Diplomacy & Crisis News

After more than 24 years of operations, the United Nations tribunal set up to prosecute crimes committed during conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, has now completed all judicial work, the court’s President told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

The United Nations today designated the years 2021 to 2030 as the ‘Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development’ to boost international coordination and cooperation in research and scientific programmes for better management of ocean and coastal zone resources and reducing maritime risks.

A study carried out by the United Nations refugee agency has revealed disturbing details about a little-known side to the Syrian conflict: sexual violence against boys and men.

Worldwide filings for patents, trademarks and industrial designs reached record heights in 2016 amid soaring demand in China, which received more patent applications than the combined total of applications received by the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the European Patent Office, the United Nations intellectual property agency said Wednesday.

A Essen, à partir du 10 avril, l'Union chrétienne-démocrate (CDU) tiendra congrès. Objectif : tourner la page de l'« affaire Kohl » et reprendre l'offensive contre la coalition de M. Gerhard Schröder, qui lui dispute le « centre » de la vie politique. Symbolique sera l'élection à la présidence de Mme (...) / Allemagne, Parti politique, Politique, Société civile, Corruption - 2000/04

En quelques semaines, les élections primaires américaines auront éliminé la plupart des concurrents à la présidence. Mais c'est plus l'argent et la notoriété des candidats que leurs prises de position qui feront la différence. Alors que l'économie entre dans la plus longue période de croissance de son (...) / États-Unis, Démocratie, Droit, État, Politique - 2000/02

Une campagne présidentielle rassemble tous les fragments du discours dominant, repris à satiété par les médias. Parler pour faire taire, tel est le rôle de cette pédagogie de la soumission, qui annonce la nécessaire pénitence et célèbre les « sacrifices » à venir. Mais, dans ces litanies électorales, (...) / France, Communication, Idéologie, Politique - 1995/03

Nearly eclipsing the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Euromaidan protests last Tuesday was the latest in the ongoing scandal surrounding former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

According to newly released records, the beleaguered political consultant traveled to Moscow at least 18 times during his nearly decade’s worth of work for the pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovych, who was elected as president in 2010 and ousted in 2014. The revelations suggest his consulting and business activities were far more closely linked with Russia than he initially revealed.

Manafort has been the subject of intense scrutiny over his work for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which culminated last month when a grand jury indicted him and his former colleague Rick Gates on a range of charges as part of FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. The political consultant has claimed that his work was intended to boost Ukraine’s integration with Europe, but the flight records put the lie to a tale that was already hanging from a thread.

Meanwhile, as Washington focuses on Manafort’s alleged ties with the Kremlin and Mueller’s wider Russia investigation, Ukrainians are wondering what the Manafort affair means for the prospect of eventually rooting out political corruption in their own country. And even if the writing’s on the wall, Kiev doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Revelations of Manafort’s skullduggery – not least the estimated $17 million he and his associates were paid by the Party of Regions – hits close to home for citizens in a country where the 50 richest own over 45% of GDP and that ranked 131st out of 176 countries in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index. Even more frustrating for ordinary Ukrainians, despite promises by President Petro Poroshenko to root out corruption, he has, if anything, only helped cronyism become more entrenched.

Most recently, in response to the Manafort investigation, while government officials have said they are willing to assist US authorities, observers shouldn’t hold their breaths. After all, even though the alleged wrongdoing occurred under the previous administration’s watch, Poroshenko’s government has a number of reasons to drag its feet. First, they are loath to derail relations with the White House by further delving into what is now a distinctly sore subject. But most importantly, Poroshenko and his allies worry that if the government opened up its own probe, this would have major consequences for Manafort’s wider network of contacts, not least the oligarchs and crooked officials who still make up a broad swath of the current political elite.

As a result, the country’s most powerful oligarchs are eager for the Manafort affair to blow over as soon as possible. These include men like the businessman Dmytro Firtash and the coal and metals tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, who rank among the wealthiest in the country and have a finger in nearly every pie – from the seats of parliament to the presidential palace to the country’s biggest conglomerates. It was they who helped Yanukovych hire Manafort to begin with and drove his efforts to boost his reputation in the West. But embarrassingly for the current government, they still pull a considerable amount of political clout.

For instance, Firtash – the billionaire oligarch and Party of Regions funder – has close ties with Manafort, having worked with him in a failed effort to buy the Drake Hotel in New York for $850 million in 2008. He has also been accused of essentially overseeing the process by which Poroshenko became president, having helped to organize a summit between former boxer Vitali Klitschko and Poroshenko in 2014. According to allegations, Firtash helped convince Klitschko to run for mayor of Kiev instead of the presidency, in a deal that fueled fury in a country tired of major political decisions being turned into gentlemen’s agreements.

