens to not travel to Philippines for its “unstable political environment”, a warning it is apparently less worried over now despite the rising body count in the “war on drugs” and continued disturbances by domestic insurgents, including the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.

Unlike his processors, Mr. Duterte does not believe that U.S. will be the solution for the geopolitical disputes. Personal histories of him make quite clear he distrusts the U.S. for historical, personal, and political reasons. Historic, over the US’s colonial rule of his homeland, and then support for the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship as well as the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Personal, in his negative experiences with U.S. nationals over the years and suspicion that the Americans went out of their way to protect their own at his and Davao City’s expense.

But political, perhaps, is the most influential one. As a man outside the islands’ traditional power structure for much of his career, he sees—reasonably so—people like the Aquinos, Marcoses, and the top police or army brass as aloof bureaucrats who long ignored the intercommunal violence plaguing the country while currying American patronage. In his interview with the Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, he told the host that he and his cabinet are not optimistic about the U.S. to keep collective defense obligations. He is also considering abolishing the joint-military exercise in South China Sea with the US, indicating such actions would only “further provoke China” and “there is no need to intensify the situation”.

In response, Beijing rolled out red carpet. Chinese spokesperson Hua Chunying commented, “Duterte would make his policy in the best interests of his country and its people”.

Despite the friendly gestures he has made to China, Duterte knows where to draw the line of this negotiation. He reiterated that there is no bargaining room on the sovereignty of the disputed islands. “We will not give up anything there … You can only negotiate to prevent a war”, he told Al Jazeera in an interview before to his China visit.

However, Mr. Duterte still plans to set back the Hague ruling and start to build mutual trust on joint development of the natural resources in the region with China. Some small but significant progress was seen after the dialogue opened up. Discussion of bilateral fishery cooperation in the South China Sea is taking place and Beijing publicly announced its willingness to make arrangements to strengthen this partnership.

President Duterte has, for all his bombast against his allies, be savvy enough to send an olive branch to China to try and soften the tension between these two Asian neighbors as well while trying to shift course away from the U.S. For him, it is better to solve an Asian geopolitical problem with “no foreign forces”, only “an Asian neighbor to another”.

The post Rodrigo Duterte’s Pivot to China appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Members of the minority Yazidi sect in Iraq are demanding protection from the ISIS militants. (Reuters)

Anyone who has turned on a television news program over the last few months has likely been irritated by the non-stop mind numbing partisan bias broadcast by professional news organisations. The severe lack of any information on policy and general news in a time of deep political change globally adds to the further disservice to viewers and readers of modern journalism.

The real tragedy is that what could be considered the worst human rights abuse in the last few years has been taking place, with full knowledge of the atrocities being committed, and neither candidate has taken to openly discuss this issue in any detail.

Nadia Murad has been given a lot of attention by the UN in recent weeks. Nadia is a Yazidi survivor of ISIS. After escaping from her captors, she has chosen to become a voice to the world to help liberate her people, especially women and girls that are currently facing terrible violence.

 Cases of rape against Yazidi and other minority groups committed by ISIS are documented in horrific detail. Two cases that stood out in recent reports was a girl of nine years of age being subject to repeated rapes daily.. Another story that emerged in U.S. media was of a survivor who chose to light herself on fire so she would no longer be subject to rape, either by dying or by making herself so unappealing that they would avoid her or execute her.

In the process of liberating Mosul from ISIS, accounts of Yazidi girls being moved early on to Syria have been reported. Minorities being used as human shields have been also been  reported in several cases. While the U.S. Government had spent years doing the bare minimum to stop the genocide, the presidential campaigns—focusing often on women—have said little to nothing about helping these abused and tortured women. It could not simply be because it is 2016.

Fighting for recognition as human beings that deserve freedom from rape and torture has met a lot of resistance despite the world knowing almost everything about what has been occurring. Nadia Murad visited Canada recently to bolster an opposition party motion to help 300 rescued Yazidi girls be brought to Canada.

Despite the current government of Canada knowing full well of the atrocities and bringing in between 25,000 to 30,000 refugees on their own dime, it was estimated that they only brought in three Yazidi.

The appearance of Nadia Murad and months of pushing from local charity and action groups to save minorities in the region embarrassed the government to a sufficient degree that they finally accepted to help the first 300 girls. They were saved by Canadian organizations without any proper support.

Although the opposition parties and Canadian organizations have pushed to help Yazidis, it has been extremely difficult to get governments to even acknowledge the atrocities. At the end of the U.S. election, the president that addresses and handles this issue appropriately will have been the best choice.

A perpetuation of the status quo is a continuation of entrenching a society that does not see preventing genocide as a priority. That is the real choice for this current generation, and the best determinant of an issue that is worth a vote.

The post Nadia Murad, Genocide and the Post U.S. Election appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Hillary Clinton speaking at a rally in Des Moines in January 2016. (Wikimedia)

As the election season comes to a close, most polls indicate a relatively clear picture. Her latest email scandal notwithstanding, Hillary Clinton is very likely to emerge victorious and give Democrats a third presidential election win in a row. A campaign that has mostly oscillated between agonizing and ghastly has left virtually no room for any discussion of the candidates’ policies. Time to take a look at how Hillary Clinton might deal with climate change.

A glance at global developments reveals improving prospects. In many respects, last year’s Paris climate agreement is a success. Key player such as India, China, and the EU—as well as the U.S.—have ratified the treaty. Prices for wind and solar continue to drop, while 2015 saw renewables overtake coal as the world’s largest source of power capacity. Globally, deforestation rates appear to be slowing down. Last month, countries arrived at an agreement to phase out extremely climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons.

Domestic politics reveal a different picture, however. Republicans will almost certainly retain control over the House, and perhaps even the Senate. While President Obama began his first term with Congress firmly under Democratic control, Clinton faces perpetual deadlock on almost all legislative initiatives.

Gridlock will have a particular effect on climate policy. Recent findings suggest that there is more polarization among the U.S public on climate change than on a perennially divisive issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Rather than a debate focussed on substance, climate change has become subject to identity politics and tribalism. The position you take on climate change is a significant part of what it means to be a Liberal or a Conservative today. Ideology is what motivates action.

As a result, there is virtually no appetite within the GOP for any initiative on climate change. In fact, the party is currently supporting a candidate who regards it as a Chinese hoax. Donald Trump has also vouched he would renege on the Paris agreement.

Such outlandishness is not confined to the Republican nominee, however. Many in the party continue to doubt the most basic facts about climate change. When Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma brought a snowball into the Senate as evidence against climate change, it was more a reflection of Republican positions than a caricature. In its stance, the GOP is somewhat of a unique case as the only major conservative party to reject climate change outright.

To that effect, realistic prospects for meaningful climate change legislation are strikingly low. Clinton is therefore likely to resort to the same sorts of measures the Obama administration grew increasingly fond of: executive orders. These can be quite effective in the short term. By contrast to legislation, executive orders can be implemented more quickly. To some extent, they also circumvent the multiple occasions in a legislative process on which lobbyists can influence the nature of a particular law.

The Obama administration’s signature executive order on climate change is the Clean Power Plan (CPP). It would require existing coal-fired power plants to reduce their emissions by 30 percent from their 2005 levels. Republicans have fought the CPP tooth and nail. The CPP has also faced legal challenges. In February, the Supreme Court issued a stay on the CPP, questioning whether the plan would require the Environmental Protection Agency to overstep its mandate. If the CPP survives, Clinton will support its implementation.

In terms of legislative initiatives, the Democratic nominee actually has some far-reaching policy ideas. Clinton has proposed to generate a third of electricity from renewable sources by 2027. By contrast, President Obama has suggested a figure of only 20 percent by 2030. In addition, Clinton wants to install 500 million solar panels by 2020, a significant increase over current installations. The campaign has also revealed a program called the Clean Energy Challenge, which would provide grants to states, cities, and communities to the tune of $60 billion over ten years. This is the backbone of her plan to make America “the world’s clean energy superpower”.

At least in policy terms, the Clinton campaign seems to take the issue seriously. Clinton’s rhetoric reflects as much. At an energy conference in 2014, she referred to climate change as “the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges” facing the United States. Confronted with a hostile Congress, it is unclear to what extent Clinton can implement any of these policies. Yet, she has suggested she will not wait for congressional approval that will never come.

There are also other avenues to pursue. After an initial refusal to commit herself, Clinton has recently shifted towards opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, an issue of particular salience among environmentalists. She has also become somewhat more critical of fracking, a method to extract natural gas that has led the U.S. to become the hub of the shale gas revolution. Clinton has proposed a range of conditions that would severely limit the number of sites at which the environmentally questionable procedure could be practiced.

The more aggressive stance on climate and sustainable energy issues suggests that Bernie Sanders’ success in the primaries—particularly on climate issues—has driven Clinton to the left. Compared to her first presidential run in 2008, she appears to have shifted her positions on a number of issues, including the federal minimum wage, trade, and Wall Street reform.

The same is true for climate and energy. However, the line of demarcation between her and Sanders remains clear. Leaked Clinton campaign emails suggest, for example, that the pursuit of a carbon tax policy was dropped after polling revealed its unpopularity.

A Democratic transition will likely leave a large chunk of the existing bureaucracy in place. One minor measure could be to give the Special Envoy for Climate Change cabinet status. Currently a position within the State Department, such a move could elevate climate change to a matter of national concern, at least within White House.

