Foreign Policy Blogs

(Nancy Ohanian / Tribune Media Services)

As the peak of El Niño wanes, it seems to signal the arrival of La Niña, and the impacts are having an extremely serious effect. Average global temperatures for July hit the 15th consecutive record-breaking surge: 0.87 ℃ higher than the average for the 20th century. This trend in global warming has heightened the probability of catastrophic natural disasters, challenging the risk management capability of governments.

In the Southern Hemisphere, one of the worst regional droughts in 35 years swept over southern Africa, leaving 23 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The international community, in response, pledged $2 billion worth of contributions to El Niño-affected countries. Yet, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that $4 billion more is needed to make up for the total damage.

Meanwhile, the flood-inducing El Niño in North America bombarded Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with 6.9 trillion gallons of rain in just one week, causing 13 deaths and $20.7 billion worth of damage to more than 110,000 homes. Battling with the worst natural disaster since the superstorm Sandy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) urged affected residents to register for federal disaster relief funds for which more than 95,000 residents had applied as of 19th of August.

Nevertheless, FEMA’s limited resources, epitomized by the maximum grant of $33,000 per household, barely provide a safety net for the applicants. What is making the picture gloomier is the fact that only 42% of the FEMA-designated high-risk flood areas in Louisiana are insured through the National Flood Insurance Program; the number drops down to 12.5% in the neighboring vicinities.

Governments in the regions exposed to natural hazards are on the verge of failing to cope with the recent natural disasters’ enduring impacts on human life. The burdens, however, could be significantly lessened by action from the private insurance companies, namely their active engagement in the climate and natural disaster insurance industry in terms of workable Public-Private Partnership (PPP)-based arrangements.

The benefits of successful PPP in climate and natural disaster insurance are, in theory, synergetic. It ensures that governments at all levels can be certain of formal risk-transfer mechanisms upon the occurrence of contingent events, allowing for effective management of governmental budgets. In the insurance market, private insurance companies’ locally tailored products not only efficiently provide financial liquidity to insured individuals during the ex-post recovery process but also pre-emptively reduce the risks by altering these individuals’ ex-ante behaviors.

With well-functioning market mechanisms, the price (the rate) is gradually set and stabilized in a more transparent way, which incentivizes governments to set up more fairly priced policies. Partnering private insurance companies also benefit from taking advantages of the scale of PPP; it allows them to reduce operational and premium costs and to competitively enhance their capacity to deal with high volumes of client profiles and large-scale data analysis. In the end, insured individuals best-minimize their exposure to risks.  

Despite the assumed benefits, the engagement of private insurance companies with the climate and natural disaster insurance industry has, overall, been unenthusiastic. Whereas the average global weather-related losses rose by ten times from 1974 to1983 ($10 billion per year) compared with 2004 to 2013 ($131 billion per year), the average percentage for the losses that are insured dropped almost half over the last four decades. Attributing the decline to the increasing chance of being exposed to catastrophic natural disasters under intensifying climate change and urbanization, pundits propose that PPPs in climate and natural disaster insurance should be either reformed (in the case of existing PPPs) or updated to reflect the changes.

In the U.S., the debate over FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) reform is becoming heated prior to next year’s reauthorization of the program. In the aftermath of post-Sandy, controversies over fraudulent claims as well as partnering private insurance companies’ moral hazards of exploiting marginal profits, both policymakers and pundits are looking for solutions to reduce the program’s $23 billion deficit and to improve its efficiency.

Some of the suggested reforms are highlighted here: the introduction of risk-based rates, the provision of assistance to socio-economically vulnerable residents in high-risk areas, including the provision of the right to be informed about records held on property, the strengthening of the program’s accountability in monitoring, evaluating, and enforcing the program’s provisions, the modernization of the PPP’s outmoded bureaucratic technology, and, lastly, the sharing (diverting) of the risk through the private insurance market (including reinsurance).

All these options, however, require the market to function effectively. For instance, calibration of current government premium rates in high-risk areas to risk-adequate ones should be well-designed to offer private insurance companies incentives to attenuate their market exit, while encouraging the residents living in high-risk areas to move to safe areas. Also, the ability of the reinsurance market to assume the NFIP’s risks through the purchasing of the primary policy provider’s coverage plans should be carefully assessed.

The successful market-based modernization of some of the world’s mature disaster management PPPs such as the NFIP should bring a positive message about the role of the international insurance market; for example, in helping developing countries to minimize their climate-related risks through the use of innovative financial products like catastrophe bonds.

Although the climate and natural disaster insurance industry is still in the inchoate phase of its development in many developing countries, several pilot programs (involving trials of innovative insurance products) are being administered in areas that are susceptible to natural disasters. Microfinance is one of the products that has been designed to protect people on low incomes in exchange for a premium that is tailored specifically to their needs. Weather index insurance is another that pays out benefits based on a predetermined event index, rather than on loss itself.

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In this virtual roundtable of six podcasts hosted by Professor Sarwar Kashmeri, the Foreign Policy Association aims to shed some light and serve as a catalyst for developing awareness, understanding and informed opinions on the key issues that face American policymakers as they seek to peer over the horizon to manage the U.S.-China relations.

In the fourth installment of the virtual roundtable, Professor Toshi Yoshihara, John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies and professor at the U.S. Naval War College, discusses the U.S.-China relations in the light of the ruling against China’s claims in the South China Sea by the permanent court of arbitration in The Hague.

Asked about the significance of the ruling, Prof. Yoshihara responded “I think the tribunal’s ruling is a big deal because it sets the record straight in terms of the international law’s view of China’s claims which is that […] their historical rights in the South China Sea were superseded by the laws of the sea treaty.”

He went on to elaborate: “On the one hand, this represented a major diplomatic and legal setback for China. On the other hand, China is standing firm and has articulated that it will not back down from its claims, that it does not recognize the jurisdictional authority of the tribunal and that it will do nothing to enforce the court’s ruling.”

http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/T-Yoshihara-WCOPY-081716.mp3

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The Good Old Days of Michel Platini (1986 World Cup in Mexico)

Astronomical amounts of money are being spent on soccer (football) transfers. These days, no one is shocked at news of multi-million dollar signings.

When he was the president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), Michel Platini stood by his view that the record €94 million which Real Madrid paid to sign Cristiano Ronaldo was “a serious challenge to the idea of fair play.” “Players are not free and they don’t even belong to clubs… they belong to financial holdings, companies, or people,” describing transfer amounts in a media conference a “form of robbery.”

Current transfer fees definitely dwarf those of older generations. In 1938, when Bryn Jones left Wolverhampton Wanderers for £14,000 (about £7 million in today’s money), politicians were outraged by the money spent and the subject was debated in the House of Commons.

Sports like soccer can be seen as miniature economies.Europe is considered the largest transfer market in the world: it has the most successful, well-known clubs and the best players are attracted to its national leagues. Its transfer environment is subject to different layers of rules and regulations established by sports governing bodies. Yet, ever since oil money arrived in the soccer world, the game has gone money mad. Following Paul Pogba’s reported world record transfer from Juventus to Manchester United for US$115.90 million on August 2nd, it is worthwhile to get a feel for soccer inflation with relation to the evolution of world record transfers since 1893.

Speaking of soccer inflation, have you ever wondered how much, for instance, David Beckham’s 2003 move to Real Madrid would cost in modern-day cash? When the transfer was unveiled, the global superstar described the €35.9 million move as a “dream.” In today’s money, adjusted for inflation, it is more than €43 million. Take another example: Cristiano Ronaldo’s €94 million move in 2009 would be of an adjusted fee of €102.4 million. The Bleacher Report has compiled a list of the top hundred most expensive transfers in history with inflation in mind.

I wonder how much a legend like Diego Maradona would cost in modern day soccer. Maradona was bought by Napoli from Barcelona for US$6.5 million in 1984, which is the equivalent of the Italian side paying him almost US$19.5 million today. Comparing Maradona’s adjusted fees with those of the other super-stars of today proves that soccer inflation is running wild.  And taking into account the inflationary trend of transfer fees, we will not be surprised to see signings approaching US$250 million, or even more, in the coming decades.

It is also interesting to look more closely at how this transfer expenditure is spread throughout the big five league clubs which shows that a process of concentration of investments is taking place. While clubs that invested the most in transfer fees are logically among the wealthiest (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, and Paris St-Germain), teams having benefited from the ten most expensive football transfers in history of soccer also belong to the small circle of financially dominant teams.

This reinforces the increasing correlation between financial resources available and results, meaning that European soccer suffers from an important economic polarization: a limited number of clubs (those with the largest incomes and/or supported by economically powerful investors) makes the most important part of transfer expenditures.

Unlike the traditional way of thinking, the soccer industry is not simply a market of pure and perfect competition. In essence, Europe is slowly embracing a system of closed leagues (at the elite level) which is also reflected in the results of UEFA competitions year after year. We should consequently consider amendments to the regulatory framework governing transfers to achieve the policy objectives of a fair play, notably with regard to contract stability, which shall have a positive effect to fight against soccer inflation.

Analyzing the workings of competition within well-defined rules (just as we see in our economy) would also make it easier to effectively combat speculation and third-parties’ involvement in soccer in so far as the sums of all transfer payments must be spread over the entire chain of clubs having contributed to the sporting development of players.

The bottom line is: rather than merely looking at soccer transfers as monetary figures, UEFA and the national governing bodies should start studying any possible factors behind the existence of monopolistic structures in the soccer industry, both at the local and continental levels.

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(Associated Press)

When the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague announced the result of the arbitration on the South China Sea dispute case, the Chinese government and the public reacted strongly. The People’s Daily proclaimed: “Sovereign territory can in no way be less, even by a little bit,” while nationalism filled the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.

The Global Times condemned it in writings, with articles suggesting China to consider leaving the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as a fightback to its injustice, citing that if the U.S. could do so, why not China? Yet, the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China stated firmly at the press conference on July 12 that China would uphold the Convention. In fact, there will be more harm than good if China indiscreetly denounces UNCLOS.

Before discussing if China should leave the UNCLOS due to the dispute in the South China Sea, we need to recall how the Convention was created and its nature. The concepts that are well-known today like ‘territorial waters’ and ‘exclusive economic zone’, which are related to national maritime sovereignty and interest, were not formed in the 17th or 18th century. The understanding towards maritime rights was not unified among the coastal countries in Europe at the time. For instance, the Dutch International Law expert Hugo Grotius once advocated to define the limit of waters which a country could exercise sovereignty by the limit of coastal defense artillery range. Today, such a definition seems inconceivable. As for the Eastern World, the International Law is such a modern concept to this region that even until this day, there is limited understanding of it. Without the convention, pure law of the jungle would return.

After World War II, each maritime country declared their territorial waters ranging from 12 miles to 200 miles, yet the operation was very confusing. In order to reach a consensus and to avoid unnecessary conflicts, the negotiation lasted for more than 30 years involving 168 countries. Eventually, delimitation of ‘territorial waters’, ‘exclusive economic zones’ and ‘international waters’, regulations on resources rights within the boundary, dispute resolving mechanism and so on were drawn. This is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, it is hence called by many legal experts as the ‘Constitution for the Oceans’.