Another oligarch who stands to suffer from a more in-depth investigation of Manafort’s sordid past is Rinat Akhmetov, the man responsible for bringing the political consultant to Ukraine in the first place. Ukraine’s wealthiest man, he is reported to have come out on top following a power struggle among organized crime groups in the 1990s over control for coal and metals assets in the former Soviet Union – assets that he has now organized under his holding company, System Capital Management (SCM).

While Akhmetov claims that he made his fortune thanks to wit and luck, the evidence suggests otherwise. Some claim that Akhmetov’s first stroke of good fortune came in 1995, when his mentor, Akhat Bragin, was killed along with his bodyguards in a bombing. Later, during the Yanukovych era, Akhmetov exerted considerable power as a key Party of Regions funder. Not surprisingly, during those same years, his businesses boomed, adding an estimated $3 billion to his bank accounts in a matter of months. Of course, like many of his fellow oligarchs, Akhmetov recognizes the importance of staying on the good side of the government: after he realized where the winds were blowing in 2013, he, Firtash, and other oligarchs switched teams, beginning to openly support the Euromaidan.

The result is that Poroshenko’s initial promises to enact a policy of “de-oligarchization” has ended in a coalition between the president and Akhmetov, the main heir of Ukraine’s entrenched system in crony capitalism. Parts of the latter’s hold over Ukraine’s economy have started to crack, especially after a London court ordered Akhmetov to pay almost $800 million and settle the debts accrued after the purchase of the state telecom company Ukrtelecom in 2013.

Poroshenko – a political turncoat and tycoon in his own right – thus represents only the latest iteration of oligarchical government in a country that remains, as ever, firmly under the thumb of corrupt interests. Given the tycoons’ enduring power and the government’s slow-moving efforts to tackle corruption, then, we shouldn’t be surprised if Kiev fails to use the Manafort affair as a catalyst for reforms. Yet the government’s likely reluctance to further investigate Manafort’s past – and his network of contacts with Ukraine’s deep state – represents a huge loss for a country that only four years ago had such high hopes for a new chapter in the country’s history.

The post In oligarchic Ukraine, Manafort is a symptom of a wider disease appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Le nouveau numéro de Politique étrangère (4/2017) vient de paraître ! Il consacre un dossier complet à l’Irak après Daech, tandis que le « Contrechamps » se concentre sur la rupture de l’ordre mondial sous la présidence Trump. Enfin, comme à chaque livraison, de nombreux articles viennent éclairer l’actualité, en particulier sur le Yémen et la crise Corée du Nord/États-Unis.

Au-delà des revendications de rupture, Trump bouleverse-t-il l’ordre international et la place qu’y occupent les États-Unis ? La rubrique Contrechamps de ce numéro répond : oui, au moins par sa critique radicale du multilatéralisme. Une critique qui pourrait laisser le pays bien seul en marge d’un multilatéralisme se reconstituant sans lui. Mais Trump doit aussi être vu comme un symptôme : celui de la crise d’un ordre libéral qui a, ces dernières années, divisé les peuples, les a montés les uns contre les autres, ouvrant la voie aux populismes de toute nature.

L’Irak se relèvera-t-il, et comment, de décennies de dictature, d’une invasion américaine, d’une guerre civile, de la parcellisation aujourd’hui imposée entre milices, communautés, djihadistes, et influences extérieures ? Le dossier central de ce numéro s’interroge sur l’avenir de l’État irakien, capital pour une région entière où semblent éclater, ou se déliter, toutes les structures politiques en place. L’Irak « souverain, autonome et démocratique » qu’appelait de ses vœux Obama pourra-t-il un jour exister ?

Le numéro 4/2017 de Politique étrangère éclaire d’autres grandes questions de l’actualité internationale : jusqu’où peut aller l’affrontement Corée du Nord/États-Unis ? Quel est le fond du drame yéménite, entre catastrophe militaire et désastre humanitaire ? Comment fonctionne vraiment le pouvoir iranien ? La Belgique est-elle le maillon faible de la lutte européenne contre le terrorisme ? La vitalité des think tanks chinois traduit-elle une nouvelle Grande stratégie de Pékin, pour s’ouvrir au monde et y peser ?