Where does this leave us? The immediate takeaway is that meaningful action is very unlikely. With legislative action not in the cards, a Clinton presidency will be confined to making a difference on the margins. While her campaign’s white papers indicate high ambitions in policy terms, political reality will not allow her the space to put those plans into action.

Clinton’s executive power is therefore limited to symbolic action falling short of what would be necessary to turn around U.S. climate policy. What matters more than the White House now are the results of down-ballot contests. If somehow Democrats were to capture the House, the calculation would change considerably.

In the event of divided government, climate change solutions will be left mostly to the market to figure out. In the sense that climate change is the result of a market failure itself, such policy status is dangerous. It also puts the U.S. at a disadvantage.

On the one hand, America is at the forefront of technological and business model innovation. Companies like Tesla and Solar City are developing cutting-edge products in the sustainable transport and battery storage sectors. On the other hand, policy innovation is at an all-time low, at least at the federal level. It is largely up to states like California to show what good policy can do.

Against this background, it remains extremely unlikely that Hillary Clinton can make U.S. climate policy great again. In a sense, this chimes with the general assessment of a Clinton presidency: evolution, not revolution.

The post Climate Change: What Would Hillary Clinton Do? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

North Korea’s provocative behavior has reached a new and unprecedented level after its last successful nuclear test on September 9th. In the last year, a new and dreadful level of activity has characterized Pyongyang’s provocations with two nuclear tests, an intercontinental ballistic test and countless submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) tests.

Since Kim Jong-un succeeded to its father in 2012, Pyongyang has consistently accelerated the acquisition of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities in order to fulfil the pursuit of the status of Nuclear Power Nation, as reaffirmed during last Korean Workers Party Congress in May.

While the U.S. and China strongly demand the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the end of the North Korean nuclear program and the resume of the Sixth Party Talks, there are evident signals that Pyongyang is determined to increase its military provocations as shown by the recent failed Musudan missile test on October 16th, recently reported by the United States Strategic Command.

Yet, the fast-paced level of technical sophistication in the acquisition, potential miniaturization and range-expansion of the nuclear warheads remains the biggest threats to South Korea and Japan, considered as primary targets. The U.N. Security Council remains adamant in condemning any additional transgressions of the nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, deploring all the grave violations of the previous resolutions against North Korea.

Despite the efforts of the international community to implement the economic sanctions against North Korea, Pyongyang remains determined to pursue the acquisition of nuclear weapons as main tool for regime survival, threatening the fragile balance in the Korean peninsula. The two Koreas remain technically at war, despite an armistice the 1953’s armistice, which ensured de facto the cessation of the hostilities.

Japan and South Korea are the most strategically valuable U.S. allies in the region, but also the most exposed to the threat of military retaliation from Pyongyang. While Obama Administration has emphasized its commitment in preventing Pyongyang’s full acquisition of military and nuclear capabilities, concerns over the limited results achieved by the strategic patience approach has surely affected Japan and South Korea’s perception of Washington’s recalibrating role in the region.

Earlier this year, President Park responded to Pyongyang’s escalating missile and nuclear threat with a new and more hawkish policy towards North Korea, characterized by abandoning the path of dialogue and negotiation while relying more and more on a robust deterrence and defense capabilities such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

Japan under Abe Administration has increasingly responded to the severe shifts in the regional and international scenario, embarking on a wide reform of its security posture that fostered a debate over the opportunity for marked amendments of Japan’s post-war Constitution.

Currently, Japan is expanding its engagement in promoting a new and more pragmatic role aside Washington through a proactive contribution to peace, while abiding by the commitment of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

On August 3rd, North Korea fired an intermediate-range Rodong missile that fell in the Sea of Japan, 250 km from the coast and within Japan’s Economic Exclusive Zone. Japan’s concern about the surrounding security environment and the threat posed by Pyongyang’s dreadful provocations has certainly affected the decision of Japan’s political elites to accommodate unresolved issues with South Korea in favor of a closer strategic engagement.

Japan and South Korea recognize the pivotal role of Washington as a military patron and strong supporter of a more dynamic strategic trilateral pact, able to expand the level of cooperation between Japan and South Korea. Yet, for long time their relations have been strained by a large number of tensions such as territorial disputes and the heavy legacy of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Army during the occupation of Korea.

For these reasons Seoul and Tokyo have never managed to establish a shared framework for bilateral military cooperation. Yet, North Korea’s growing military capabilities and its slow but unrelenting desire to acquire a more threatening nuclear weapon arsenal have persuaded Japan and South Korea to increase the level of pressure on Pyongyang.

Japan and South Korea have recognized the importance of establishing a new framework for regional cooperation and dialogue as stressed by South Korean Ministry of Defense.

Recently, Seoul has announced its willingness to establish with Tokyo a new framework for intelligence-sharing cooperation while increasing the exchange of data on North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities as part of the trilateral pact signed in 2014.

This could be the first step in resuming the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) proposed in 2012 through the mediation of Washington and later cancelled.

A deal following the model of the GSOMIA, not only would represent a critical breakthrough in the relations between Japan and South Korea, but it would also provide a critical tool to expand the exchange of intelligence about Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile capabilities, cyber-security and other unconventional threats.

Japan and South Korea have made important progress in solving the issue of the comfort women, ultimate legacy of Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule. Seoul traditionally reluctant to engage with Japan has moved to a more pragmatic position as highlighted by South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-Koo on October 14.

Moreover, once the deal is approved, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces could be deployed in supporting activities of the U.S. troops as in patrolling operations, but also assisting Washington in the event of an armed conflict, fulfilling the right of the collective Self-Defense.

The perception of Pyongyang’s nuclear threat has been one of the most critical elements of alteration of the strategic balance in the region. In the last few months, North Korea missile tests have accelerated the decision of Seoul to deploy the THAAD system creating a diplomatic fracture in the renewed entente with China.

Japan has also announced the upgrading of its missile defense capabilities in the aftermath of Pyongyang’s recent nuclear test and following the example of South Korea, it might decide to acquire a THAAD or Aegis Ashore system to boost its deterrence capabilities.

Indeed, fostering the creation of a solid trilateral security cooperation would represent an important asset for Washington’s regional strategic agenda, but also a critical starting point for the expansion of a proactive security engagement across the Asia-Pacific region at the expenses of Beijing.

While China agrees on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the emergence of a strong trilateral security cooperation pact would seriously compromise Beijing’s influence and strategic interest not only in the Korean peninsula but also in the whole region, alimenting a new phase of harsh confrontation with Washington and its allies.

For Japan, the growing perception of isolation and vulnerability vis-à-vis the North Korea’s threat, still characterized by a vibrant anti-Japanese sentiment and the fast-paced China’s military modernization, has represented a critical element for the success of the ambitious Abe Administration’s security agenda.

While a part of the society still opposes to a marked departure from Japan’s reluctant realism, the renewed military engagement pursued by Tokyo could be seen as one pillar of an integrated strategy of cooperation with Washington and Seoul, dramatically concerned about the evolution of the security scenario in the Korean peninsula.

Of course much depends on the willingness of the future administration to resume and expand the strategic commitments in the region that have characterized Obama Administration’s agenda.

Both Japan and South Korea political elites remain wary over the possibility of abandonment in lieu of the presidential candidate Donald Trump’s grand strategy, calling for a disengagement of the U.S. military presence from the region.

In Seoul, policymakers of the ruling Saenuri party have openly discussed not only the development of an indigenous nuclear weapon program, but also of the possibility of pre-emptive strikes on North Korean facilities, jeopardizing Obama Administration’s vision for a denuclearized Korean peninsula.

Boosting deterrence has become one of the most critical issues within South Korean government and plans for developing a nuclear submarine as the ultimate tool to deter Pyongyang’s nuclear threat, have been taken into serious consideration.

Facing nuclear annihilation as often stressed by North Korean bellicose rhetoric, South Korean political elites and defense officials have shown interest in designing plans for the elimination of the North Korean leadership with surgical strikes as ultimate solution to the dreadful nuclear threat represented by Pyongyang.

An unprecedented strategic cooperation between Japan and South Korea is the direct consequence of a phase of recalibration of Washington’s engagement in the Asia-Pacific region as the end of Obama Administration approaches.

In dealing with Pyongyang, very limited results have been obtained in persuading its recalcitrant leadership to comply with norms and regulations of the international community, leaving Japan and South Korea in a difficult position to respond effectively to the emerging nuclear crisis fuelled by North Korea’s threatening behavior.

A strong security cooperation could be a critical tool for both countries to address the emerging strategic issues on the regional scenario. Yet its success might depend also on next administration’s decision to follow the path marked by President Obama towards the fulfillment of Washington’s Pacific Century, rather than embracing a new strategic orientation.

The post Japan and South Korea: Towards a Closer Security Cooperation appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

He drafted something in 1776.

In 2016, “I can’t wait for this election to be over” has become an American mantra. But the “cultural civil war […] will not go away”  Our polarized political camps have long demeaned each other; the ever-rising rancor alienates everyday citizens and exacerbates social dysfunction. We risk portraying a free society as unsustainable, at a time when our political system is losing ground to “state-directed corporatism that seems to be delivering much higher growth and much better leaders.”