Of course, just like other international treaties, there had been compromises and fierce debates during the process of negotiations of the convention. The final product is not perfect, and each country is still questioning the convention due to possible interest conflicts. The U.S., one of the earliest advocate of this convention, has yet to obtain an approval from her congress to join the convention. Many congressmen were concerned that it may harm U.S. maritime interests because the convention classifies resources in the international waters as ‘common heritage of mankind’. There are also concerns that this would be exploited by the Soviet Union and its satellite countries. The attitude of the U.S. has been widely criticized by the international community, especially when she remained stubborn after the Cold War. This might be one of the reasons why China finds this convention contemptible.

Yet, the consequence of U.S. not joining the UNCLOS (and leaving some international institutions) serves as a positive reference for China. For example, in the level of international law, the U.S. accusation against China in the South China Sea ‘default’ loses its power due to its identity, and the U.S. loses many opportunities to act in the name of international law. Once China took the initiative to leave the UNCLOS, it would completely lose the moral high ground and the pivoting point for Beijing to wrestle with Washington, making it harder for China to avoid the U.S. military presence in the region.

Even worse, the withdrawal would be compared to the withdrawal of the ‘Axis powers’ from the League of Nations, which eventually leads to World War II. This definitely brings no benefit to China. Asia-Pacific countries would strengthen the promotion of “China threat theory” because of this. Other regional powerful nation who are willing to respect international law would cooperate with ASEAN countries, forcing China to adopt a passive diplomacy strategy.

Another school of thought views the contemporary international law as rules imposed by the previous winners of international politics onto everyone else. As China becomes more powerful, it can selectively obey favorable treaties and ignore the unfavorable ones. Such attitude is the basic logic of ‘status quo challenger’, which is a label China has tried to avoid being tagged. The consequence of China’s quitting UNCLOS would be worse than the consequence of U.S.’ absence from the convention as it means a denial of the international order when the UNCLOS was signed.

The international community is indeed actively avoiding any notion that indicates a sense of hitting the “restart button”. Although some countries are not happy with some terms, the current mechanism provides a lot of rooms for reservations and exemptions without getting the whole body moved. China understands this very well and has made good use of this sentiment upon joining the convention by submitting a written statement to the United Nations a decade ago stating that it would refuse to accept arbitrations for any dispute and advocated a negotiated settlement.

More importantly, the same convention brings China many significant maritime rights and interests, as well as related institutional protection. For instance, the UNCLOS provides the right of common development of resources in international waters, which protects those countries that possess relatively backward ocean mining technology, such as China. According to the convention, International Seabed Authority, which is one of the United Nations branches, is in charge of the coordination of resources development outside the exclusive economic zones. In 1991, as a signatory state of the International Seabed Authority, China was allocated 150,000 square kilometers of areas of exploration. 75,000 square kilometers of the said area’s exclusive rights of exploration and commercial exploitation priority rights was granted to China. This area, which was carefully selected by China, is a ‘treasure’ full of metal mineral resources.

China’s related rights are also protected by the convention. In 2011, China signed a contract with the International Seabed Authority and gained exclusive rights of exploration in 10,000 square kilometers seabed in the Western Indian Ocean. This has triggered India’s dissatisfaction, but China used the rights protection mechanism of the UNCLOS as a reason to refute India ‘s position. With the progress of China’s technology in offshore exploration and deep-sea mining, the maritime rights and interests gained and protected because of her membership in the UNCLOS will be fully utilized in the future. If China denounces the convention, the loss in the future deep waters mining rights would be inestimable.

In fact, even in the face of the current situation in the South China Sea, China can still make a case as a signatory state of the UNCLOS. This is exactly Chinese government’s recent official position: although the Chinese government can question the legitimacy of the arbitration result, it would be driven by ‘the maintenance of the dignity of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea’ other than denying it. In return, this might help China regain the moral high ground of the international community so as to hedge the negative impact caused by the arbitration. In the early days, China condemned western concepts like ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’, yet in recent years she knows how to ‘respect’ those words but emptying their meanings and interpret them in her own way in order to speak louder in the international community. This strategy also applies to the attitude of how China sees international law.

If China is determined to play the game by training a large number of professionals like what Japan did a hundred years ago, who handled international law with absolute academic attitude (for example, Japan’s arguments in the defense of her sovereignty on ‘Senkaku Islands ‘ were tailored with reference to international law), China would soon discover loopholes in the current system and could make good use of them for her national interests.

This is how a rising power could play the game: fairly, lawfully, reasonable, and serves the country’s interests. Perhaps the sheer force admirer might look down on this, but today’s international community is no longer in the era of muscle-power diplomacy. The so-called ‘international law’ and ‘diplomacy’ should be used at the right time and in the right context, or else they might mean very different things. These terms are indeed ingenious in its ambiguity. The commentaries that suggest China to leave the UNCLOS are doing more harm than good.

That is why even the Tai Kung Pao, a leading pro-China newspaper in Hong Kong, has published a signed article to alert relevant proposals like this. The seriousness of such irresponsible comments is apparent.

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On July 15th, the world saw the consequences of the long-lasting struggle between religious forces and the secular military contending for control of the Turkish state. In the aftermath of the failed coup, the government in Ankara reacted with a series of purges unseen in Turkey’s recent history. Initially limited to the military, the punitive measures have now reached all corners of Turkish society. So far, more than 18,000 people have been reported detained, with another 60,000 suspended from office. Judges, journalists, academics, and civil servants have been among the victims of what some describe as the “biggest witch-hunt in the history of the [Turkish] republic.”

But the upheaval has not only highlighted the fragility of Turkey’s democracy; it has also revealed how little liberal democratic countries can interfere. The declaration of the state of emergency and the escalating number of arrests and suspensions has been deplored by civil society groups across the world. Outraged academics have denounced the arrests and suspensions of their peers. Journalists have decried the fate their Turkish confreres are facing. Many expected a firm condemnation of the illiberal actions the Erdogan administration orchestrated in the aftermath of the failed coup by their governments.

Much to their disappointment, most political leaders have limited their initial comments to carefully worded, deliberately vague reminders on the importance of the rule of law and the right of due process for the culprits of the coup. The gap between the normative expectations of how much foreign governments should be opposing the Erdogan administration versus what external actors actually can achieve through diplomatic means leads to a situation where public opinion is more outspoken than their respective governments in criticizing the actions of another state.

Those outside Turkey who demand more proactive checks on Erdogan’s expanding power base tend to disregard the limits imposed upon political leaders by the single most important ordering principle of the international system: state sovereignty. State sovereignty continues to govern our world and explains why leaders in democratic countries have exercised cautious restraint when commenting on the recent events in Turkey. This oft-overlooked but fundamental principle has both internal and external dimensions, both of which constrain a larger international response.

Internally, sovereignty defines “the highest authority within the state”.[1] In Turkey, the constituted power and hence the national sovereignty lie with President Erdogan and the elected government, who enjoy the authority to enact punitive policies against the alleged plotters and to restore order within the boundaries of the Turkish state. Of course, sovereign power does not automatically legitimize any measure taken by a state. Under international law, violations of peremptory norms— including the prohibition of genocide, slavery and torture—transcend inculpability, making the allegations of torture in Turkey especially serious. However, even if these allegations turned out to be true, external actors could only challenge the means but not the ends of Erdogan’s retaliatory policy.

External sovereignty applies more broadly to Turkey’s rights as an independent state. It is defined as a form of recognition that guarantees a state’s existence in an anarchic international society. In simple terms, states act according to a principle of equality where “none is entitled to command; none is required to obey”.[2]

The UN Charter explicitly prohibits intervention “in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state” (Art. 2.7 UN Charter) unless these matters pose a direct threat to international peace and stability. This provision mandates international actors to acknowledge the Turkish government to handle the situation at its own discretion.

Moreover, whether or not a state is pilloried for its domestic politics by the international community not only depends on the acts and violations it committed, but also on the role and position it holds in the international system. Turkey remains one of the foremost allies and strategic partners of the Western world. Be it in the fight against global terrorism, as a valuable NATO member, or as key to Europe’s migration and asylum policy, Turkey is a much need ally. Member of the Group of 20, Turkey also offers a huge consumer market for outside goods and services. These factors taken together are shielding the Turkish government from any hasty and overzealous moral condemnations of their domestic policy-making.

Lastly, any effective condemnation of the Turkish government would necessitate agreement amongst the remaining actors. History has shown that in matters of state sovereignty, the international community agrees to disagree. Already, Erdogan has reached out to Putin in an attempt to improve their bilateral relationship in case relations with the West should turn sour.

It is true that the classical definition of sovereignty with its absolute claim for sovereign equality has been increasingly challenged. In a globalized world where market economies co-exist within a complex net of interdependencies and where policies, capital, and people cross borders more easily than ever before in human history, sovereignty appears to be an anachronism from another age. Yet rather than bidding farewell to the concept as such, sovereignty should be understood as a subliminal force—always somewhere in the room, but usually covered underneath alternative ordering principles. It remains largely invisible to the eye as long as politics follow a steady path and the ship sails in calm waters. Yet, once a major crisis breaks out, sovereignty comes back in the limelight to define the rules of the game.

The storm in Turkey is taking place now. Many advocates had hoped that the successive accession rounds between Turkey and the EU would help bind the Turkish state within the European value system. However, neither long-lasting negotiations nor the fact that the EU being among Turkey’s most important trading partners has prevented the Erdogan administration from unilaterally suspending the European Convention on Human Rights and announcing the planned reintroduction of the death penalty. The principle of sovereignty, which Thomas Hobbes equated with “an artificial soul … giving life and motion to the whole body”,  provided the power to ignite nationalist feelings and undo concerted action in a blink of an eye.

If there is anything to take away from the post-coup purges in Turkey, it is the inability of the international community to effectively halt an alarming process that has not yet evolved into a full-blown tragedy. Therefore, any attempt to overcome the present crisis needs to recognize Turkey as an equal and sovereign partner and should refrain from stigmatizing President Erdogan as the villain of the Bosporus.

[1] Lake, David. 2003. “The New Sovereignty in International Relations”. International Studies Review 2003 (5): 305.

[2] Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theories of international politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 88.

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Anti-China protester at Taipei airport, Aug. 22 (Storm Media Group, Taipei)

A visit to Taiwan by a top Chinese Communist Party official from Shanghai was met with angry protest on August 22-23. Sha Hailin (沙海林), head of the party’s United Front Work Department in Shanghai, was greeted at the Taipei airport August 22 by pro-independence demonstrators shouting, “Sha Hailin, go back to China” and “Expel propaganda communist, defend Taiwan’s sovereignty.” Protesters followed Sha and Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) to a Shanghai-Taipei cross-strait cities forum on August 23.

Sha’s visit has come at a time of strained relations between Taiwan and the mainland since Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party won the presidency of Taiwan in January. Beijing broke off official contact with Taipei in June following Tsai’s refusal to acknowledge the “one-China principle” on which Beijing insists as the basis of cross-strait relations. Sha is the first high-level mainland official to visit Taiwan since official contact was broken off.

The United Front Work Department is a propaganda agency under the direct authority of the Communist Party Central Committee charged with asserting party “leadership” over non-party groups in China and abroad. The “shadowy agency” has been noted for its role in Beijing’s efforts at gaining control of Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province of China. Mainland attitudes stand in stark contrast to those of Taiwan’s 23 million residents, the vast majority of whom are opposed to “reunification” with mainland China and consider themselves to be of “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese” nationality.