* * *

Découvrez la présentation vidéo de Dominique David :

Découvrez le sommaire complet ici.

Téléchargez le dossier de presse ici.

Lisez gratuitement :

• l’article de Pierre Vimont, « L’ordre international face à l’Amérique de Trump »
• l’article d’Antoine Bondaz, « Corée du Nord/États-Unis : jusqu’où la confrontation ? »

Achetez le numéro 4/2017 de Politique étrangère ici.

Suivez-nous sur Twitter : @Pol_Etrangere !

Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was more than just a leader practiced in the arts of political expedience. He represented the last historic link with the origins of the Yemeni Republic’s foundation and the last hope for its future.

La polémique interne va grandissant en Israël entre, d'une part, les partisans de la guerre du Liban et du maintien de l'occupation de la région sud du pays et, d'autre part, ceux qui récusent cette politique, qui voient une différence de principe entre une guerre comme celle de 1948-1949, où il n'y (...) / Israël, Liban, Conflit israélo-arabe, Politique, Guerre du Liban 1982 - 1983/12

Un pacte régional couronnera-t-il le dispositif de domination politique et militaire ? « Si vous n'aviez pas... un Iran fort, capable de garantir sa propre sécurité, d'assurer celle de la région et, en cas de besoin, celle de l'océan Indien, comment feriez-vous ? Vous stationneriez un million de (...) / Arabie saoudite, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Golfe, Irak, Iran, Proche-Orient, Commerce des armes, Défense, Politique, Relations internationales, Oman, Stratégie militaire - 1977/07

Le 1er janvier 1975, M. Henry Kissinger défraya la chronique en annonçant, dans une interview à Business Week, que les Etats-Unis n'excluraient pas la possibilité d'une intervention militaire en Proche-Orient si les pays arabes de l'OPEP menaçaient d'« étrangler » le monde industrialisé . Tandis que (...) / Arabie saoudite, États-Unis (affaires extérieures), Golfe, Iran, Méditerranée, Armée, Pétrole, Relations internationales, Violence, Stratégie militaire - 1976/03

Although unhelpful, Trump’s tweets are not the essence of the issue.

President Donald J. Trump’s tweets are striking and unhelpful, but they do not explain the essence of the current strategic situation surrounding North Korea. The underlying dynamics are more deeply rooted than any one day’s headline, even if the current U.S. president has done more than his share to exacerbate the situation.

In terms of U.S. security issues in East Asia, there is a near-term threat concerning North Korea and a longer-term threat concerning China as a rising great power. A main goal in the near term has been to bolster cooperation among the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China in order to impose restraint on North Korea. In doing so, the U.S. administration would probably prefer stronger cooperation among itself, Japan, and South Korea inasmuch as China is itself viewed as potential threat. The widespread belief that only China has influence in Pyongyang, however, assures it a role in U.S. plans, perhaps a greater role than China prefers or is capable of.

The goal of maintaining this coalition through to a successful conclusion confronts both facilitating and hindering conditions. The main facilitating condition has been the behavior of North Korea, itself, which has gone a long way toward forcing the other countries together regardless of what the U.S. president does. Among hindering conditions are: a new, liberal South Korean administration that came into office with the express hope of improving relations with North Korea and China; a China and a South Korea that prefer diplomacy whereas the current U.S. administration prefers economic pressure and random, sometimes contradictory threats; a South Korean electorate that views Japan with extreme suspicion and contempt; countries other than China that have little leverage over North Korea; a China that views extreme pressure on a fragile North Korean economy as a possible prelude to the collapse of the North Korean regime (a traditional ally of China) and, subsequently, massive refugee flows and possibly war on the Korean Peninsula as South Korea, the United States, and China race to secure the North Korean territory first; and a North Korea that at this point has little incentive to make concessions.

While the main relationships have been sorting themselves out, side disputes among the partners add to the fissiparous pressures in the coalition. China and Japan, for instance, are engaged in a dispute over the ownership of islets (Diaoyu/Senkaku) in the East China Sea and over China’s declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone in that area. South Korea and Japan have their own island dispute (Dokdo/Takeshima) in the Sea of Japan (or the East Sea, as the Koreans insist on calling it). Also, the previous South Korean administration agreed to the deployment of a U.S. THAAD missile-defense system on its territory to guard against possible North Korean missile strikes. China objected to the THAAD deployment, claiming that the system, and especially the associated radars, constituted the basis for a larger, regional system to be directed against China in the future. The new South Korean administration objected as well, but then agreed to complete the deployment owing to North Korea’s behavior. The THAAD dispute between China and South Korea appears to have been resolved in recent weeks—once China’s 19th Party Congress was safely out of the way and the deployment had been completed anyway—but the resolution included statements by South Korea that it will host no further missile-defense systems and that the current U.S.-Korean-Japanese collaboration will not grow into a permanent trilateral alliance. These are assurances that the U.S. administration would prefer that Seoul had not made.