America must break the vicious cycle of politics. The first step is for Americans to find instinctive grounds for common trust. In foreign policy, a nation acts as a singular entity; citizens feel their identity reflected, or tainted, in this national conduct. Today our discourse projects our dysfunction, to the world and to ourselves. Reversing the extension of internal politics into foreign policy will soften the divisions and project our values.

During the Cold War, the nonpartisan doctrine of containing the USSR filtered the effect of political differences. Regardless of partisan issues, the basic mission of foreign policy stood. Even debate over the mission revolved around Containment’s theme. It was a reasonable theme: Soviet ideology called for our demise, they could destroy us physically, and they opposed our interests in every way. It offered the contrasting image of America’s virtues. Now U.S. policy has no filter and offers no such image.

When you are lost, your best response is to trace back to first reference points.

In post-modernity’s global swirl, new channels of communication voice so many views, and cite so many rationales, to so many whose horizons were highly limited until very recently, that sense itself is difficult to establish. Orientation cannot come from organization charts, or any multi-point written rubric. Any static roadmap risks sudden obsolescence. Rather, orientation needs a first reference point and an adaptive process to check bearings by it.

America has that reference point, in the written creed of the Declaration of Independence. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” verges on cliche. But having created a nation on abstract principle, eschewing ethnicity, tradition, or church, the creed is substantive and revolutionary. Stipulating that government exists to secure those rights both supports the ideal by confining rulers to this role, and shows that the creed is realistic as well as idealistic.

These terms define the nation, committing us to foster and protect freedom’s conditions in our life, and to observe the creed in our choices. Keeping that commitment is essential to America’s legitimacy—the core of national interest.

A “zero-based” focus on that principle can generate a process to carry it into policy. As people animate any decision process and policy institution, it is through people, embedded in institutional practice, that America’s creed can become policy doctrine.

The best way to effect this animation will be to charge the corps of U.S. diplomats to know the terms, nuances, and applications of the Declaration’s founding creed. The State Department has a seat at all the interagency processes on international relations, and is not defined by particular sectors, as are, for example, Agriculture or Labor.

Our diplomats are in position to inject America’s principles into policy formation. Given deep fluency in America’s founding tenets and their implications, diplomats also can deploy the worldly knowledge gained from their foreign postings, not as the voice of foreigners’ interests, but as professionals, expert in projection of America’s nature.

A professional body, expert in the principles of the Declaration, under the authority of the nation’s elected leaders, should be formed as a parallel to the professional body of military experts. Rigorous steeping in the art of applying our abstract principles will require a thoughtfully constructed training regimen. The regimen must also impart an education in diplomatic practice, economics, history, international relations, cultures, and military affairs. Formation must also ground the diplomat in the realities of American life.

Successfully implemented, it will create an institution that all Americans can trust to represent our values. This should ease the political outsider’s alienation, and offer basic guidance to the policy insider. It will portray America’s values to the world, and showcase the value of rights.

The post On Foreign Policy, and Fixing Political Dysfunction appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Representatives of the founding nations of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) applaud as Chinese President Xi Jinping unveils a sculpture during the opening ceremony of the AIIB in Beijing. (AP/PTI)

The Philippines has grabbed headlines worldwide recently with its rapid foreign policy shift announcement and subsequent balancing act between the U.S. and China. Reasons given for the shift include Filipino unease with U.S. criticism over its domestic, anti-drug campaign (political), as well as the Philippines’ discomfort with U.S. ambiguity with respect to actual U.S. treaty obligations to firmly defend Filipino interests in the South China sea (military). However, an economic factor may have played the largest role in the shift as the Philippines has a hunger for more infrastructure investment, which China’s OBOR initiative and AIIB both look set to satisfy.

The Philippines has just put the world on notice that, henceforth, it desires to be treated as a sovereign entity and with the same respect as its treaty ally, the U.S.. Whether the Philippines’ grievance that the U.S. has actually taken it for granted in the past is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Philippines apparently perceives this to be the truth.

This policy shift is emblematic of the quickened pace of geopolitics since the end of the Cold War and the onset of globalization. These factors, combined with the realization by all countries that a firm economic footing forms the foundation for future prosperity, has shifted the balance somewhat towards “swing” powers in their dealings with the U.S., China, and Russia. Several of these powers, notably the Philippines and Vietnam, are paying homage to India’s traditional non-aligned stance, both during and after the Cold War.

This homage takes the form of a more multi-vectored foreign policy strategy and will increasingly be a more powerful tool in the tool belts of various Asian middle powers. As U.S.-Russia and U.S.-China hostilities increase globally, this new foreign policy orientation will eventually allow middle powers maximum room for maneuverability between the major powers. Partners and allies alike of the U.S., China, and Russia will all be asking their interlocutors, “What concrete economic benefits (if any) are you offering which I can take back home and further enhance my own domestic legitimacy?”.

With respect to East Asia, both the U.S. and Russia are at an economic disadvantage compared to China, the leading trading partner for most states in the region. This makes it imperative for the U.S., especially, to have TPP ratified and come into effect. This would truly signal to China, as well as the regional states, that the U.S.’ re-balance to Asia indeed has a strong economic, and not just military, component.

Additionally, it’s hoped that TPP passage would eventually strengthen U.S. economic ties to East Asia, reinvigorating its own economy in the process. However, it has been argued that scaled-down U.S. economic cooperation with several regional states due to human rights concerns actually has given a geopolitical opening to China. Because of this, Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia may eventually follow the Philippines’ example and formulate a more balanced foreign policy approach between the U.S. and China.

East Asia, however, is only one component in a much larger game played by several powers to unite the entirety of Asia (in some cases with Europe and Africa as well) economically. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has recently unveiled a program detailing several competing visions of “reconnecting Asia” through infrastructure and energy development sponsored by various states.

These visions not only encompass China’s OBOR and AIIB initiatives and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), but plans offered by India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey as well. The ambitious scale of these plans (particularly by U.S. treaty allies Japan, South Korea, and Turkey) and the increased popularity of multi-vector foreign policies combine to serve as a warning to the U.S. to either up its economic game in Asia or risk losing even more pieces on the Asian geopolitical chessboard.

Video courtesy of CCTV English

The post Rift with Philippines Highlights Economics as Key to U.S.-China Rivalry appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Across the Middle East, refugees, IDPs, and indigenous religious minorities remain at considerable risk.  The U.S. presidential election has not addressed any of these concerns, from humanitarian or geostrategic perspectives. But the new U.S. president will have to.

Military operations in northern Iraq against ISIS’s control of Mosul bring to fore the question of Iraqi Christians and other religious minorities in Syria and Iraq. The importance of these questions remained invisible in the U.S. presidential and vice-presidential debates.

The 2016 U.S. elections process has been dominated by personalities, not by issues. Donald Trump emerged as the Republican nominee by exaggeration and personal attack on his rivals—”low-energy” Jeb Bush, “Little Marco” Rubio, and so on. Trump continued this line of attack on the Democratic nominee, “Crooked Hillary” Clinton, directing attention to her at-home email server, hiding of alleged health issues, and non-progressive governments who donated to the Clinton Foundation.

Former Secretary of State Clinton has directed her attacks on his failure to release his tax returns, his apparent exemption from paying federal taxes, and his disrespect for immigrants, minorities, and women—recently illustrated by release of a crude audio recording and allegations of unwanted sexual touching by more than 10 women.

Mr. Trump has made elements of foreign policy central to his campaign. Build a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants, and deport illegal immigrants. Tighten immigration restrictions from countries with large Muslim populations, to reduce the risk of terrorism. Renegotiate trade deals—including NAFTA, with two of the U.S.’s largest trade partners. Expect more burden-sharing from U.S. allies. Respect Putin. Reject the Iran deal that intends to trade sanctions relief for promises to defer a nuclear weapons program. Defeat ISIS.  Secretary Clinton, naturally, opposes most of these goals, or has an opposite strategy to achieve them.

In the three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate, though, which included discussions of ISIS, Islam, oil, terrorism, and immigration, candidates never got to the subject of protecting religious minorities in the Middle East (or elsewhere, for that matter). When they were asked specifically in the second debate about the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, neither discussed it all.

These issues are being debated outside the presidential race, though.  Earlier this year, the Vatican sponsored and three-day meeting on religious persecution at the United Nations in New York. This spring, the White House and both houses of Congress proclaimed ISIS activities as genocide against religious minority groups.  Secretary of State John Kerry stated that “Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by its actions.” In May, the House passed amendments to the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act in support of local defense by Christians and others against ISIS. In September, more than 50 members of Congress spoke at the third annual In Defense of Christians (IDC) conference.

The IDC conference focused on issues like support for Lebanon and the 1.5 million refugees it hosts, Congressional resolutions in support of Iraqi and Syrian religious minorities, and the fate of Coptic Christians in Egypt. But it also raised a question that will be difficult for the next president: what Iraq should look like.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R.-Neb.) introduced House Concurrent Resolution 152, supporting an autonomous Nineveh Plain Province for Christians and other minorities. This is the region from which the Iraqi Army and the Kurdistan Region’s peshmerga, with U.S. and allied support, are currently attempting to drive out ISIS. American diaspora groups like the American Mesopotamian Organization have been promoting this for some time, building not only political support in Congress but also creating the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU), to fight ISIS in northern Iraq.