Beijing has shown little interest in the opinions or wishes of Taiwan’s people, insisting that “reunification” with the mainland is the only option for Taiwan’s future. The role of the United Front Work Department in Beijing’s efforts consists of attempting to manipulate public opinion and forging alliances with influential groups with the aim of neutralizing pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan. Given Beijing’s economic clout and close economic ties with Taiwan, much of this effort is directed at the island’s business and political elite, who have shown far greater willingness to bow to Beijing’s demands than ordinary Taiwanese.

Sha Hailin (Shanghai Municipal Communist Party Committee)

In typical form as a mainland official, Sha Hailin insisted on the “one-China principle” as the basis for cross-strait relations in a speech at the August 23 forum as protesters demonstrated outside. “I believe most Taiwanese support peaceful unification and closer exchanges and cooperation between the two cities,” said Sha in willful ignorance of Taiwanese public opinion, “Some Taiwanese who opposed the forum either lacked understanding of the actual situation or did it on purpose.”

For his part, Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je said prior to the forum that the United Front Work Department has been unfortunately “vilified” in Taiwan, citing this as an example of “cultural estrangement” between the democratic island and the authoritarian mainland. Said Ko at the forum with Sha: “When we understand and respect Beijing’s insistence on some aspects, we hope Beijing can understand and respect Taiwan’s insistence on democracy and freedom.”

Protesters don’t seem to have been convinced by Ko’s and Sha’s wishful thinking on cross-strait relations, calling the Taipei mayor a “sell out” and his mainland guest a “communist bandit.” Most of Taipei’s city councilors boycotted the forum, citing Sha’s “obvious ‘united front’ intention” among other complaints. Mainland Chinese media ignored the protests, trumpeting Sha’s visit and the Shanghai-Taipei forum as a “boost” for cross-strait ties.

Faced with the seemingly impossible task of “winning hearts and minds” in Taiwan, mainland leaders continue to live in a world of make-believe.

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Tuesday’s attack on Istanbul Ataturk airport will only exacerbate Turkey’s tourism and economic woes.

On Tuesday, June 28th Islamic State-linked militants assaulted Istanbul Ataturk international airport. The attack was a coordinated operation conducted by at least three foreign militants armed with assault rifles and explosive vests. The death toll has so far reached 44 dead and 239 others were wounded.

The attack came as a stern reminder of the elevated terrorist threat faced by Turkey. It also underscores the fact that the country is currently located at the cross-roads of ISIS international and regional terrorist strategies. The attacks at Istanbul airport will deal an additional blow against the Turkish economy. They will also raise further questions concerning the security of in-country and international large civilian infrastructure.

The wave of terrorist attacks that has been marring Turkey’s security environment since July 2015 has had a major impact on the national economy. The most direct hit has so far been felt by the national tourism sector.

Since the beginning of 2016, hotel occupancy rates have steadily been dropping every month in comparison to the same periods in the previous year. In March, the occupancy rates of hotels in Istanbul were down by approximately 30%. Two months later, these overall rates in Turkey reached 57%, marking a more than 40% drop.

These indicators are directly linked to a steady decline of foreign travellers reaching Turkey for touristic reasons. The two main groups of foreign tourists, Germans and Russians, experienced a 30% and 90% decrease respectively since the beginning of 2016. While the number of Russians coming to Turkey may increase following the lifting of Moscow’s travel ban, the volume of Russian tourists will likely remain substantially lower than usual during summer 2016.

It is probable that the bombing at Istanbul international airport will further increase foreigners’ concerns over the overall security environment in the country. The attack will have its biggest impact on planned travels to Istanbul and will also lead to an overall decrease of the demand for holidays in the western and south-western coastal regions of Izmir and Antalya. Indeed, post-attack security operations targeted suspected networks in Izmir raising concerns over the potential presence of ISIS networks in the area.

The bombing in Istanbul underscored the overall deterioration of the local security environment. Since the beginning of 2016, the city has experienced four major terrorist attacks conducted by two of the principal terrorist groups operating in Turkey. Istanbul is exposed to operations carried out by both Islamist militants as well as Kurdish separatists.

It is noteworthy that ISIS militants have been carrying out operations in Istanbul, as well as Ankara, as part of the groups’ international strategy aimed at hitting high-level targets such as airports and key civilian places. Istanbul had previously experienced suicide bombings in touristic and commercial districts in which the perpetrators specifically targeted foreign nationals.

The selected targets are clearly chosen to hurt Turkey’s international standing in a bid to generate economic woes by hampering the national tourist sector and increasingly portraying the country as an unsafe place.

The latest attack raised questions over the Turkish security forces ability to prevent further terrorist operations. It also led to additional interrogations regarding the overall response to secure global airports.

While it has been positive that June’s attack in Ataturk airport did not lead to major air travel and operation disruptions like March’s attacks in Belgium, ISIS’ assault in Istanbul shows that airports continue to be a relatively soft target.

Security measures such as preliminary checkpoints, luggage and vehicle checks as well as identity controls may diminish the risk of attacks within the terminals but increase the volume of travellers exposed to potential violence on the outskirts of the airport perimeter.

As such, security managers of global airports and governments are increasingly looking for innovative ways to respond to the terrorist threat to airports. Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion international airport is attracting international interest over its unique system of airport security based on technical and human controls.

In the near-future, Istanbul and other international airports are expected to review their security measures to try to step up capabilities to mitigate the risk of additional attacks.

For Turkey, the elevated terrorism risk is unlikely to abate in the coming months. Kurdish separatist groups, Islamist radicals and far-left militants will continue trying to carry out attacks against security forces and institutions, as well as touristic and commercial areas.

This will result in an ongoing campaign against terror mainly directed against PKK-linked militants and ISIS-associated networks. Anti-terrorist operations will continue to occur in major cities, as well as along the southern border with Syria and in Kurdish-majority south-eastern provinces. Such raids increase the risk of localized violence and generate an overall risk of retaliatory violence.

This article was originally published by Global Risk Insights and written by GRI analyst Riccardo Dugulin.

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Prime Minister Netanyahu has joined a growing number of world leaders taking their message to one of today’s fast-growing social media platforms: Snapchat (@israelipm). Indeed, Netanyahu is already on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

His first snap is a series of jokes—professionally edited to look unedited—spliced with the message that “Snapchat is a powerful medium and I look forward to using it to tell the truth about Israel.”

Some of Netanyahu’s jokes in his first snap:

• He starts by announcing that today he is joining “Stopchat.” When corrected, he deadpans: “Snoopchat?”
• “Since Snapchat disappears, I’ve decided to conduct all secret conversations and communications with Snapchat.”
• “You can only talk for 10 seconds. I wish we had that in the government.”
• He concludes with “now I can finally tell you all of Israel’s most closely held secrets, like…” He is abruptly interrupted by static and the SMPTE color bars.”

Netanyahu understands the power of unfiltered words, spoken directly to the camera. He was a masterful representative for Israel when he served as their Ambassador to the UN. He understands America, speaks English as a native, and is a powerful orator with a deep voice and a smile in his eyes.

Even before becoming Prime Minister, he has one of Israel’s most strident spokespeople, whether sitting down for a one-on-one interview with the American press or addressing the world through the UN.

His understanding of video seems to have evolved of late. He has recently released several videos (that have subsequently gone viral) which feature him sitting at a desk and speaking directly to the camera. He shared a touching response to the heinous Orlando attack; the Financial Times called his video a “masterclass in responding to tragedy.” It has been viewed over 22 million times and shared over 667,000 times online.

After Hallal Ariel was brutally murdered in her sleep, Netanyahu again chose to respond at his desk, speaking directly to the camera. His video response became a significant part of the conversation.

Netanyahu has long understood the media. It is now becoming clear he is also quite adept at social media. His interest in Snapchat serves as an easy extension of his online brand and it will be interesting to see how he approaches this new medium of communication.

I know that I for one will be following along. Join me in the conversation on Twitter at @jlemonsk.

The post Netanyahu has joined Snapchat appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

A store in Venezuela with a sign saying “no light.” Despite lifting mandatory electricity shutdowns, Venezuela continues to have food shortages and a flailing economy. (Getty Images)

On July 4, 2016 Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, removed the policy of electricity rationing that had been in place throughout the country for over 2 months. During this time Venezuelans had to subsist without power for 4 hours per day.

Venezuelans have been suffering from many hardships in recent months, including a plummeting economy and food shortages. The limits on using electricity is the latest visible example of the country’s crumbling infrastructure, as well as the growing discord between the government and citizens of Venezuela.

According to Maduro’s government, the El Nino weather system caused a water levels in the Guri hydroelectric dam to drop to record lows. The lack of a sufficient amount of water needed to generate electricity led to the rationing. The government also cut civil servant working hours to 2 days per week to conserve energy, and Maduro actually recommended that women stop using hair dryers as an example of using “wasteful” energy. When implementing the power restrictions in late April 2016, Maduro claimed that Venezuela was “six days away from a collapse, we were facing having to turn off almost the entire country.”

But outrage against the government and its policies is growing as shortages of multiple supplies continue. Critics argue that the government caused the country’s problems through economic and resource mismanagement. They blame the energy shortage on over-reliance of hydroelectric power—about 2/3 of the entire country’s electricity is produced by the Guri dam—and failure to invest in Venezuela’s electricity production system. Beyond power outages, PBS Newshour’s Hari Sreenivasan pointed out that “Venezuelans are struggling with shortages of food, medicine and other necessities, with increasing finger pointing at Maduro’s leadership.”

Several factors have contributed to the current dire situation. Drastic declines in oil prices certainly have had a devastating effect. The price per barrel of oil on the world market has nosedived, dropping by more than half in 2016 from 2014. Oil accounts for about 95% of Venezuela’s export revenue.

But it goes beyond than this. Maduro has continued the policy of price controls on basic goods, such as sugar, milk and flour. Venezuela’s long-time ruler Hugo Chavez (Maduro is Chavez’s hand-picked successor) started this practice in 2003, hoping to make these items continually affordable for the country’s poor. Yet this caused producers of these goods to operate at a loss, and increase reliance on imports. Importing goods drove up prices as well as inflation.

With the weak economy overall subsidized goods disappeared from stores almost immediately after they arrived, increasing prices of basic items even more. The government has accused merchants of charging exorbitant prices to make profits, and people from hoarding goods to resell them on the black market. While the extent to which this occurs is unclear, it has been documented that Venezuelans often wait on lines for hours to buy small amount of basic necessities, riots over food and vandalism of stores are rampant, and many are going hungry.

Caracas resident Kelly Vega commented to the Associated Press, “We are eating two meals a day. If we eat breakfast, there’s no lunch. If we have lunch, there’s no dinner.” A recent Caracas university study found that about 12% of capital residents are forced to a skip a meal, a sharp increase from a few years ago.

So what can be done restore order? Especially if a growing number of people feel the government has caused the current situation, do they have an recourse to force a change? Some groups are committed to removing Maduro from power, it is remains to be seen whether or not they will be successful. In December 2015 opposition parties became the majority in Venezuela’s legislative assembly. They proposed an amendment to the constitution reducing Maduro’s term in office to four years (from six). But this past April the country’s supreme court rejected the proposal.