One big, unanswered question is North Korea’s motivation for seeking nuclear weapons or, conversely, for agreeing to a mutually acceptable outcome, regardless of whether the other countries succeed in maintaining a united front. Pyongyang may have multiple goals for seeking nuclear weapons. As some commentators have suggested, it may hope to profit from selling weapons to other rogue countries. (North Korea does not have a great variety of attractive export items to offer.) It may hope to intimidate other countries. It may intend to deter U.S. intervention while forcefully reuniting the Korean Peninsula. These are all fine reasons for not wanting North Korea to get nukes. The fundamental underlying interest, however, is regime survival, especially when its main traditional ally appears to be colluding with the other side. Only with nuclear weapons can North Korea hope to defend itself against far larger adversaries.* Compared with the other possible motivations, this one is inherently difficult to negotiate away. Doing so would require an extreme degree of reassurance.

What end goal is the United States seeking through this collaboration? The stated objective (when the president is not alluding to destroying North Korea outright) is a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. From North Korea’s perspective, however, this goal faces two obstacles that Americans, who do not tend to look at things from North Korea’s perspective, do not see. It is—again, from North Korea’s perspective—inherently unequal, and the United States cannot be trusted.

First, what does it mean to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula? As viewed from Washington, North Korea would be expected to eliminate its entire nuclear arsenal and eliminate the means for producing more. South Korea, for its part, has no nuclear weapons. What would the United States do? Withdraw its nuclear arsenal from South Korea to Guam or the U.S. mainland. In fact, the United States has already done this and has little further to offer in that regard. Once North Korea had destroyed its arsenal and production facilities, however, the United States could return its arsenal to South Korea overnight, or it could target North Korea from submarines or from bases in the United States without having to touch South Korean soil. For North Korea to accept this deal would require a high degree of confidence in the United States’ willingness to abide by the agreement.

What degree of confidence does Pyongyang have in the United States? Let’s view the history, from North Korea’s perspective. Saddam Hussein eliminated his nuclear program. (Sure, the Americans claim they didn’t believe it, but the North Koreans don’t trust Americans.) Then the United States attacked Iraq, and now Saddam Hussein is dead. Mu’ammar Qadhafi negotiated an explicit deal with the United States to give up his nuclear program in return for improved relations. Then the United States attacked Libya, and now Mu’ammar Qadhafi is dead. And frankly, the United States would be unlikely to simply stand by if the North Korean regime were to collapse. Beyond that, while many Americans will point out North Korea’s violation of the 1994 “Agreed Framework” in the early 2000s, the North Koreans will argue that the United States had never fulfilled its obligations under the agreement. (The United States was to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea and, together with South Korea and Japan, provide for the construction of two light-water reactors, which would have produced electricity for North Korea with a reduced danger of proliferation; none of this had occurred when, in 2002, the United States accused North Korea of cheating and canceled the accord.) Finally—and this is probably Trump’s greatest personal contribution to the matter—Trump has been actively denouncing his country’s nuclear agreement with Iran and has refused to certify Iran’s continued compliance with that agreement despite findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. experts that Iran is in fact in compliance. This is unlikely to persuade North Korea, or other countries for that matter, of the administration’s seriousness about negotiating similar agreements.

Thus, the outlook is not a pleasant one. Having gotten this far despite threats and sanctions, North Korea is unlikely to give up its quest for a nuclear arsenal now. Yet the secretary of defense, the national security adviser, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Trump himself have at various times suggested that the United States will not permit North Korea to acquire a usable nuclear arsenal. Indeed, this is the first U.S. administration to have actually threatened a preemptive strike against North Korea, which if anything is an incentive for the North Koreans to preempt inasmuch as they could not assume that their deterrent force would survive a U.S. first strike. If the administration continues with that line of thinking, then war is likely. On the other hand, reversing course is not alien to the Trump administration. The alternative would be deterrence as well as the simultaneous reassurance of allies South Korea and Japan, countries that will be more exposed to North Korean weaponry than we. Since this may require communicating a clear message as to exactly what North Korean behavior is to be deterred and what the allies will have to be promised, the Trump administration will have to decide what that is. That, in turn, may require more consistency than the administration has shown so far.