The difficulty for the next president will be how to approach the Iraqi Government, Kurdistan Region, and American diaspora after the liberation of Mosul and defeat of ISIS, at least in Iraq. The Kurdistan Region (KR) hosts about 1.8 million refugees from Syria and IDPs from the rest of Iraq, including many Christians, Yezidis, Turcoman, Kakai, and other religious minorities. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has protected many Christian interests in northern Iraq, but also has been criticized by Assyrian Christian/Nineveh Plain diaspora. The next president will have to answer:

Should the U.S. support independence initiatives from the KRG? The KRG has governed territory outside of its three constitutional provinces, including in the Nineveh Plain, since even before ISIS’s attack in 2014—what territories, if any, might the U.S. acknowledge as part of a Kurdish independence declaration? If necessary, should the U.S. be prepared to militarily support the peshmerga from the Iraqi Army? Turkey and Iran each have Kurdish populations of their own; how Ankara and Tehran react will matter intensely.  Syria’s Kurds get rolled into this chess game as well.

In Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, refugees, IDPs, and indigenous religious minorities remain at considerable risk.  The U.S. presidential election has not addressed any of these concerns, from humanitarian, human rights, or geostrategic perspectives. But the new U.S. president will have to.

See also the author’s earlier post on indigenous Christian militias in he Nineveh Province, Jan 2015.

The post Middle East Christians and the 2016 U.S. Elections appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Off the coast of Vietnam, an ocean farmer monitors Barramundi fish in an offshore net pen, where the fish are allowed to swim freely at low densities. With financing from OPIC, Australis Aquaculture LLC expanded operations to Van Phong Bay, Vietnam where it operates the world’s largest Barramundi farm, specializing in sustainable and eco-friendly aquaculture and employs one hundred local workers. (OPIC)

Many developed and developing country governments offer development assistance and loans to lesser developed countries for a variety of reasons, including efforts to win business opportunities for their national companies, to advance foreign policy goals, and for altruistic reasons. In recent years, Chinese offers of developmental assistance have drawn the most attention, not only due to their size and potential for environmental hazard, but also for their potential to influence foreign policy.  

One recent example of this influence concerns the Philippines, where Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has decided to put aside his country’s favorable ruling on July 12 from The Hague over competing maritime claims in the South China Sea, or West Philippine Sea. Duterte’s decision to set aside the ruling, and criticize the Americans, has obviously been welcomed by Beijing. He recently returned from Beijing with an entourage of Filipino businessmen, coming away with some $24 billion of promised developmental aid and loans from China.  

Some analysts argue Vietnam may be the next Southeast Asian nation with competing claims in the South China Sea to move closer to Beijing. While not a formal treaty ally of the U.S., Vietnam has welcomed Washington’s intervention in the South China Sea, or East Sea as it is referred to here in Vietnam.

Ties between the two countries have grown under the Obama Administration, and have led to joint military exercises, cooperation on dioxin removal, the full lifting of the lethal arms embargo during Obama’s visit in May, and a port of call by two U.S. warships to the historic and strategic Cam Ranh Bay earlier this month—following a 21-year absence. All of this growing interaction is a result of Washington’s “pivot to Asia”, announced by Obama and implemented by his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton from 2009-2013.

Of course, this pivot is part business, foreign policy and philanthropy, and one of the best tools the Obama Administration has to advance the pivot is the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). As the U.S. Government’s development finance institution, the independent agency “mobilizes private capital to help address critical development challenges and in doing so, advances U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities”. Established in 1971, OPIC provides investors with financing, political risk insurance, and support for private equity investment funds, and operates on a self-sustaining basis at no net cost to American taxpayers.

Given the uncertainty created by Duterte over the strength of Washington’s pivot to the Philippines, a visit on October 25 to Ho Chi Minh City by OPIC officials was a timely reminder of the two countries growing bonds. Leading the delegation was Elizabeth L. Littlefield, president and CEO of OPIC, who announced the agency will seek to work with Vietnam’s private sector to provide a potential $500 million worth of financial assistance to Vietnamese projects over the next three years. While Littlefield acknowledged little investment by OPIC to date in Vietnam, she said U.S. investors were particularly interested in commercially-viable renewable energy, agriculture, and information technology projects which contribute to Vietnam’s development.

Finding these commercially viable projects, especially in renewable energy space where the feed-in-tariffs (a set price guaranteed by the utility) are not yet commercially attractive, will be the challenge for U.S. investors, OPIC and the Vietnamese private sector. And most of the $12.3 billion of foreign direct investment in Vietnam is currently earmarked for the processing and manufacturing sectors.

However, the mere offer of substantial assistance will go a long way in helping cement the bilateral relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, and will help reassure Hanoi that Washington will not be pivoting away from the region—despite worries in the region over the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and how the next American president will choose to engage (or disengage) with the region.

The post U.S. Pivot to Asia Still Strong in Vietnam appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Smoke rises during an air strike on a mountain overlooking Yemen’s capital Sanaa(REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah)

Saudi Arabia has long been accused of needlessly hitting civilian targets during its air campaign in neighboring Yemen. Most commentators have put this down to a mixture of indifference and military incompetence on the part of the Saudi armed forces.

Their capabilities against hardened fighters like the rebel Houthis were long questioned by outside observers before the Kingdom intervened in its neighbor early last year.

While the southern theatre of a large war games exercise held in 2014 featured fighting against Yemeni Shi’a rebels suggests that the Kingdom had established practical contingency plans ahead of its attack on the Houthi movement in March 2015, the Saudi coalition and their Yemeni allies have indeed proved unable to overcome the rebels.

The futile conflict has already resulted in 10,000 dead, including an estimated 4,000 civilians, while the United Nations estimates that 80% of the Yemeni population is now in need of humanitarian assistance.

But now academics from the London School of Economics, who have been working in Beirut on data from the Yemen Data Project and statistics from the Yemeni agriculture ministry, have pointed to a grim possibility about the Saudi-led airstrikes which have been battering their southern neighbor. According to a report in the Independent newspaper the air campaign has deliberately sought to undermine Yemen’s undeveloped agricultural sector in a country where more than half the population relies, in part or in whole, on agriculture and rural husbandry to survive.

The $250 million a month cost of the war effort and an oil slump have caused a hole in Saudi Arabia’s finances and created pressure on the Saudi monarchy to declare a quick victory and return home. But with the war at a stalemate the Kingdom’s military planners may be looking beyond withdrawal to creating a situation in post-war Yemen that gives them the strongest hand in the peace negotiations to come.

Riyadh has always considered Yemen to be in its backyard, and insisted that foreign countries, including the United States, follow the Saudi lead when making deals with its troublesome neighbor. Former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh was a key ally for years until his overthrow in the Arab Spring, though for now he is now fighting alongside the Houthis. But before Yemen’s fragile political order began to breakdown earlier this decade Saudi money did much to keep the country’s distorted economy afloat with subsidies.

The suspicion now is that Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are deliberately destroying the foundations of rural life in Yemen so that whoever takes over at the end of the war finds their country faces a total reliance on food imports, the bulk of which presently come through the Gulf states. This seems part of an emerging Saudi strategy of economic warfare against the Houthis to increase the Kingdom’s leverage over its Houthi enemies, but which directly threatens a humanitarian catastrophe in the Arab world’s poorest country.

The influence welded by the Kingdom behind the scenes initially allowed it to escape much open international condemnation over the issue of its human rights violations in the Yemeni civil war. But a recent massacre of mourners at the funeral of a top Houthi leader by coalition airplanes was probably what prompted a sudden wave of missile attacks by Houthi forces against ships in the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a major shipping lane between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The Gulf of Aden leads into the Indian Ocean and traffic along this trade route ultimately connects the Gulf region and Asia to Europe and North America through the Suez Canal. Any disruption to the passage of international shipping along it carries massive financial implications for logistics and insurance companies involved in the maritime sector, not to mention the fragile global economy.

The attack on the funeral and the Houthi response, which also included failed strikes on US naval vessels, therefore pushed the war and the Saudi handling of it abruptly back into global headlines. The unwelcome gaze of the international media may cause the Saudis to moderate their behavior while the attention lasts but it is unlikely to sway them from their aim of subordinating their southern neighbor back under Saudi hegemony.

Calls are now being made for the U.S. to increase its involvement in the conflict with the objective of bringing about a political solution that favors Saudi Arabia’s interests. While they are unlikely to be heeded by the outgoing Obama administration, the Saudis know that the president’s successor may be keener to listen. Even Obama has studiously avoided pressing the Saudis too hard on their actions in Yemen, whilst speeding up arms sales to the Kingdom and its Gulf allies.

But the U.S. and the UK should instead reconsider their unwise involvement on the Saudi side of this unnecessary conflict. As long as they back Saudi actions in Yemen, and supply the Kingdom’s forces there, these two Western countries are undermining their own credibility whenever they condemn war crimes in conflicts elsewhere. The Russian and Iranian backers of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad now have an example of hypocrisy they can point to whenever Western critics of the Syrian regime call out its nasty habit of starving besieged rebel areas of food aid for example.

The upcoming change in American administrations provides a key chance for a policy reset however. Whoever becomes the next U.S. president should review America’s current joint military operations with Saudi Arabia and cut off those related to its war in Yemen. They should also encourage the UK government to reconsider its support for the Saudi adventure and stop enabling the Saudis by supplying them with intelligence, arms and ammunition. This will likely enrage Riyadh but by putting an additional burden on the Saudi economy America will probably speed up the day the Saudi government realizes it can no longer afford to try and bomb its smaller neighbor into submission.