In May 2016 opposition leaders officially submitted a petition calling for a national recall referendum, which could remove Maduro from power. The petition accumulated 1.85 million signatures. Yet the government agency that oversees elections has not taken any action in response to the petition.

Nicholas Casey of the New York Times said on July 3, 2016 that it is unlikely basic food needs will be met before the end of the summer. Casey continues that it is unclear whether Maduro would accept a recall referendum, though also not assured that new government would do any better at making the necessary amount of food available.

It seems doubtful to me the government would allow a recall to take place. Chavez held an iron grip on power for over a decade, it seems doubtful Maduro would act differently. In the midst of much uncertainty, what does seem apparent is that Venezuela will not be able to rescue itself without help. Whether with a new government or the current one, civil society organizations, NGOs, and food relief agencies could make a significant difference. Though Venezuela has been resistant to allowing outside help in the past, hopefully its leaders can be convinced that the current situation necessitates involvement of other actors.

Venezuela could use help, or else the lights may go out again.

The post Venezuela Shortages: Past, Present, and Uncertain Future appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Boris Johnson, Conservative Euroskeptic prominent leader of the Brexit campaign, was expected to replace David Cameron as prime minister after winning the referendum, but he was unceremoniously dumped by his colleagues. Like everyone else, he had no plan for what to do if he won. (The Guardian)

The roiling stock markets and the plunging value of sterling on the day after the United Kingdom’s vote to abandon the European Union are not necessarily the last word in assessing this historic event. These specific trends are short-term reactions, and first reactions rarely settle an issue. Yet it is hard to predict a positive outcome. If nothing else, the U.K. is likely to become less productive and relatively poorer over time because of the vote, with the working-class people who voted overwhelmingly to leave likely to suffer the worst from the consequences.

Beyond that, the contagion of exiting could spread to other countries with disgruntled populations, and Britain could feasibly face the double disruption of losing Scotland while leaving Europe. Conflict could be rekindled in Northern Ireland, where the 1998 peace agreement was premised in part on both parts of the island being in the EU. Meanwhile, both of the U.K.’s major parties have been split by the vote, both are undergoing leadership crises, and no one—not even the leading Brexit* campaigners—has a plan for what to do now that the referendum has actually passed.

The next question—or one of the many next questions that Europe and Britain now face—is how the EU will arrange the U.K.’s exit (if it in fact comes about). European leaders face at least two dilemmas. The first dilemma concerns timing. On the one hand, the Brexit vote cast many aspects of the continent’s economy into uncertainty, and with the European economy barely holding itself together eight years after the 2008 crisis (despite repeated announcements of breakthroughs), uncertainty is the last thing that the continent’s leaders want to see. Some European leaders thus hope to dissolve the relationship with Britain as quickly as possible. On the other hand, the ties holding Europe and Britain together at all levels have grown over the course of decades and are now numerous, complicated, and interwoven. It seems reasonable to assume that any effort to rush the unraveling of this relationship could also have dire consequences.

At the same time, European leaders must face their second dilemma, how severely to treat the U.K. A harsh, vindictive approach, even if satisfying to some, could be counterproductive if it undermines the fragile British and European economies. On the other hand, an accommodating approach might encourage other member states in the belief that they, too, could rewrite their rules of participation or even abandon the EU with a minimum of disruption, thus encouraging the EU’s further unraveling. In addition, the desire to nudge banks and corporations into relocating from London to Paris, Frankfurt, or elsewhere on the continent could also militate against accommodation.

It would be difficult for anyone to fashion an optimal approach among these cross-cutting pressures. All the more worrying is the fact (or, at least, my perception) that the EU has botched one decision after another over the past several years, which inspires little confidence in how it will handle this one. The EU has serious problems, which are rooted at two different levels: structure and policy.

At the structural level, many of the EU’s issues grow from the fact that the continent has integrated itself economically and socially but not politically. There is a disconnect between the unified continental economy and the disjointed system of national governments. Thus 19 of its members share a single currency, the euro, and a single monetary authority, but for years they engaged in separate and often contradictory fiscal policies. Those 19 all sell euro-denominated bonds, but the bonds carry different risks depending on the government issuing them. The continent has open borders internally but is forced to rely on bankrupt Greece to control the flow of refugees from the Middle East and allows Belgium—a country with a weak, underfunded central government and multiple police forces that barely cooperate—to become a haven for terrorists.

Decision making at the continental level lacks an efficient mechanism; it requires building a consensus among 28 (soon to be 27) member states. Major decisions must often be ratified by all 28 parliaments. Thus every member has a veto, and the member least interested in an outcome can set the terms of debate. The difficulty in making decisions may well explain the tendency of European institutions to focus on long-term integration projects of little interest to most people while devoting relatively little attention to day-to-day citizens’ concerns that require quicker solutions.

This situation could theoretically be resolved by establishing a single, continental democratically elected government, but that would require citizens who think of themselves as Europeans first, rather than as Britons, Germans, Poles, or Greeks, and the Brexit vote shows how far they are from that.** In the meantime, multiple “small” decisions are relegated to EU regulatory agencies, which seek to enforce uniform standards to facilitate free-flowing trade, fueling resentment in places like the U.K. that people’s lives are governed by faceless, unaccountable, foreign bureaucrats in Brussels.

At the policy level, European decision makers have made a mess of their response to the 2008 financial crisis. Their focus has been on enforcing austerity to bring budget deficits under control and prevent inflation. In this they have been guided above all by Germany, the continent’s largest and strongest economy and a country with paralyzing memories of its experience with inflation in the early 1920s. (One U.S. dollar, worth about 4 marks in 1914, was worth more than 4 trillion marks in November 1923.) Europe’s current economic problems, however, are the opposite of inflation.

The consequences of austerity have been real. The IMF has estimated that for every $1.00 that Europe saved through fiscal consolidation (spending cuts and tax increases) during the crisis, economic activity declined by a larger amount, a realization that has caused the IMF, but not the EU, to revise its policy approach. Because of austerity and tight money, Europe fell into a second recession in 2011–12, and its pace of recovery has actually been slower than it was in the 1930s.

It avoided a currency crisis in 2012 only because the European Central Bank unilaterally discarded its mandated inflation obsession and promised to buy the government bonds of countries that could not sell them elsewhere. (More recently, the ECB, an outlier in EU decision making since 2012, has established negative interest rates, paying private banks to borrow money if they will, in turn, lend the money out for productive investments, while charging a fee to let money sit idle in deposits.) The U.K., which quietly eased its austerity policy around 2013, has done better than many other European countries, but some analysts have highlighted the irony that Prime Minister Cameron, who led the political fight against Brexit, is largely responsible for the economic malaise that fueled much of the Brexit enthusiasm.

We shall be waiting anxiously to see how the EU responds to its newest crisis. Perhaps it will react by addressing some of its deeper problems. Indeed, past crises have served as catalysts for advances in integration. Jean Monnet, one of the founders of the European Project, once predicted that “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted in those crises.” We trust that the EU’s actions will be rational rather than emotional, but then many expected that of the British voters as well. In any event, let’s hope that its performance is an improvement on the past.

*The term Brexit, or British exit, was modeled on the earlier term Grexit, or Greek exit. Brexit, however, has always been seen as a voluntary phenomenon, whereas the notion of Grexit grew from the idea that the EU might expel Greece for its perceived failures to abide by the organization’s rules.

**This lack of legitimate institutions at the continental level is often described as the “democracy deficit.”

The post Brexit: Will the EU Botch It Again? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif gestures as he talks with journalists from a balcony of the Palais Coburg hotel where the Iran nuclear talks meetings are being held in Vienna, Austria July 10, 2015. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

When an Iranian opposition group released information showing secret activity, including the construction of a uranium enrichment plant and a heavy-water reactor which could theoretically both be used to pursue the development of nuclear weapons, it sparked a thirteen-year standoff between the West and the Islamic Republic. After the allegations about Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear activities became public, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) launched an investigation that concluded in 2003 that Iran had systematically failed to meet its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to report those activities to the organization.

However, while the IAEA said that Iran had violated the NPT’s safeguards agreement, it neither reported evidence of links to a nuclear weapons program nor did Tehran withdraw from the NPT like North Korea had done in an earlier confrontation over illicit nuclear programs. Instead, the Iranian leadership insisted that Iran had discovered and extracted uranium domestically in pursuit of its legitimate right under the treaty to obtain nuclear energy for peaceful aims. The United Nations Security Council did not find this a convincing explanation and sanctions were imposed on Iran, which were extended in 2010. These had a crippling effect on the Iranian economy though they did not end the standoff.

The sanctions did lead to further talks which, after a change in administrations in Iran, eventually led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program would be exclusively peaceful during the period the agreement would be in force. By signing the deal, Iran “reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons.”

The IAEA has been put in charge of the monitoring and reporting of Iran’s implementation of the JCPOA. The deal, among other elements, demanded that Iran restricted its sensitive nuclear activities to two nuclear plants and to civilian energy production levels, defined at 3.67% (before the JCPOA, Iran’s enrichment was on average 20%). The JCPOA additionally stipulated that nuclear research and development would take place only at Natanz and be limited for eight years, and that no enrichment would be permitted at Fordo for 15 years. Since January 2016, Iran has drastically reduced the number of centrifuges which can enrich fuel, and shipped tonnes of low-enriched uranium to Russia.

The deal struck a year ago has since realigned actors inside and out of the Middle Eastern region; this article examines the trends amongst both NATO members’ partners and rivals which might destabilize further the regional balance in the future.

Renewed Saudi-Iranian Energy Rivalry

Despite the skepticism and hostility with which the JCPOA agreement was greeted in both Western countries and inside Iran, it has so far held firm. Since this agreement reduces the chances of war between the Western powers and Tehran, its arrival was certainly applauded by NATO. But the agreement has also had an immediate impact on Iran’s standing in the Middle East and the wider international community, in ways which have not been as positive for international peace and security. This has played out particularly in the field of energy politics.

In May, Iran’s Tasnim news agency, which has strong links with the notorious Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), reported Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh claiming that, thanks to the lasting implementation of the nuclear deal, Iran’s capacity to produce and export crude and oil products has doubled in comparison with the pre-sanctions era. The agency also quoted a recent report by the International Energy Agency as saying Iran’s oil production had returned to the level of pre-sanctions era, reaching 3.56 million barrels a day in April, and added that Iran’s crude exports had increased to 2 million barrels a day, close to the pre-sanction level. The result has been a dramatic increase of Iranian oil available on the international market at a time when oil prices remain at rock bottom, which energy importers like Europe and China largely benefit from.

But the return of Iran to the oil market has also had negative consequences, sparking tensions with traditional Western allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia. When ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela, together with other non-member oil producers such as Russia, met in Doha in April it had been expected that the first agreement to freeze production in fifteen years would soon drive up oil prices. But when Riyadh suddenly demanded that Tehran limit its oil production, Iran proved unwilling to squander the opportunity that returning to world markets afforded. As a result, the expected agreement stalled and any agreement was pushed back to June. Saudi Arabia’s continued rift with its rival in both OPEC and the Middle East in general has played a large role in torpedoing the old effectiveness of the producers’ cartel.