*North Koreans were not the only ones to draw such conclusions. In 1991 an Indian general remarked that the lesson of the Persian Gulf War was: never fight the US without nuclear weapons.

The post North Korea, Trump, and Underlying Dynamics appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

L'exécution aux Etats-Unis du « tueur en série » (« serial killer ») John Gacy, en mai dernier, a provoqué dans les médias une allégresse justicière. Le châtiment d'une déviance maléfique a permis à la société américaine de réaffirmer, contre tous les guerriers fous et autres individus sauvages, les valeurs de (...) / États-Unis (affaires intérieures), Criminalité, Idées, Violence - 1994/08

A man paints over the logo of the Cambodia National Rescue Party at its headquarters in Phnom Penh. Photo: Getty Images.

In the days following the dissolution of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), I headed to Phnom Penh to witness the changes on the ground since my last visit over two years ago.  On November 16, Cambodia’s Supreme Court ruled to dissolve the CNRP, and ban 118 of its senior officials from any political activity in the Kingdom for five years, effectively removing the sole threat to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s continuation of his 32-year rule.

The court’s case was predicated on an accusation the CNRP was attempting to overthrow the government through a “color revolution” aided by the United States.  Evidence presented in court consisted of two videos taken in 2013 allegedly of party leader Kem Sokha admitting to receiving U.S. training, and of former CNRP leader Sam Rainsy calling on the armed forces to turn their guns on the government.  Rainsy remains in exile since fleeing to France in 2013, while Sokha was arrested on September 3 on charges of “treason” and imprisoned.

The dissolution of the main opposition party has led to an international outcry, with Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch calling the ruling the “death of democracy” and “a political killing of the Paris Peace Accords”, while the International Commission of Jurists pointed to a “human rights and rule of law crisis” in Cambodia.  The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, also weighed in, arguing Cambodia was now ushering in a “new era of de facto one-party rule”.

Walking the streets of Phnom Penh, I sensed a profound resignation among the city’s residents and many of the tourists seemed unaware of the changes taking place.  A security guard interviewed by the Phnom Penh Post expressed the people’s frustration, saying “The people dare not to express their opinion or change, because if one stands up, that one will be jailed. If two stand up, two will be jailed,” while also predicting people would be similarly happy to see Hun Sen removed from power.

The Phnom Penh Post also spoke with 21-year-old Sok Sophorn, who argued, “For the upcoming election, I think it is meaningless because there is only one side, therefore who can [people] vote for?”  “Our country, law and power is in his [Hun Sen’s] hands. Everything belongs to him and if he orders them to go left, they go left and when he orders them right, they go right.”  

The changes to democracy in Cambodia will likely be a topic of discussion on December 7, when the Foreign Policy Association welcomes Dr. Dambisa Moyo, economist and author, to address the topic Is Democracy Dying? at the Harvard Club in New York.  A related concern, however, is how democracy is dying, and whether Chinese money and investment (flowing into Cambodia and other countries), will convince the people to trade their voice for economic benefit.  

The post Is Democracy Dying? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Tout est singulier à l'université de Chicago. Sa localisation d'abord : l'institution qui fut le laboratoire intellectuel de la contre-révolution néolibérale se trouve en plein coeur du plus grand ghetto urbain du monde occidental. Son histoire ensuite : les apôtres du « moins d'État » n'ont pu (...) / États-Unis (affaires intérieures), Inégalités, Racisme, Ville, Université - 1994/04

NATO and the United States are confronting years of neglect of their submarine-detecting capabilities, while Russia has pulled even.

Quelques semaines avant son soudain décès, le 29 août 1992, Félix Guattari nous avait adressé le texte qu'on lira ci-dessous. Avec le poids que lui donne la tragique disparition de son auteur, cette réflexion ambitieuse et totalisante prend en quelque sorte un caractère de testament philosophique. (...) / Capitalisme, Crise des valeurs, Idées, Médias, Mutation, Science, Technologie - 1992/10

Malgré le pluralisme qui règne aux Etats-Unis, de multiples pressions sont exercées sur les médias, et elles menacent de réduire leur marge de manoeuvre, de miner la liberté de publier des opinions « controversées » ou des faits « gênants » pour l'ordre établi. D'une part, les voix indépendantes et (...) / Idéologie, Presse, Répression - 1986/12