This article was originally published on Professor Juan Cole’s blog Informed Comment and reappears here with kind permission.

The post Why is Saudi Arabia Targeting Yemen’s Future? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The Global Gender Gap Index examines differences between men and women in four fundamental categories: Economic Participation and Opportunity; Educational Attainment; Health and Survival; and Political Empowerment. (World Economic Forum)

The Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum ranks countries according to how well they are leveraging their female talent pool, based on economic, educational, health-based, and political indicators.

The latest Report provides a comprehensive overview of the current performance and progress over the last decade. The direction of change within countries from 2006 to the present day has been largely positive, but not universally so. Of the 109 countries that have been continuously covered in the Report, 103 have narrowed their gender gaps, but another 6 have seen prospects for women deteriorate: Sri Lanka, Mali, Croatia, Slovakia, Jordan, and Iran.

It goes without saying that gender equality is fundamental to whether and how societies thrive. Figures 31-33 (pages 38-39) in the Report confirm a correlation between gender equality and GDP per capita, the level of competitiveness, and human development. But when economists speak of the ‘gender gap,’ they usually refer to systematic differences in the outcomes that men and women achieve in the labor market. These are all economic gender gaps: differences in the percentages of men and women in the labor force, the types of occupations they choose, and their relative incomes or hourly wages.

Since the release of the first Report in 2006, an extra quarter of a billion women have entered the global workforce. But wage inequality persists with women only now earning what men did a decade ago! With the economic gap closing by just 3%, this suggests, according to the Report, that it will take another 118 years to close this gap completely.

So here is the dilemma: women are catching up with men on the educational front (if not becoming better educated than men in many fields), yet, they still on average earn less than men and are much less represented in the top deciles of the overall distribution of earnings.

The next research topics should focus on the policy means of narrowing the economic gender gap. If, as is likely, women will continue to take time off from work to care of children, that would continue to reduce both their average earnings relative to men and their representation in the top of the earnings distribution. Still, even if the average hourly earnings of women reached parity or surpassed that of men, it is unlikely (even without discrimination against women) that they will be as represented as men at the top of the earnings distribution, for while combining household with market activities hurts average earnings, it is a really strong hindrance to having enough time to make the utmost commitment to work and the needed investment in their human capital.

I totally understand the vital role of the other 3 sub-indexes of the World Economic Forum’s index (political empowerment, health, and education), but the gender gap that should get most of our attention is the economic one. The narrowing of the gender gap in recent years has taken place in an environment of sharply rising wage inequality. This will not solve our paradox: It is true that women have entered the labor market in unprecedented numbers, yet half of our global population still earns less than men and have fewer opportunities for advancement.

According to the literature, observable factors that affect pay (such as education, job experience, hours of work, and so on) explain no more than 50% of the wage gap. The most recent studies, as reported in a review by economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn, found that the fraction explained is now even lower, about 33%. The reason is that the decrease in the gender gap in earnings was largely due to an increase in the productive attributes of women relative to men. The remainder of the gap (termed in the economic jargon as the “residual”) is the part that cannot be explained by observable factors. This residual could result from workers’ choices or, alternatively, from economic discrimination. Surprisingly, the differing occupations of men and women explain only 10–33% of the difference in male and female earnings. The rest is due to differences within occupations, and part of that is due to the observable factors.

It is true that discrimination has declined, but occupational disparities between men and women persist, suggesting that we should be looking for causes that are unrelated to discrimination (such as occupational choice and family responsibilities) as well as those that are related.

Seldom are the data sufficiently detailed to permit comparisons of women and men who are the same on all the variables that matter, but the more detailed the data (on the wage structure and occupational segregation), the better our aspirations for reducing the overall global gender gap. This should be the future research topic of the World Economic Forum and other international organizations, think tanks, governments, NGOs, and the private sector.

The post Minding the Global Gender Gap appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) shows the way to Rodrigo Duterte at a signing ceremony. (Associated Press)

In the past week China has seen potentially groundbreaking developments in internal and external politics. The visit of incendiary Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte could signal a shift in regional alliances. And the ruling Communist Party has looked to solidify its grip on power and support by showing its commitment to cracking down on government corruption.

On a state visit to Beijing on Oct. 20, 2016, President Duterte of the Philippines grabbed a lot of headlines on the international stage by declaring “a separation from the United States.” He also “repeatedly sought to distance the Philippines from the United States, a treaty ally.” Based on this and previous statements, some believe that Duterte intends to diminish his country’s long-standing military cooperation with the U.S.

But despite Duterte’s bluster, the extent to which he will actually go in breaking ties with one of its most important military partners is unknown (Jane Perlez of the New York Times characterized the Philippine army on its own as “underequipped and poorly trained”). For more on the potential military impact of Duterte’s threats and potential explanation for why he made them, you can read Gary Sands’ recent FPA blog post here.

In addition to rankling some officials in the U.S., Duterte’s visit could also signal a closer alliance between the Philippines and China. Such a shift could have major repercussions on the power balance in east Asia. On the same day as his “separation” comments, Duterte and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping agreed to resume negotiations over the disputed South China Sea. This prospect opens the door for de-escalation of hostilities in the hotly contested waterway, as well as a warming of relations between the 2 countries. But…very few details were offered on when the talks would start or what they would encompass.

Xi and Duterte did announce last Thursday that they would establish a joint coast guard committee on maritime cooperation. This could be an extremely important development as Chinese Coast Guard ships have been blocking Philippine boats from a key fishing area of the South China Sea after China claimed the area in 2012. China also pledged to assist the Philippines in developing aquaculture and commercial fish processing, issues previously highlighted by Duterte.

Beyond the South China Sea, Chinese leader Xi agreed to increase infrastructure investment in the Philippines by $24 billion, lift embargoes on certain food imports, and remove a travel advisory to try to encourage tourism exchange.

What’s more, other countries in the region are eyeing Duterte’s overtures towards China. As a result, some analysts believe neighboring Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam may begin to draw closer alliances with China. On Oct. 24, 2016, Perlez notes that “China may have started a strategic realignment in Southeast Asia by bringing an important American ally [the Philippines] to its side.”

However it is important to remember that Duterte’s shocking apparent success on his China visit does not ensure real cooperation.  According to Trinh Nguyen, an economist specializing in the Asian Pacific region at Natixis Bank, “Pledges do not necessarily translate into realized foreign direct investment for the Philippines.” Certainly both sides saw the opportunity to gain political points at home and abroad on Duterte’s visit. Thus it appears the real-world, measurable impact of newly positive China-Philippines remains to be seen.

While China seeks new partnerships with its neighbors, the ruling Communist Party is renewing its efforts to stomp out political corruption at home. As Premier Xi begins a second five-year term, he has taken steps to show the Chinese people that graft and other illegal acts by government officials are not acceptable. The state-controlled TV station is even currently airing a documentary series showing disgraced former officials lamenting their bad choices and repenting their misdeeds. “I became possessed and lost my head,” says Bai Enpei, a former Communist Party secretary convicted of taking bribes of nearly $38 million.

The show details the lavish lifestyle of these officials—one of whom detailed his courtship by business executives with dinners featuring crocodile meat—as well as their falls from grace. Xi is presented as the hero swooping in to clean up the immoral acts, the only clean (literally and figuratively) party leader seen in the documentary.

Tighter control over the party will be reinforced this week at the Central Committee annual meeting. Premier Xi is expected to introduce new regulations regarding “comprehensive and strict management” of party affairs. This should expand on the power and influence of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the anti-corruption task force headed by one of Xi’s closest allies. This group has recently begun to act with larger impunity as they aim to reinforce loyalty to the party and to Xi. It has the power to detain government officials in secret without needing court approval.

Are more countries in Asia setting in motion a shift in alliances away from the west and towards China? It is really too early to tell. But it will be important to monitor developments, and to see how far Duterte is really willing to go in alienating the Philippines from the U.S. All of his shocking commentary may end up being much ado about nothing. And while reducing corruption is never bad, the methods employed by the Chinese government are concerning.

Both situations will be worth watching.

The post Welcoming Neighbors and Cleaning its House: China’s Interesting Week appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Trump tweeted out this picture of Hillary Clinton, surrounded by money and accompanied by a Jewish star.

Donald Trump is a master gaslighter. He takes things said about him and tries to convince us that the flaw in question actually applies not to him but rather to his opponents or detractors.

When he was caught on tape bragging about disrespecting women (and worse)—he told the world that no one (NO ONE!) has more respect for women than he does.

He distanced himself from his role as a leader in the Obama birther movement, (a role which he claimed previously he is proud to have served) only to later claim it was Hillary Clinton who had started the movement in the first place (she did not).

In the last debate of this presidential cycle, Clinton referred to Trump as a puppet for Putin. He disagreed but—because this is Donald Trump—he also responded, “you’re the puppet.” Which makes no sense—the interaction came after Trump pointed at Clinton and stated, “Putin, from everything I see, has no respect for this person”—but this is 2016. So anything goes.

This election cycle is full of additional examples. If something nasty or distasteful is said about Trump, he will happily turn it around to make a similar claim against his accusers. “I know you are, but what am I.”

Trump has also surrounded himself with staff and advisers just as adept at such manipulation. Kellyanne Conway, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Mike Pence and Rudy Giuliani, each in their own way, can take any claim about Trump and readily turn it around on the Clintons, the media, the liberals, or whoever else might be deemed relevant to the conversation.