This is good economic news for Western energy importers, but it signals a renewed regional hostility between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran which should concern NATO. The two powers are on opposing sides in two hot Middle Eastern proxy wars – in Yemen and in Syria. The civil war in Yemen is between a Saudi-led coalition and Zaidi Shia rebels known as Houthis, who overthrew the Yemeni government in cooperation with forces loyal to Yemen’s former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Saudis allege that the Houthis are Iranian pawns, saying that Tehran has supplied weapons, money and training to the Shia militia as part of a wider pattern of interference in the region via Shia proxies.

There are longstanding fears in Saudi and NATO that Iran has exploited turmoil between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and now Yemen to expand its regional influence. Now, with the expansion of Iranian capabilities following the ending of sanctions, there is some danger that a rattled Saudi Arabia will use its influence to nudge the United States and NATO towards intervention of one of these quarrels despite the relative improvement in relations between Tehran and the West.

Negative Implications for Syria

While Saudi Arabia is not a NATO member and US-Saudi relations have been cool under the administration of outgoing US president Barack Obama, there is one particular area of overlap between the concerns of the Alliance and those of the leading Sunni Gulf power. In Syria, Iran is backing an array of pro-regime militias and has encouraged its Lebanese ally Hezbollah to join in the fighting as well. A major objection to the JCPOA agreement from Riyadh (and Tel Aviv) was that the lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of Iranian assets would act as a boost for Iranian funding of overseas armed groups, especially in Syria. The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, estimates the Islamic Republic spends $6 billion annually on backing Damascus.

NATO has become concerned about the situation in Syria due to the joint Iranian and Russian intervention. Late last year, Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the elite extra-territorial Special Forces arm of the IRGC, travelled to Moscow to solicit greater Russian involvement in the Syrian war. In September 2015, at a time of heightened Russian-NATO tensions in Europe and the Middle East, a Russian military intervention on behalf of the regime began to turn the tide in favor of Damascus. Iran and Moscow are now cooperating in Syria to restore the Assad regime’s control over the western parts of the country where most of the population lives.

NATO now faces a challenging situation whereby a resurgent Russia flexes its muscles in Eastern Europe and has drawn closer to Tehran over Syria, despite the friction this has caused with neighboring NATO member Turkey. This is not, however, a case of an Iranian-Russian bloc emerging to confront the West and its Arab allies. While Iran and Turkey have disagreed over their views on regional political developments in the last five years Turkish-Iranian relations are nowhere near as bitter as Saudi-Iranian ones. Since the January 16 “Implementation Day” of the JCPOA, Ankara has agreed to expand bilateral trade with Iran to $50 billion a year. It is maneuvering to become Iran’s first trading partner as a way to compensate for Russian sanctions.

Moscow-Tehran Relations and NATO

The signs are that Iran continues to see Moscow as a great power in the Middle East, and one which it can cooperate with on occasions to foil Western moves it deems anti-Iranian. Likewise, Moscow will work with Tehran on occasion. Despite participating in the sanctions regime, Moscow has continued to honor a nuclear deal struck with the Islamic Republic of Iran to construct a series of nuclear power plants at Bushehr in the south of the country. Moscow and Tehran both remain committed to rolling back Western influence in the Middle East and will work together on an ad hoc basis when it suits them both.

But despite their shared suspicions of the United States and NATO, Russia and Iran have had a long and contentious relationship. Just as the United States and European members of NATO have remained aloof  of Turkish and Saudi policy in Syria, Moscow has allowed the Western powers to enlist its help in curbing Iranian nuclear ambitions. Together with China, Russia was one of the nations which agreed to impose tough sanctions on Tehran to force it to the negotiating table. It has also helped ease the passage of the JCPOA by agreeing to recycle Iranian nuclear fuel in Russia, removing any justification for enrichment inside Iran. Moscow does not want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons while fearing that a nuclear agreement will lead to improved ties between Iran and the United States.

The return of Iran to the oil market has also disrupted Russian hopes for a price floor to be coordinated with OPEC producers thanks to Saudi-Iranian rivalry. Iran is pushing to find new ways to extract and export its vast natural-gas reserves, and has entered into preliminary talks with NATO-member Greece to provide a gateway for the Islamic Republic to supply fuel to European markets. Since the dispute between Russia and Ukraine disrupted gas supplies and sped up the EU’s bringing an antitrust case against the Russian gas giant, Russian energy exports to Europe have lost ground of which Iran is hoping to be a beneficiary. Tehran is also competing with Saudi Arabia and Russia in its energy exports to China; Beijing is the largest importer of crude from both Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Therefore, although the pair are happy to cooperate over Syria, whose regime was a longstanding ally of Iran’s dating back to the Iraq-Iran war and whose port of Tartus was the site of the only Russian military facility outside of the former Soviet Union, this was a coincidence of overlapping interests rather than a sign that Moscow and Tehran will draw closer together as Iran emerges from under the shadow of over a decade of crushing economic isolation from the global economy. Moscow does not want to be seen as affiliated with Iran by the mainly Sunni Arab world amidst the escalating Sunni-Shia conflict. Iran is wary of Moscow’s strong ties with Israel and its continued efforts to court anti-Iranian Arab states and longstanding disputes over the Caspian Sea continue to impede Russian-Iranian economic cooperation.

Relations between Russia and Iran will continue to be seen through a lens of shifting interests and alliances, in which they are neither quite friends nor enemies, but rivals. Moscow fears friendlier relations between Iran and the West following the JCPOA could, one day, allow former Soviet states in the Caucasus and Central Asia to export their petroleum to and through Iran, lessening their economic dependence on Russia. The possibility of improving Western-Iranian ties is therefore an alarming one to Russia at a time of deteriorating relations between itself and the West. It is therefore anxiously watching the progress towards reform of Tehran’s more liberal factions as these actors favor greater openness towards the West.

China and Iran

China is now Iran’s number one trading partner as a direct result of the sanctions regime imposed over Iranian nuclear activities, and this closer relationship has continued following the implementation of the JCPOA. In January, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Iran and signed a long series of agreements on economic and technological cooperation with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani. Iran’s leaders have also announced they will cooperate with Beijing on its One Belt One Road initiative.

China and Iran do not share the history of mutual suspicion that divides Iran from Russia, which both have clashed with in the past. Moreover, the drawing together of Tehran and Beijing could ultimately threaten Russia’s economic interests in both China’s hydrocarbon market and Iran’s nuclear energy sector. China has agreed to construct two nuclear power plants in Iran and import Iranian oil on a long-term basis. Russia’s place in the Chinese oil market, which it turned to as an alternative following the Ukrainian crisis, could now be threatened while its monopoly position as the Islamic Republic’s nuclear supplier has been broken. Russian self-interest makes it very unlikely that a Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis will emerge as a united front against the NATO powers, though all three will continue to cooperate together on an ad hoc basis, as Russia and Iran have in Syria.

Iran also acts as an important transport hub between China and Europe, part of a trading relationship dating back to the Iran-Iraq war, when a combination of the Islamic Revolution and the Cold War led Iran to purchase weapons from China instead of Russia or the reviled US. But with the end of sanctions and the tentative return of European states to rebuild their interrupted political and economic relations with Tehran, Chinese firms may find themselves facing increasing competition from outsiders, disturbing a cosy status quo which has been built up during the past decade or more. The visit of China’s president and the inducements he offers may be in part a gambit to pre-empt this, and one which Iran’s leadership seem to have accepted as a continued hedge against overdependence on the West. For now, Beijing is looking to deepen rather than limit its involvement in Iran, whose political elite seem happy to accept the Chinese overtures.

Conclusion

So far the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has been a surprising success for Euro-Atlantic diplomacy against all odds. A year on, the tensions with Iran are lower and progress towards an Iranian nuclear weapon, however obliquely pursued, has been halted for now, while trade and transparency have given the two sides a chance to recalibrate their relationship.

However, the agreement should not be seen as a panacea for everything which ails Iranian-Western relations. Iran remains aligned with a threatening Russia in Syria, which has put sanctions on NATO member Turkey amidst a plunge in relations with other Alliance member states. Tehran has also stepped up its proxy conflicts and economic warfare with Saudi Arabia, a major US and NATO ally in the region. It is moving closer into the orbit of a more assertive China which has its own territorial disputes with key NATO member America and is looking to gather allies into its own competing institutions. One year after the nuclear deal was signed, it is clear that much remains to be done before relations between the Alliance and the Islamic Republic can truly be said to have been reset; what prevails now is more of an armistice.

This article originally appeared in Atlantic Voices and reappears here with kind permission.

The post One Year On: Iran and the World appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

(Pete Souza / White House)

In June, Senator John McCain made a bold claim regarding the consequences of President Obama’s foreign policy decisions. He asserted that Obama’s policy on Iraq—specifically, his decision to remove U.S. troops at the end of 2011—was “directly responsible” for the carnage in Orlando, Florida.

McCain told reporters: “Barack Obama is directly responsible for it because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures—utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq, thinking that conflicts end just because you leave. So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies.

He repeated the charge several times at the behest of surprised reporters, who evidently wanted to give him a chance to moderate the claim. Soon afterward, he issued a statement that appeared to be moderated (changing his terminology from ISIS to ISIL in the process).

The new statement read: “I misspoke. I did not mean to imply that the President was personally responsible. I was referring to President Obama’s national security decisions, not the President himself. As I have said, President Obama’s decision to completely withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 led to the rise of ISIL.”

It went on, arguing that “I and others have long warned that the failure of the President’s policy to deny ISIL safe haven would allow the terrorist organization to inspire, plan, direct or conduct attacks on the United States and Europe as they have done in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino and now Orlando.”

How this differs in any meaningful way from the original statement frankly escapes me, but apparently both McCain and the White House were uninterested in pursuing the issue further and let it drop. Perhaps I am less forgiving than either of them, but the statement has stuck with me. I would like to examine this claim further. For one thing, I suspect that a lot of people will agree with it without devoting a much thought to the matter, so I think it is a mistake to let that slip by.

First of all, whatever one thinks of the link between Obama’s withdrawal order and the creation of ISIS, it is important to notice that the Islamic State had no direct contact with the Orlando attacker. The only connection is that the shooter appears to have been inspired by ISIS. The group does not need to control any territory  for that to happen. The shooter could as easily have said that he was inspired by the 19th-century abolitionist John Brown, and the fact that Brown has been dead for 157 years would not have prevented it. The efforts needed to counter shooting incidents like that in Orlando (or the one in Aurora, Colorado, for that matter) are unrelated to conflicts in the Middle East.

Second, McCain’s brief sequence of events stands out. That is, “…he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaeda [in Iraq] went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today…” Is this the causal argument that McCain meant to present? Obama pulled the troops out of Iraq, so the enemy went to chaotic, war-torn Syria, where they became ISIS?

If we accept that going to Syria was a key element in the transformation of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) into ISIS, how was that caused by Obama pulling troops out of Iraq? Did the creation of a vacuum in Iraq somehow blow them in the opposite direction? If U.S. troops had stayed in Iraq, would AQI then have been unable to go to Syria? If U.S. troops were still fighting them in Iraq, would that not have given them an even greater incentive to go to Syria? The causal relationship here is a bit confusing.

Finally, it is also necessary to mention—as many commentators already have—that the decision for the withdrawal was made by the Bush administration in 2008, in agreement with the Iraqi government. Of course, Condoleezza Rice stated subsequently that the Bush administration did not really mean it, which at first glance seems a curious kind of boast.

What she had in mind, naturally, was that the administration had hoped to negotiate some sort of small-scale, long-term U.S. military presence—short of war fighting—that might have bolstered the Iraqi military and perhaps served as a sort of deterrent. (We shall leave aside for now the fact that the introduction of a large-scale war-fighting force in 2003 did not deter a fight, but rather started one.) The fact is that the Obama administration was aware of this intention and attempted to do just that, but they and the Iraqis could not come to agreement.

The official reason for the failure to come to an agreement had to do with a technical issue: Which country would have legal jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Iraq? Traditionally, U.S. agreements with host countries permit the United States to prosecute such crimes, but Iraq said no.

Although I cannot prove it, my suspicion is that the two sides could have overcome this impasse if they had really wanted to do so. It is quite possible that Obama was not interested in pressing hard for the privilege of staying in Iraq, but I believe the real obstacle was on the other side. After eight years of war, the U.S. military presence had become so toxic that no Iraqi politician wanted to be seen as favoring its continuation.

There were, to be sure, some Iraqi leaders who quietly confessed that a continued U.S. military presence would be useful, or even necessary, but they could not be brought to say so in public, much less vote for it in Parliament. Some American commentators have criticized the Obama administration for insisting on a public vote instead of simply doing what was necessary behind the scenes. But what would have happened in that case? The Iraqi public was not going to overlook that fact that troops were still there. The first time that something went wrong—and it would not take long for that to happen—the people who were unable to endorse a U.S. presence in public would start making statements like, “I didn’t ask them to stay. They just wouldn’t go.” Eventually the situation would be much as it is today, with two significant exceptions:

1. We would be in the middle of it.

2. The Shi’a would be shooting at us, too, because we wouldn’t leave

It is worth noting that even now, despite all the problems Iraq has had with ISIS over the past two years, no Iraqi leader has asked us to come back in with a full military presence.

What McCain has done is not unusual. Whenever a government chooses between two paths and the outcome is negative, people are quick to assume that the opposite choice would have brought complete success. Nonetheless, there is no sure way to know whether the opposite choice would have created a situation that was better, basically the same in all but the details, or even substantially worse.

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The rolling up of a major ivory smuggling network in Tanzania by police last year, and the ongoing trial of alleged ringleader Yang Fenglan, also known as the “Ivory Queen” and her accomplices, demonstrates once again the continued profitability of the illegal wildlife trade that is destroying East African biodiversity, as well that of other ecosystems in southern and central Africa.

The illegal networks compete with conservation efforts that, while trying to breed sustainable populations for endangered animals, also allow for legal hunting of these same animals to help finance those projects. The poaching, being totally unregulated and driven by far-removed foreign demand, threatens such efforts. And the poachers themselves are well-equipped to defend their kills by force: at least 27 park rangers died guarding African wildlife preserves.

It is significant that Yang, a Chinese national who described herself as a networker for local and foreign businesses, made use of the wider Chinese economic community to bring the ivory out of the country. A similar network—but even larger than this one—was exposed in Kenya in 2013, smuggling ivory out of the country by land, sea, and air. According to Kenya’s The Standard, “the dealers conceal their identities through layers of non-existent companies using fake identity cards” and “there is always a collision between airline staff, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) officials, KWS [Kenya Wildlife Service] staff stationed at the airport, and police,” with low- to mid-range employees of airports and marine terminals taking bribes to let the ivory out of the country.

Far from being a world of doctored shipping manifests and container units full of tusks, though, the goods come out in dribs and drabs hidden among cheap foodstuffs and consumer goods. Yet these drops in the bucket add up—in 2011, for instance, a whopping 40 tons of ivory was interdicted as part of the enforcement of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) treaty.

Though China maintains an anti-poaching force in Zimbabwe, is party to international accords, and has advanced legislation domestically to cut back on wildlife farming, the prevailing stereotype is one of ravenous Chinese consumers and lackluster enforcement by China hardly helps this image. Yet the United States and European Union are not all that far behind the PRC.

The Chinese market is mainly for luxury goods such as decorative furnishings, gourmet delicacies, or traditional medicine. These are major draws in Western nations as well, but also common is the acquisition of live endangered species for private collections. That such corruption for the movement of illegal wildlife products could be so institutionalized within the border control system has national security implications as well—the ease with which staff can be plied with money to look the other way on contraband is of immense value to criminal organizations, intelligence services, and armed non-state actors.

Poaching is a source of revenue for some of the latter, such as al-Shabaab in Somalia. Using the country’s charcoal exports (which themselves are of questionable legality) to the Gulf States as cover, elephant ivory and rhino horn poached in Central and East Africa makes its way through Somali brokers to points further east. The amount of money the group earns from its role as a middleman is not entirely clear—perhaps several hundred thousand dollars a month—but the profits probably go to the upkeep of its military forces.

This trade exacts a brutal toll across the continent: in Mozambique, for instance, the rhinoceros is as of 2013 extinct and elephant populations have been halved since 2010. Even South Africa, where conservation efforts are relatively well-funded, poaching of rhino horn has exploded since 2008 and park rangers are playing catch-up to stem the tide.

Somalia’s role in this supply chain stems from its “lawlessness”—though it would be more accurate to say its multiple legal systems, in the absence of a national government, that are critically lax when there is a profit to be made. This makes it an attractive clearinghouse for certain dealers, but also a very unpredictable one given the security situation.

Hence much of the multimillion dollar trade going out through more stable routes in countries where there are functioning national institutions and expatriate communities to co-opt—as even al-Shabaab makes use of the Somalia diaspora in Kenya to ensure a smooth flow of operations. The lack of common enforcement protocols also enables the trade, as some nations are much less punitive towards traffickers—though hard jail time or threat of death at the hands of wildlife sanctuary guards or militaries seems to have little effect on the smugglers’ morale.

Border controls in some of the less-settled areas are effectively nonexistent—and it would be hard to enforce them, not least because the people who do live there have livelihoods depending on free movement. Acquisition of live animals or hides, eggs, horn, and tusk, is not simply the province of well-armed mercenaries. Poaching is also a former of substance in some of the least-governed and most-ignored reaches of the Congo River Basin or on the borders of the Central African Republic, and, more recently, organized raids coming out of war-torn South Sudan.

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The flag of Rojava (Source: http://ariarzen.deviantart.com/)

Elegantly summarizing the spirit of decentralism, economist E. F. Schumacher declared in 1973, “small is beautiful.” British writer G. K. Chesterton noted in his novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill that a true patriot “never under any circumstances boasts of the largeness of his country, but always, and of necessity, boasts of the smallness of it.”

On the Kurdish question, scholarly work and media coverage have mainly focused on the Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, sidelining the Kurdish issue in Syria. But understanding the rapidly changing developments in Syria has become a strategic necessity. Other than inflicting a series of defeats on ISIS, what has been noteworthy is the speed with which the Kurds have emerged from obscurity to become a major force in Syria.

Thomas Jefferson was regarded as the founding father of “American decentralism.” Sketching his ideal in a letter from Monticello in 1824, Jefferson favored the creation of smaller “wards.” In Jefferson’s description, each ward would thus be a small republic within itself, and every man in the state would thus become an acting member of the common government, subordinate indeed, yet important, and entirely within his competence.

It turned out that such “wards” have also been formulating through the locals of “Western Kurdistan,” this time under the name of “cantons.” By the summer of 2012, as Syria collapsed into fighting factions, the Syrian Democratic Forces (PYD) moved decisively to assert control over three pockets of territory with majority Kurdish populations in the north of Syria: Jazira, Kobane, and Afrin. By early 2014, the PYD had styled these as “cantons” of local administration under the collective name Rojava (‘West’) to represent Western Kurdistan, and had held elections to local assemblies.

Rojava’s model aims to be inclusive, and people from a range of different backgrounds are encouraged to be involved (including Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Syrian Turkmen, and Yazidis). A decision was even made to introduce affirmative action for ethnic minorities. There is also a quota for women’s participation in government, as well as for youth.

Many analysts look at Rojava’s decentralism model to be influenced by a type of “libertarian socialism,” under which states become less relevant and people govern through councils, in contrast to national sovereignty, which places the power in the hands of government. “Libertarian socialism” is a fairly recently coined term for a fairly old idea: socialists who embrace the view that individuals should be free. However, they differ from what we generally understand by the term ‘libertarian’ in denying the right to private property. Thus, “left libertarians” embrace the view that natural resources, land, trees, and so on should be held collectively. But libertarian socialism is unable to explain to us how such a system is more efficient in the creation and distribution of wealth.

Predictions about Rojava’s performance may remain speculative. Profoundly isolated from mainstream economics, left-wing anarchists rarely explained how their preferred society would function. Although economic development is an incremental process (investing in physical and human capital, and making marginal improvements in the rule of law), the doorstep conditions toward development mean that the process is not easy to engineer.

As it exists today, the autonomous region of Rojava is one of the few bright spots to emerge from the tragedy of the Syrian crisis. Despite the hostility of almost all of its neighbors, it has not only maintained its independence, but also followed a remarkable democratic experiment that has the most progressive women’s rights record and a multi-ethnic, multi-religious model for the region. Rojava has also armed forces that are effectively fighting ISIS.

By recognizing Rojava’s potential, the U.S. would gain a viable democratic partner in the fight against ISIS. It would be a strategic mistake to confine America’s foreign relations to nation-states alone, which are rapidly losing their exclusive claim in representing the peoples of the Middle East.

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A Chinese tour guide is leading a group of tourists in the central city of Da Nang. (VnExpress)

Ahead of an expected unfavorable ruling for China over its maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea, in an international court case filed by Manila at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, Beijing has been rallying both international and domestic support to their cause.  

Internationally, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry claimed the support of more than 40 nations last month in its boycott of the ruling, while Chinese state media declared almost 60 this past week.  Only 8 of these countries have expressed public support and 5 on the list of supporters have even denied backing the boycott.

On the domestic front, state-owned China Central Television (CCTV) ran a video on June 21 to highlight Beijing’s argument, hoping to propel domestic support. The video, sanctioned by the Chinese Central Propaganda Department, was shared by CCTV on Weibo, China’s widely popular microblogging site.

And in a more concealed ploy, a “friend of the court” brief was submitted by a legal organization called the “Asia-Pacific Institute of International Law” (APIIL) in Hong Kong.  APIIL was only registered in Hong Kong a mere two months ago, has no website or public contact information, and is run by its chairman, Daniel Fung.  Fung is a delegate to the Communist Party-led Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing.  Aligned with Beijing’s official position, the brief calls into question the PCA’s jurisdiction in the ruling over the disputed maritime territories, citing “factual and legal errors” in the case.

But the propaganda wars do not end there, as domestic Chinese tourists are now being indoctrinated to the South China Sea disputes. More than 10,000 tourists have taken a cruise ship to the Paracel island chain, which are in dispute with Vietnam. And this week, government authorities in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang are accusing some 60 Chinese tour guides of operating illegally in this popular tourist city and providing incorrect information about Vietnam’s history to tourists.  Many of the Chinese tour guides are employed by Chinese tour guides who hire a Vietnamese director to act as a front.  