This week, David Friedman, a Trump Israel adviser, made headlines when he dismissed the idea that anti-Semitism existed amongst Trump’s supporters. He insisted though that there IS actually “anti-Semitic sentiment among Clinton’s supporters.” That’s some Trump-level gaslighting right there!

Are there anti-Semitic Clinton supporters? Of course. When you are talking about tens of millions of people, there are going to be those who hate the Jews. It’s just a way of the world sadly.

But they and their bile are not embraced or welcomed by any respectable person in the Clinton campaign or the Democratic party.

Trump, on the other hand, retweets statements by known anti-Semites to his millions of Twitter followers!

Blatantly anti-Semitic tweets and accounts have been promoted by a top Trump foreign policy advisor, a senior advisor, one of his sons, and of course Trump himself.

And that is just some of the abject anti-Semitism coming from the candidate and his senior advisors… on Twitter. His campaign is of course much bigger than a single social media platform.

Recently Trump stated, “Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors.”

Per Cheryl Greenberg in the Washington Post: “These are old canards straight out of the phony ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ conspiracy theories about wealthy, international Jewish bankers plotting to destroy the nation and take over the world, controlling politicians with their wealth or through the power of the media that they dominate.”

There are some who wonder if Trump actually realizes that language like this is anti-Semitic. After all, his daughter converted to Judaism; she and Trump’s son-in-law are observant Jews and are raising Jewish children. Trump not understanding the weight of his words is horrifying in its own right for a man who could become president. But his ignorance (if given the benefit of the doubt that he is not actually an anti-Semite himself) also raises questions about who he has empowered to run his campaign.

Trump appointed Stephen Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News, to serve as CEO and to help run the final months of the campaign. This is a man with a troubling record. Bannon’s wife stated in court that, when choosing a school for their twin daughters, her husband  “said that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.” As recently as a few weeks ago, Beitbart News published an article that was an openly anti-Semitic attack against a Washington Post columnist.

Although he has (clumsily) stated he does not want it, Trump has the support of David Duke and numerous other white supremacist organizations.

He has retweeted Mussolini.

When Trump supports got mad at a reporter for writing an unflattering article about Melania, someone created a photoshopped image that made it look like the journalist was in a concentration camp and the image was widely shared within Trump supporter online communities. When asked about it, Trump could (and should!) have outright condemned it. Instead, he shrugged it off. “You’ll have to talk to them about it.” When Melania was asked for comment, she responded: “I don’t control my fans. But I don’t agree with what they’re doing. I understand what you mean, but there are people out there who maybe went too far. [The journalist] provoked them.”

Trump’s primary slogan of course is Make America Great Again. But he also routinely promises to put “America First.” America First was a WWII-era “isolationist, defeatist, anti-Semitic national organization that urged the US to appease Adolf Hitler.”

Trump supporters have even co-opted a cartoon frog named Pepe, imbuing it with horribly racist and anti-Semitic connotations. If you see this particular cartoon frog on social media, be warned. There’s an anti-Semite on the other end of that account.

This week, Trump and Pence addressed a crowd in Israel via video to try and get out the vote amongst the several hundred thousand American Jews currently living in Israel. The event was hosted by Republicans Overseas – Israel. They sold tickets to the event, highlighting a video from Trump. Trump’s remarks, clocking in at just 59 seconds, opened with him saying “I love Israel” and closed with him saying that “together, we will make America and Israel safe again.”

In the past, Israelis have tended to prefer Republican presidents: supporting Romney over Obama 57% to 22% and McCain over Obama 46.4% to 34%.

But not this time: Clinton is currently trouncing Trump amongst Israelis by an almost 2-1 margin.

Clearly Israelis do not believe he is the one to “make Israel safe again.” American Jews obviously feel the same way as they currently support Clinton over Trump by a 3-1 ratio.

In a few more weeks we will definitively see how the rest of the country feels. Regardless of what happens on Nov. 8th though, it’s pretty clear the Trump campaign has emboldened anti-Semitism in America, regardless of David Friedman’s gaslighting on the matter.

In the meantime, watch out for Pepe. And follow me on Twitter @jlemonsk.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Filipino Rodrigo Duterte ( The New York Times)

Intensified U.S.-Russian and U.S.-China rivalry is actually proving beneficial to several states as it increases their room for maneuver between the major powers and pushes them more toward a multi-vector foreign policy strategy. Unlike during the Cold War, where most states were either strictly aligned with one camp or the other, or non-aligned, these modern states have several features in common.

They are all: 1) U.S. allies, 2) situated at the geographical confluence of great power influence, 3) struggling with local nationalistic sentiment with respect to local great powers, and 4) eager to conclude trade and investment deals with these very same local great powers, particularly in energy and/or infrastructure. The Philippines, Japan, and Turkey are all case studies of this new phenomenon.

Recent attempts to portray the Philippines’ new President as a “strongman in the making” willing to “jump into bed with China” have been quite simplistic. Rather than making a full tilt towards China, the Philippines’ new foreign policy strategy is much more nuanced. The goal is to achieve more of an actual balance between the U.S. and China (as well as Japan and Russia). This approach will give the Philippines maximum flexibility to achieve its security objectives (U.S.), while simultaneously seeking new avenues of economic cooperation (China).

This strategy is a necessity not merely from a negotiating standpoint, but from an eternal geographic reality as well. In order to ensure that it will not be taken for granted by any party (not even its treaty ally, the U.S.), the Philippines needs to diversify its foreign policy “investment portfolio”. With respect to actual financial investment, the Philippines has chosen to take a level-headed approach to China after the recent favorable Hague South China Sea ruling. This has occurred despite widespread domestic opposition to China regarding its conflicting South China Sea claims.

The Philippines has used the court’s findings as a platform to begin negotiations with China, not end them. Economically, the Philippines is hungry for investment opportunities. Although the U.S. and, especially, Japan currently account for a sizable share of the Philippines’ inbound FDI portfolio, the Philippines is looking specifically at more infrastructure-related investment. Because of this, China’s traditional political conditions-free investment packages and its previous quick infrastructure investment turnaround times in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have made quite an impression on the Philippines. Lastly, the opportunity to be part of China’s OBOR initiative, specifically focused on infrastructure, is highly appealing as well.

Japan, the anchor of the U.S.’s re-balance to Asia to contain China, is currently in the midst of its most independent foreign policy stance in quite some time.  Japan, still considered a great power in its own right for historical reasons, feels the pressure of great power rivalry even more acutely than does the Philippines. This is because Japan is situated in Northeast Asia, home to China and Russia, both of whom have had their own historical issues with Japan.

From a security perspective, Japan still considers the U.S. to be the bedrock of its overall security portfolio. However, Japan also can not ignore the potential benefit of enlisting other great powers in its own bid to counter China. In South Asia, India fits this bill perfectly. In Northeast Asia, Russia would be extremely useful to Japan in creating some strategic uncertainty on China’s northern and northwestern frontiers. Japan sees this Russian benefit despite their ongoing dispute over the Kuril Islands and strong domestic nationalistic undercurrents in both the Japanese and Russian populations on this particular issue.

Crucial to resolving the Kuril Islands dispute, and actually signing a peace treaty with Russia, is increased economic cooperation between the two neighbors. Resource-hungry Japan and geographically-proximate resource-rich Russia are a match made in heaven. Because of U.S. and European sanctions, Russia is desperate for much-needed infrastructure investment and technical expertise to more fully develop the Russian Far East. Japan has displayed a willingness to explore this possibility despite the application of its own post-Ukraine sanctions on Russia, although these sanctions aren’t quite as severe as their American and European counterparts. Lastly, these economic maneuvers with Russia are given increased salience due to the uncertain future of actual TPP passage.

Turkey, a U.S. NATO ally, nonetheless has its own calculus to follow in crafting a holistic foreign policy strategy. Like the Philippines and Japan, this is a necessity for Turkey as it sits at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. This rich historical and unique geographical position has led to hostilities with Russia in the past, eventually leading to the Crimean War, and with Europe, eventually leading to World War I, and presently continuing uncertainty over eventual EU accession and Syrian refugee crisis resolution.

More recently, Turkey’s relations with Russia had taken a nosedive due to the shooting down of a Russian airplane near Syria. At the time, it was widely assumed that this incident would strengthen Turkish solidarity with the West with respect to Russia in the wake of U.S.-Russian hostilities. However, the recent coup attempt in Turkey has altered this calculus with Turkish suspicions that the U.S. might itself, in fact, have been behind the coup attempt. As a result, Russia and Turkey have temporarily put the aircraft incident behind them with Turkey pursuing more of a balanced diplomatic track between Russia and the West.

This reorientation, however, is not without its problems as Turkey and Russia both have competing visions over Syria’s future. Regardless, the two powers have not allowed these differences to impede potential economic cooperation, already faltering post-Ukraine sanctions and post-Russian aircraft incident. The Turkish Stream project, once thought to be dead because of past Russo-Turkish hostilities, is currently proceeding apace. Ukraine is referenced yet again, as the project would allow Russia to export more gas to Europe through Turkey, bypassing Ukraine in the process. Lastly, this rapprochement has occurred despite historical Russo-Turkish domestic grievances with respect to influence over the Black Sea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meet in Vladivostok (RT)

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Written By Shehab Al Makahleh and Theodore Karasik

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the richest Arab nation and the home to Islam’s holiest sites, must feel under siege these days. Pressure is coming from many fronts, among them a costly war in Yemen, diplomatic tensions with the U.S. over a new law in which families of 9/11 victims can sue Saudis, and low oil prices that have lead to financial austerity. However, a little-reported debate over the future of a strain of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi creed could be a tipping point that destabilizes the whole country.