Local Vietnamese guides, who find themselves competing for the tourists, have submitted photos and videos as proof to the Da Nang Tourism Department.  One Vietnamese tour guide has accused the illegal Chinese tour guides of even referring to the shores off Da Nang’s beach as part of China’s territory.

Beijing’s efforts to rally support ahead of the ruling in The Hague will not do much to change the eventual outcome, and could backfire internationally as well as domestically.  Internationally, the efforts are perceived as a failure – attempting to usurp international rule of law by uniting politically weak and economically challenged nations to its cause, with other nations calling out China for never having pledged support.

For its domestic audience, the stakes are higher.  Rallying patriotic support ahead of an expected unfavorable —and could easily backfire should Beijing lose and fail to respond in an adequate “face saving” fashion.   

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al-Sisi and Netanyahu (Photo: Motti Kimchi, Reuters)

Russia’s new status as a pivotal nation in the Middle East’s security environment, accompanied with the American withdrawal and the  rise of ISIS, is pushing Israel and Egypt to rekindle their relations. As Jerusalem wants to retain its status of an oasis of stability amidst surrounding volatility and Cairo is struggling to re-establish itself after the post-Arab Spring fiasco, Russia’s involvement in the region serves as an additional stimulus for these strange bedfellows.

The Kremlin’s military campaign in Syria has successfully preserved Bashar al-Assad’s regime and saved Syria from slipping into the Libyan chaotic scenario. Moreover it is evident that Russia’s military bases will further augment country’s influence in the Mediterranean Sea and entire Middle East, allowing Moscow to actively participate in the regional security setting. Interestingly, unlike during the Cold War, Moscow is now seeking to build strong relations with all major players of the region including Israel.

Putin shares warm relations with both the Israeli Prime Minister and the Egyptian President. In effect, Netanyahu has visited Moscow three times more than the White House for the past year, and al-Sisi’s regime is looking forward to have Russia’s state nuclear giant Rosatom construct the country’s first nuclear power plant in El-Dabaa. In addition to their friendly relations with the Kremlin, Israeli and Egyptian leaders also share great relations with each other.

Israel has earlier returned to Egypt two sarcophagus as a sign of good relations between the two nations. Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold told Reuters: “The return of the Egyptian (artefacts) is symbolic, more than anything, of the changing relations (between) Israel and Egypt.” Moreover, despite a direct violation of the peace treaty of 1979 terms, Israel did not object transfer of the Islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi on April 9.

As Israel remains the most stable nation within the region and the Egyptian economy heavily relies on Saudi help, both countries are interested in benefiting economically from enhanced cooperation. In particular, both Cairo and Jerusalem cooperated in removing obstacles to a multibillion-dollar natural gas deal, as Israel was close to settling a $1.73 billion fine that Egypt was ordered to pay, a move that could further encourage discussion of exporting Israeli offshore gas.

Cooperation between Israel and Egypt is also augmenting due to coinciding interests in terms of regional security and balance of power. Israel and Egypt were alarmed by the spread of transnational jihadi groups such as ISIS and initiated one of the strongest network of intelligence gathering, which was highlighted by the IDF’s deputy chief of staff. Security in the Sinai peninsula has also become a vital issue for both nations.

Egypt could also help to resolve Israeli-Palestinian issue and Gaza’s blockade. Israel and Egypt are discussing possible territorials transfers that would allow Egypt to establish a corridor to Gaza. Furthermore, Sisi is reportedly trying to bring Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Cairo for an Egypt-led peace summit.

In effect, by helping Israel to resolve its conflict with the Palestinians, Egypt is also hoping to receive support back. Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper has recently reported Sisi’s request for Netanyahu’s help in resolving its dispute with Ethiopia over the Renaissance Dam. The issue reportedly took place ‘due to Ethiopia’s intransigence and refusal to respond to the Egyptian calls to coordinate efforts during the construction and storage stages.’

Cairo might also hold old Ottoman grudges against Turkey’s ambitions for the region and Sisi would not want to cooperate with Turkey since it supported the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus, Cairo would rather seek cooperation with Israel within the current regional setting and try to alienate Ankara for as long as possible. Therefore, considering the current rapprochement between Israel and Turkey, Netanyahu will have to be more cautious while seeking to retain same level of relationships with Egypt.

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On June 22, North Korea launched two Musudan medium-range missiles, in defiance of the international warnings and sanctions from the UN. One of the two missiles successfully travelled 400 km and reached 1.000 km of altitude before vanishing in the Sea of Japan, close to the Honshu island, as reported by South Korea’s Joint Staff. Pyongyang’s unchallenged pursuit of its ballistic program reveals that international sanctions have not affected North Korea’s ability to develop nuclear strike capabilities.

This news was saluted by Pyongyang as an important step in the acquisition of advanced ballistic technology, vital to substantiate its threats toWashington and its regional allies. Japan and South Korea’s leaders have immediately denounced the missile test as an additional provocation, undermining international security and dialogue.

Japanese Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani declared the state of alert on Tuesday, ordering the SDF to intercept any incoming ballistic missiles entering the Japanese territory and waters. The Japanese Ministry of Defense also confirmed that DPRK’s midrange missiles could reach a potential range of 2.500 to 4.000 km, striking Japan but also a large part of the Asia-Pacific, including relevant American bases in the region.

Pyongyang’s Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM), based on Cold-war submarine missile technology, with a range of approximately 3.000 km, are still technically able to reach Japan, South Korea and even hit U.S. military bases in Guam. Kim Jong-un himself, has saluted the success of the test as a memorable achievement, stressing that the success of the recent test highlights North Korea’s capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific theatre as reported by the KCNA state news agency.

The implications of the new missile test

Albeit Washington has strongly opposed North Korea from developing intercontinental ballistic, the new missile test represents an evident shift in the regional balance of power. In the recent months, President Park has inaugurated a more assertive policy in response to North Korea’s brinkmanship, shutting down the Kaesong industrial complex and abandoning its traditional strategic patient approach, considered ultimately ineffective in pursuing the path of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Given the rising level of the threat represented by Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, South Korea has strongly increased its military budget in the last year with a further expansion ($32.5 billion), up 4% this year, in response to the imminent  military threat represented by Pyongyang’s restlees nuclear ambitions.

In addition, developing longer-range surface-to-surface missiles and expanding the aircraft capabilities has become the most immediate strategic priorities for Seoul. As stressed by South Korea Minister of Defense, Han Minkoo in the recent Shangri-La Dialogue hosted in Singapore, on June 4th, South Korea will not tolerate any further provocations and threats that directly challenge the security and the peace of the Korean Peninsula.

Yet, Pyongyang’s unpredictable provocations, coupled with substantial progress in increasing its pre-emptive nuclear attack capability, could seriously undermine Washington’s role as a security provider in the region. North Korean provocations not only represent an evident threat to the regional security architecture but are also a frequent challenge to the credibility of the U.S. security commitment in the region.

Obama Administration’s engagement in strengthening the participation of its relevant allies such as Japan and South Korea in strategic initiatives, but also in expanding deterrence capabilities in the Korean Peninsula remains the most pressing issue in protecting the American core interest in the region. Yet, Washington’s desire to accelerate the deployments of advanced missile defence system such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) represents an additional source of concern for the fragile balance of the region, given the strong objections of China and Russia that consider the deployment of the American defence system a serious security threat.

In different occasions, Beijing has strongly opposed the deployment of THAAD in the peninsula claiming that its radar system could be used to monitor China’s military operations rather than being oriented to intercept any incoming missiles from the DPRK. While THAAD itself does not pose a direct threat to China, the Chinese leadership is increasingly concerned that the rising tensions could soon or later lead to a military intervention in Beijing’s backyard.

The Chinese leadership has spared no efforts in pursuing stability and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, increasing the level of the pressure on Pyongyang that remains adamant in asserting its vocation as a Nuclear Power State. In the early June, a North Korea delegation, led by the former Foreign Minister and an influent member of the Politburo Ri Su-yong arrived in Beijing for a bilateral meeting, after the relations have gradually eroded as a consequence of the North Korea restless military provocations and missile tests that are risking to inflame the region.

Beijing has grown wary of the increase of the American strategic presence in the region under the auspice of the Rebalance to Asia strategy, inaugurated by Obama Administration in 2011. Besides, the dangers represented by the unpredictable behavior of the DPRK, the Chinese leadership considers the deployment of the THAAD and strengthening of the trilateral strategic cooperation with Japan and South Korea, a formidable plan orchestrated by Washington to contain China and undermine its core interest in the region.

While the North Korea remains a pressing concern for either China or the Unite States, Obama Administration has managed to consolidate its role in the region, but also fostering a new level of strategic engagement between Japan and South Korea, a critical pillar of Rebalance to Asia strategy.

The new trilateral agreement signed on the sidelines of the recent Shangri-La Dialogue is expected to boost the participation of Japan, South Korea in opposing Pyongyang’s threat to regional peace and security. On the other hand, the pursuit of a more assertive stance from Washington and its close allies could collide with China’s regional strategy, heightening the level of political and military tensions in the region and alimenting the perception of a plan to contain the Beijing’s claims of peaceful development.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution. Among the well-known figures who took part in this political upheaval, Kang Sheng is, in the author’s opinion, the most interesting. Kang is regarded as the first generation of international relations specialists in communist China and the designer of the “China–USSR Grand Debate”.

Kang had been an adviser to the Central Cultural Revolution Group. Before his death in late-1975, he had been a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and vice-president of the People’s Republic of China. He ranked fourth in terms of political power, and was only inferior to Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Wang Hongwen (at that time, Wang was regarded as the successor to Mao). Kang had been a party member since about 1925 and was an experienced party cadre. He had become a member of the Politburo after The Fifth Plenum of the 6th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1934. He was in charge of intelligence and famous for his interrogation techniques.

When he died towards the end of the Cultural Revolution, he was accused of being the spiritual leader of the Gang of Four. The new CCP leader criticized Kang, suggesting that the only reason he had held high political power was because he had been able to gain Mao’s trust. However, this argument is not valid. Kang’s success in acquiring political power can be attributed to structural reasons, reasons which are also applicable in the Communist Party today.

The discursive power of identifying “external threats”

Kang’s greatest capital asset was his overwhelming discursive power in the field of international relations. Currently, one of China’s major concerns is the interference of foreign forces. Whether this is of real concern or not, officials at every level have been busily formulating policy in accordance with such doctrine. Thus, those who dominate the discursive power by defining the potential threat of such foreign forces are able to legitimize their subsequent actions.

In Mao’s era, the major external threat was not posed by the US, but by a revisionist USSR. Among the CCP’s high-ranking officials, there were only a few who understood Russian, and the number of those who had worked in USSR but were still loyal to Chinese Communist Party was extremely limited. Kang was one of the few. He had been assigned to work in Moscow in 1933, and was the vice representative of China in the Communist International. He thus gained experience of the USSR and was a capable Russian speaker. Kang spent 5 years in the USSR, but despite this he remained loyal to the CCP. His name “Kang Sheng” is a Chinese translation of his Russian name. His profile, even in the eyes of USSR officials, was impressive.