A consortium of UAE and Egyptian interests meeting of all places in Grozny, Chechnya, is the front line of this new pressure point. They are there to discuss Wahhabism, a Saudi belief system that breeds Salafist terrorists from al-Qaeda to Islamic State. In this sense, the Grozny venue is significant. The Wahhabi creed in the Caucuses region seems to have undergone its own “reformation” in recent years.

Gone are the days of Chechnya being a terrorist outpost in the Russian Federation, attacking aviation, transportation, schools, hospitals, and theaters. A new strain of Wahhabism is now an integral part of the Kremlin’s current drive to make Chechnya, under Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a shining example of Islam and politics working in unison for social and economic development.

Kadyrov’s pro-Russian government sees Grozny as a model for expunging takfiri (violent excommunication) thinking from Wahhabism. Benefitting from intelligence from the Chechen community in Arab countries, the Chechen president plays a role in helping Russia, Syria, and Jordan to target Chechen networks in the evaporating Islamic State.

In other words, a functional model of political Islam is being generated out of all places from Russia. With backing from Egypt and the UAE, this new model of political Islam based on moderate, politically-oriented Sufism is now at the center of the discussion on Wahhabism. Sufi teachings focus on the spiritual rather than the political side of religion and tend to interpret main religious principles, such as jihad, as spiritual matters that one must tame and guide along the path of goodness.

Discussing Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabist creed in such a public forum with the active support and participation of the greater Arab world is a direct challenge to the vulnerable House of Saud. In addition to its external pressures, the Kingdom has new leadership following the death of King Abdullah in 2015, and an uncertain succession plan. The country is trying to deploy an ambitious new agenda, including a National Transformation Program (NTP) and a massive “Vision 2030” plan advanced by the Deputy Crown Prince.

This is a delicate balancing act: Saudi is trying to accommodate its young population with reforms and development, while placating older conservatives as well as the Kingdom’s clerics, many of whom adhere to the strict Salafist doctrine.

To boot, Sufis make up a tiny minority of the Saudi population. Although Sufis in Saudis faced repression under the Al-Saud, since the mid-2000s a reconciliation between Wahhabi and Sufi clerics has helped the latter feel more included in Saudi society. Now, with Sufism seen as a guiding light against Wahhabist Salafism, Saudi Sufis might make themselves heard in new ways on social media against the Saudi clergy.

Because of a focus on Sufism emanating from Chechnya, the Kingdom faces another pressure point and an accelerated threat to its stability. Why Arab allies, in conjunction with Russia, would try to undermine Saudi Arabia is questionable. Relations between Sufis and adherents of other non-Sunni religions and sects is largely friendly. This fact is especially true given the deep-rooted idea of pluralism in Sufi eschatology in addition to diverse cultural norms, which makes Sufism more open to neighboring religions and cultures. For the Kingdom, this fact may be too much.

The Salafi-Jihadists of al-Qaeda and Daesh will see an opportunity to exploit this debate to their own ends. They know that if Saudi Arabia’s creed is being debated, then the Kingdom will be in a weakened position. Terrorist attacks against key targets to bring instability to Saudi Arabia will be a primary objective. This new debate on Wahhabism will only empower extremists, not neuter them.

Dr. Al Makahleh is the co-founder of Geostrategic Media and Dr. Karasik is senior advisor at Gulf State Analytics.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ( Russia Insider)

U.S.-Russian great power rivalry has intensified in the Baltic and Black Sea regions, with the latest clash occurring in Syria. As was made clear at a recent Council on Foreign Relations symposium, this new conflict is different from the previous Cold War in that several of these theaters border Russia directly. What is overlooked, however, is the consequence this rivalry has on Russia’s Asia-Pacific borders.

U.S.-Russian hostilities have the potential to impact the U.S.’ re-balance to the region to counter China. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Japan has renewed its own outreach efforts to Russia. These efforts have lessons for the U.S. with respect to overcoming unproductive rhetoric and soberly recognizing shared security interests in arguably the most important geopolitical region of the future.

With respect to the Asia-Pacific region, much news has recently focused on the Philippines’ apparent shift from the U.S. in order to improve relations with China. While these maneuvers certainly have the potential to impact U.S. strategy in the region vis-à-vis China, they pale in comparison to Japanese efforts to improve its own relations with Russia. In contrast to Filipino moves, which are very early in a new administration and still ambiguous, Japan has clearly shown a desire to improve Russo-Japanese relations steadily over the course of several years.

In a nutshell, Japan realizes the immense importance of Russia to its own efforts to balance China and it is not about to let U.S.-Russian hostilities stand in its way. Russia needs Japan as well in order to better balance China. Lastly, Russia craves Japanese investment and technical expertise to further develop the Russian Far East.

Recent U.S. efforts to diminish and portray Russia as merely a “regional power” are quite correct, but not nearly in the way originally imagined. A simple glance at a map shows the many regions Russia can impact and make life more or less difficult for the U.S. if it so chooses to do so. Japan, unlike the U.S., clearly recognizes this and, in turn, recognizes good Russian relations as crucial on geopolitical issues such as China and North Korea. Japan also recognizes good Russian relations as essential in its own quest to gain access to resources not only in the Russian Far East, but in both Central Asia and the Arctic as well.

Compared to North Korea’s ceasefire with South Korea, a legacy of the Cold War, Japan’s technical state of war with Russia actually goes back further to World War II. Despite the lack of a formal peace treaty with Russia and the resultant 70+ plus years of “war”, Japan has been persistent in its efforts to resolve the Kuril Islands dispute.

As mentioned before, these efforts are given even more salience recently with the rise of China and the efforts of both Japan and the U.S. to counter this phenomenon. Despite nationalistic rhetoric from both public and private quarters in both countries, Russia and Japan have both been persistent in improving relations as they recognize this as crucial to improving their overall regional security and economic environment.

Russia has recently abrogated a series of nuclear treaties with the U.S. in the wake of the Syrian ceasefire collapse. These cancellations are but one of several Russian signals sent to the U.S. to indicate that continued U.S.-Russian hostilities in Ukraine and Syria can have unforeseen consequences globally.

With respect to the Asia-Pacific region specifically, these come in the wake of previous Russian signals sent by both air and sea which were meant to convey this very same message. The difference now is that the rate and weight of these new signals appears to be increasing, with the very latest being Russian overtures to Vietnam to reinstate its presence at Cam Ranh Bay, as well as increased Russian strategic bomber patrols near U.S. Pacific Ocean military bases.

Russian Tu-22M3 “Backfire” strategic bombers on patrol (Wikimedia Commons)

Currently, debate rages within the U.S. foreign policy establishment as to whether U.S.-Russian hostilities constitute a “new” or “old” Cold War. The case can indeed be made that it is a “new” Cold War, made infinitely more complex and dangerous than its predecessor due to increased multi-polarity and globalization.

What is clear, however, is that the patience and persistence shown by both Russia and Japan to improve relations may finally bear fruit. The U.S. and Russia should both keep this in mind, shed unproductive rhetoric (which may help win elections, but is not actually useful for much else), and realize that improved relations may take years, even decades. Mutual recognition of shared global security interests demands nothing less.

Video courtesy of The Council on Foreign Relations

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A coalition made up of American airpower, a newly energized Iraqi Army, Kurdish forces and often unnamed Iranian assets is currently assaulting the city of Mosul, ISIS’s main stronghold in Iraq.

It is likely that Mosul will fall to the combined forces, as a military buildup of Syrian Army, Russian airpower and more unnamed Iranian assets challenge Raqqa, the Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold. While minorities in the region continue to suffer to the point of extinction and will probably continue to be ignored, foreign powers involved in the region are stirring conflicts in Yemen, Libya and possibly most of the Levant for generations to come.

It is hard to say how severely damaged relations between the US and Russia have become over the last year. A position usually reserved for the U.S., Russia has become the de facto king maker/human rights aggressor in the region. Russian forces in the region gave the current American administration the ability to back away from regional commitments and, at the same time, opened themselves up for the U.S. condemnation of its actions.

Following the U.S. presidential election, it can be certain that involving Russia into U.S. domestic politics will have done nothing to help the current standing between Washington and Moscow. Moreover, regardless of the outcome on November 8, it is unlikely that American citizens or soldiers will eagerly look forward to fighting Russian forces on the plains of Ukraine under what will be the President with the lowest favorability ratings in American history. Batteries of S-300 and  S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems in Syria will ensure a one-button war will be viable, and preventing another Wikileaks information dump will do nothing to change that situation or the likability of the next American President.

A victory over ISIS in Mosul will not foster an end to the tensions and conflict in the region. While the U.S. may be open to dialogue with Iran, and may even expect Iran to handle future issues in the region, the perennial crux of the issues between Sunni Arabs and Shi’a Persians will not disappear in one generation.

Unless old wounds were to heal instantly overnight, Sunni Arabs will never accept any scenario where foreign powers control their future. By all rights, Kurdistan should become an independent state, although it is likely that Turkey will prevent the bravery of Kurdish Peshmerga from earning their own land and borders.