In 1960, Kang had represented China in the Warsaw Pact conference. As Sino-USSR relations had become frozen, Kang prepared a sarcastic speech targeting Khrushchev. Khrushchev had then criticized Kang as not being qualified to challenge him in debate. In response, Kang calmly defended himself by pointing out that Khrushchev’s qualifications didn’t match his, since Kang was already in 1935 the alternate member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), whereas at that time Khrushchev had not even been a member of the Central Committee. A Soviet representative recalled later that Kang had used his advantage to selectively transmit information to China and played a major role in the worsening of Sino-USSR relations. 9 Points to Criticize USSR was one of Kang’s a major contributions.

A talented artist

Another talent on which Kang could capitalize was his classical education and artistic ability. Although there were many intellectuals among high-ranking officials in the CCP, the qualifications of these intellectuals were highly inflated. The average educational level of the CCP was in fact even lower than that of the Khmer Rouge, whose ranks included a number of professors.

However, Kang, in addition to holding enormous political power, was one of the few whose abilities had not been exaggerated. His artist talent may not have been useful in Mao’s eyes, but Kang’s ideological manipulability allowed him to merge artwork with politics. He was generally seen as a specialist, and his persuasiveness is not in doubt. Kang had been born into a literate family and was raised with an awareness of the Chinese classics. He was also a very fine calligrapher and could use both hands simultaneously. Yu Qiaqing, the backer of Chiang Kai-shek and a Shanghai billionaire, had been attracted by Kang’s calligraphy.

As a consequence, Kang managed to gain employment with Yu as his personal secretary, a position he used as a cover for spying. It was during that time that Kang began to appreciate cultural relics and became a specialist in the field, familiarizing himself with all kinds of skills and techniques regarding the arts. He went under the name “Lu Chishui” and believed that his talent was greater than that of Qi Baishi. It has been suggested that Kang created the term “Shilin” for the scenic stone forest of Yunnan (although the word was erased after the Cultural Revolution for the sake of political correctness). What is undoubtedly true is that Kang is responsible for almost the entire collection of calligraphy that has been handed down from that period. The collection is referred to as “Kang Style”.

Kang had also learned Kung Fu when he was young and the use of assorted weaponry, and when he was in the USSR, he took up wrestling. In addition to this, he was trained to use a gun; he was a sharpshooter, and would execute traitors himself. As he had grown up in Shandong, which retained a strong German influence, he could speak German as well as Russian. His learning attracted many supporters, including the wife of Mao, Jiang Qing. Kang was the only person whom Jiang Qing would identify as her teacher.

The father of spying in the CCP

Though it is impossible for us to find much information about the policy that Kang formulated as one of the fathers of espionage, several characteristics can be gleaned from officially disclosed information. Unlike ordinary secret service agents, Kang was capable of quantitative management. He provided a number of quantified indicators to assess the loyalty of each CCP Central Representative. This data would then be processed by Jiang Qing. The assessment method was applied to all units and officials of all ranks.

Although false judgments and unjust cases were a common result, the method allowed an efficient reshaping of the ideology of the state, at least from the perspective of its leaders. It is widely acknowledged that “On Contradiction” proposed by Mao has been the guiding principle of class struggle. Actually, the principle originally adopted by Kang had been more orthodox, since Kang had been directly influenced the by USSR’s socialist theory. Kang had been in Moscow during the Soviet era of the Great Terror led by Stalin. As Kang had lived through both the Kirov and Trotsky cases, he understood how to manage through the “terror of quantification”. Mao might have had a superficial knowledge of and ability to integrate Chinese traditional emperor-style governance and the scientific management style of the USSR, but it was Kang who executed both styles competently.

Readers may well ask what value there is in considering Kang now, since he passed away so long ago. The significance of Kang’s case is that his rise was not only the result of individual effort, but also created by sociopolitical structure. If the Communist Party demands a change regarding the mode of governance, it is necessary to fine-tune its management style of the elite class and reassert the adoption of Mass Line. To justify the transformation, Kang’s three instruments of “identification of external threats”, “artistic soft power” and “quantified management style” are the necessities for power acquisition.

War on paper may seem easy. However, the reality is a lot tougher. To acquire all the instruments describe above, the individual needs to have relevant expertise, life experience, organizational skills, a certain level of political sensitivity and loyalty. Individuals possessing all these characteristics are rare. However, once such an individual shows up and holds power, how far he will go should not be underestimated.

The post Kang Shen and the CCP from an IR Perspective appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

While it may intellectually realize that the basis of China’s power is its economy, the U.S. is still fighting militarily. Therefore, any success against China will necessitate the ultimate U.S. realization that it must reform its own economy.

The U.S. has recently improved relations with Vietnam to the point of lifting its arms embargo against the country. Meanwhile, it is eagerly awaiting The Hague’s verdict in the Philippines’ case brought against China regarding conflicting South China Sea claims. These maneuvers, along with its “freedom of navigation” (FONOP) patrols in the region, clearly demonstrate the U.S.’ resolve to counter Chinese assertiveness.

However, these hard power moves are only tactical gambits. In order to truly succeed in its global game against China, the U.S. must recognize the importance of soft power.  Specifically, the U.S. must recognize the important role of economics in any nation’s foreign policy stance, including its own.  

Japan is the U.S.’ major ally in Asia and, as such, plays a key role in the American “pivot”, or “rebalance” to Asia.  This is seen in northeast Asia, where proposed and actual amendments to the Japanese constitution will allow Japan to play a greater role in supporting U.S. forces in the region. Japan is also forging its own diplomatic and economic path with respect to Russia, irrespective of U.S. hesitation.

This is the case in southeast Asia as well, where Japan has expressed an interest in upholding regional security in the midst of the various South China Sea disputes. Additionally, Japan (like the U.S.) has targeted Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, and India as potential partners to balance China in this regard. However, Japan, as of yet, has not participated in the U.S.’ FONOP patrols.

However, Japan is in a quandary similar to many other states in the region as its economy is highly interlinked with that of China. The fact that China is now the leading trading partner of many states in the region, including U.S. allies, poses a major dilemma for the U.S.. No matter how strongly the U.S. may have wanted a statement from its recent ASEAN Sunnylands summit condemning China, many of the forum’s participants had to calculate the potential impact of such a statement on economic ties with China.

To frame the global economic conflict between the U.S. and China as one between the “Washington Consensus” and the “Beijing Consensus” would be simplistic at best. In its most rudimentary form, the argument purportedly pits one model of economic development, dominated by the market, against the other, supported by government intervention. While this debate may be useful in an academic or think tank setting, its utility to a global audience is limited.

This is because many people around the world are still reeling from the effects of the Great Recession.  What form a government takes in its domestic economic policy is considerably less important than the ultimate results which accrue to that particular country’s citizens. As Deng Xiaoping famously said, “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mice.”

The story of how China succeeded, within a generation, in transforming itself from a backward, isolated player on the regional scene to a global power with the world’s largest financial reserves has been told many times. Doubtless, the U.S. and Japan both played a part in this economic miracle, by providing for regional security and giving massive development assistance, respectively.  However, the cumulative effect of long-term, strategic planning by the Chinese government and its emphasis on economic development and educational investment in its citizenry can not be denied. The recent economic slowdown notwithstanding, this planning has enabled the country to lift more people out of poverty, not just in Chinese history, but human history.

Many people around the world still look to the U.S. as a model for possible upward mobility. However, this image has been tarnished as the aftereffects of the economic crisis still continue to linger onward nearly a decade later.  Even more importantly, significant numbers of Americans have parlayed this economic dissatisfaction into political action. While the Occupy Wall Street movement may have been dismissed by some at the time, there can be no dismissal of the current widespread economic discontent, which has led to the rise of anti-establishment presidential candidates of both major parties.

Just as previous generations of people around the world marveled at the U.S.’s post-World War II economic miracle, globalization has given the world’s current generation a window into the U.S.’s current economic troubles. Most damaging, huge numbers of millennials, the largest demographic group in America and literally the future of the country, purport to no longer believe in capitalism itself. If America’s future no longer believes in the nation’s economic viability, why should anyone else in the world? In comparison to China, millions of Americans have not been lifted out of poverty, but have actually been returned to poverty, itself a result of the continuing destruction of the middle-class.

Many authors have tackled this subject before, most notably Richard N. Haas in his seminal book, “Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America’s House in Order”. However, this book was first published three years ago and the case can be made that if there’s been any improvement in the economic life of the average American since then, it’s been marginal at best. What is clear, is that without a concerted effort by the U.S. to tackle problems such as the widening gap between rich and poor, crumbling infrastructure, and universal access to education without crippling lifelong debt, it will eventually lose the economic battle for global hearts and minds to China.

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Pro-Brexit advocate Boris Johnson poses for a selfie photo with voters on the final day of campaigning before Thursday’s EU referendum vote, in Selby, north England. (Andrew Parsons/AP, File)

Depending on which side you were supporting, 24 June, 2016 was either one of Britain’s “finest hours” or a 21st century “Dunkirk.”

That morning, Britain’s nationalistic impulse prevailed over a slow to form multi-national spirit that proved to be far weaker than most ever thought. By choosing to slap the hands of Brussels based bureaucrats off the helm off H.M.S. Great Britain the Brits have set a precedent that other populations across the EU may very well follow. Have Boris Johnson and the seventeen million people that followed his lead inflicted a massive hole into the wall that up until 24 June, 2016 held back surging nationalism?

Chancellor Angela Merkel characterized the exit vote as a “turning point for Europe” and “a turning point for the European unification process.” But might the outcome also be a harbinger of a coming and monumental pivoting away from the globalization process, especially, that dimension of the phenomena that requires the strengthening of the supranational at the expense of local institutions and authorities.

With this vote, the unthinkable becomes far more thinkable, and even doable for populations across Europe and the United States who feel they have come out on the losing side of the globalization proposition.

With this vote, Britain has now made it less indecent for states (and their anti-globalization, anti-immigration political factions) to advance and intensify conversations centered on putting the speed brakes on free trade, open arms immigration and other defining features of globalization.

With this vote, an entity originally devised and established as a war prevention mechanism is now spiritually at its weakest point since the march towards integration began over 60 years ago.

With this vote, President Vladimir Putin smiles knowing that his up-start, but potent, political and security peer competitor to the West has just had its confidence knocked out of it.

But most importantly, with this vote, the aspiration for a more open, prosperous, unified and homogeneous global society will be more vigorously tested by demagogues and right of center factions across the world that can now look to the UK for inspiration.

Further, European and American voters might come to the conclusion as the Brits have, that their national aches and pains, such as protracted fiscal crisis, immigrant and refugee inflows, and urban terror attacks can be better solved in their respective nations’ capitals than by uber-educated elites based in distant cities.

For sure, even if the causal links between the shortcoming of globalization and the economic pain of individual citizens are statistically frail, the isolationist political mood—to varying degrees a backlash to globalization—might prove hard to contain in the coming months and years.

Lastly, the presumptive American Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, celebrated the decision of British citizens to “take their country back” and linked the campaign to his own quest for the U.S. presidency. He remarked that the result goes to show how “angry” voters on both sides of the Atlantic are with the status quo. If the vote on 24 June proves to be the beginning of a trend, Mr. Trump just might get this wall.

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