Minorities, if any of them survive targeted killings, will have no choice but to seek fortunes outside of the region. With Western governments actively ignoring their issues as seen with the genocide of the Yazidis, their future will never be bright and survival will be their only focus.

With regards to the majority, Arabs will never accept rule by another culture perceived as their enemies. And while labels may change and extremism may be quelled as an ideology, the lack of real independence will always be a catalyst for war. The most realistic scenario is that with bad policy decisions and choices that leave little to traditional, local powerbrokers in the region, the battles for Mosul and Raqqa will bring about the end of an occupation by radicals, but will do little to prevent future conflicts.

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Workers for Alphamin Bisie Mining built a 32 kilometer access road to the Bisie tin deposit. (Tom Wilson/Bloomberg)

Mining firm Alphamin is intent on building a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) northeastern province of North Kivu. It will be the first modern mining operation in this historically insecure region of the Congo.

The Toronto-listed firm is breaking ground at a site called Bisie, in the Walikale territory of North Kivu. It boasts among the world’s richest tin deposits. However, the challenges—from poor infrastructure to roving militant groups—are all too real.  

Alphamin plans to put $134m into pre-production investment, then to raise debt and equity through 2016 and 2017 to fund the ramp-up phase and working capital.

The Bisie mine is expected to produce some 9,900 tonnes of low cost tin concentrate for 12 years, with first yields expected at the end of 2018 according to the firm. With a promised 48.4% internal rate of return for investors, it is easy to see how many would bite despite the risks.

However the project has certainly not been easy. The remote location and lack of infrastructure in much of the DRC means the company has had to build its own road to the site using little more than manual labour. A mobile phone tower only recently went up in the area.  

Then there is the question of security.

Walikale is now safer than many parts of conflict-prone North Kivu. However as recently as 2014, militant groups operating in the area attacked Alphamin’s base camp, which fell within the territory of three competing armed groups.

One might wonder why a company would choose to set up operations in one of the DRC’s most unstable areas even as a constitutional crisis over the rule of president Joseph Kabila threatens to tip the entire country back towards conflict.

Boris Kamstra, chief executive of Alphamin Resources Corp, says the firm had been exploring various commercial options but decided that tin stands out as a particularly interesting commodity. Prices for the metal are on the rise, and changes in technology are fueling demand.

“The demand profile for tin changed completely when it was included in electronic solders to replace lead. You have a historic lack of exploration and underdevelopment of tin assets, which looking forward gives you a declining supply,” Mr Kamstra explains.

He downplays the risk from armed groups, saying most are now based outside Walikale and further eastwards, while stressing the work Alphamin has put into developing ties to the local communities in which it operates.  

However rebel groups still act as competition to outsiders arriving to mine in ‘their’ areas, as well as targeting companies for extortion and banditry.

DRC has a long history of its rich mining assets being coopted by militant groups to fund their violent campaigns. A 2013 UN report estimates that 98% of the gold sold from Congo that year was smuggled out, mostly through neighbouring Uganda.

Alphamin does attempt to address the problem of conflict minerals explicitly. The company says the Bisie mine will comply with the US Dodd-Frank Act.

The Act, a wide-ranging reform bill focused mostly on financial sector reform after the 2008 financial crisis, includes a requirement that all US-listed companies determine origins for gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum sourced from the DRC or an adjoining country.

The idea is that transparency in value chains will weed out conflict minerals, starving the groups that depend on their revenues. This is much easier to do in theory than in practice.

At present more than 50 different armed groups still operate in the DRC’s borderlands, often forcing the local population to join their ranks, participate in their military and logistical activities or to turn a blind eye to criminal activities. Determining loyalties, as well as origins of mineral exports, is difficult in this fluid context.

Henri Ladyi, who leads the Centre Résolution Conflits (CRC) peace group in North Kivu, says that rebel groups have been forcibly recruiting workers and fighters during a string of bloody raids in 2015 and 2016. They target and kidnap “strong young people” who, after being trained in the bush, are used to help the militias.

He says armed groups also try to trick younger recruits into joining them.“Some local people are getting information that there are number of [plots] available for them for agriculture, so they are moving from their village into the zone that is controlled by rebels.” 

Criminalized rebel groups can pose as credible employers or protectors because many young Congolese have grown up with the instability caused by these armed groups and see the situation as normal. There are also very few legitimate alternatives in North Kivu, exacerbating the conflict and risks for companies that come into the areas.

Bjorn van Wees, Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, does not think that the arrival of a large Western mining company like Alphamin will make much of a difference to the employment prospects of young people in the region.

“Investment projects are clearly a very important part of any peacebuilding process. The creation of jobs and revenue-generating activities can help boost stability. Unfortunately in the DRC, the authorities are ill-equipped to make good use of the revenues generated by mining projects,” he says.

He also warns that bringing in a project of this scale and then failing to live up to local expectations can have serious consequences. “A failure by the government to ensure that benefits from the new tin mine…go beyond jobs could heighten tensions if government revenues from the project are not invested back into the community,” he points out.

Breaking the longstanding link between the area’s abundant natural resources, illicit smuggling networks and armed groups will only happen if the DRC’s government can provide the security that legitimate large and small employers need to return to the area.

Until then, the only companies that will venture out to North Kivu will be the ones like Alphamin who can afford to bring their own private security with them—and even then their ventures will be met with scepticism in many quarters.

An earlier version of this article was published at This Is Africa and reappears here with kind permission.

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A US Marine instructs a Philippine soldier. (Gabriel Mistral/Getty Images)

Coming just days ahead of his first state visit to Beijing next week, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte promised to end the 65-year military alliance with the U.S., during a speech on October 8th in southern Davao city. In his comments, Duterte warned Washington, “For as long as I am there, do not treat us like a doormat because you’ll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China.” 

Duterte also promised to end the 28 annual military exercises with U.S. forces, while also threatening to call off the 10-year Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), signed by Duterte’s predecessor, which allows for a rotating U.S. military presence at five sites.

His defense secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, is seemingly on board, announcing the eventual removal of the 107 American troops involved in operating surveillance drones against Islamic militants. Lorenzana said he would ask the Philippines Congress for $50-100 million to replace military aid from its American treaty ally.

Under the U.S. Foreign Military Financing program, the Philippines is currently the largest recipient of U.S. funds in the Asia-Pacific region. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby claims U.S. assistance to the Philippines in the coming fiscal year is $180 million.  “We have been allies since 1951,” he said. “All we got are hand-me-downs, no new equipment. The Americans failed to beef up our capabilities to be at par with what is happening in the region.” Lorenzana is expected to travel soon to Beijing and Moscow to seek defense equipment.

U.S. military forces prepare for the annual Philippines-U.S. live fire amphibious landing exercise north of Manila, Philippines. (Reuters)

Other top officials in Duterte’s administration are falling in line with the president’s tough, independent approach. Earlier this month, Foreign Affairs chief Perfecto Yasay Jr. declared the Philippines would break the “shackles of dependency” on the U.S. which treats them “as little brown brothers not capable of true independence and freedom.” In his statement, Yasay hailed Duterte’s new foreign policy “towards an independent track in pursuing the overriding national interest and in upholding and protecting our sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Yasay further called for “an end to our nation’s subservience to United States’ interests.”

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo is also on message, stating that the country’s national interest, under the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement, the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, will be reviewed, “either to expand them, enhance them, or remove provisions onerous to the interests of the government.

Manila’s newly-found belligerence toward the U.S. is traced by some to the appeal of a populist, nationalistic strongman leader such as Duterte, who promises to make strong a country with a weak military, as Chinese fishing boats and coast guard ships continue to encroach upon Philippine territorial waters. His harsh crackdown on the drug trade has drawn widespread criticism from the E.U. and the U.S., and he claims the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines told him privately the U.S. will defend the Philippines “Only if you are attacked.” 

Evidently, Duterte was hoping the July 12 favorable ruling from The Hague (negating Beijing’s claims to 90% of the South China Sea) might spur the U.S., under the 50-year-old Mutual Defense Treaty, to assist Manila in asserting its claims in the disputed waters.

Yet the harsh reality remains that if Duterte chooses to annul defense cooperation (and protection) with the U.S., the Philippine defense forces, Foreign Affairs chief Yasay admits, “remain grossly incapable in meeting the security threats that we face from potential foes.”

Some analysts argue the tough talk is only a negotiating tactic—that Duterte is threatening the U.S. alliance to appease Beijing and Moscow in the hope of winning greater concessions of military and economic aid out of the two nations. But this is a dangerous strategy coming from a country with a weak military and a weakening military alliance with the world’s superpower – its largest supplier of arms.  

Many potential pitfalls exist under Duterte’s strategy of switching dance partners. Is there enough support in the Philippines Congress to switch military aid from the U.S. to Russia or China? Will Chinese and Russian military equipment be compatible with existing American systems? Will Beijing and Moscow sniff desperation and reduce their offers of support?

Will big business, activists and the powerful Catholic Church (all of whom overthrew Joseph Estrada as president) come under Duterte’s wing and support his new foreign policy? And lastly, while Duterte’s approval ratings remain as high as previous presidents, will the 92% of Filipinos who hold favorable ratings of America maintain their approval of Duterte if the U.S. alliance ends?  

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