Foreign Policy Blogs

Students and pro-democracy activists were among those who marched to the Hong Kong government’s headquarters to protest the new curriculum, which authorities are encouraging schools to begin using when classes resume in September. Students and pro-democracy activists marching to the Hong Kong government’s headquarters in 2012 to protest the new patriotic curriculum. Vincent Yu / The Associated Press

An exhibition to commemorate the World War II victory over Japan is Beijing’s latest attempt to prop up nationalism and is part of a greater effort at patriotism that could eventually backfire. The “Great Victory and Historical Contribution” exhibition opened on Tuesday at the Museum of the War of the Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing. The opening marked the 78th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, regarded as the first battle of the second Sino-Japanese war. The exhibition was visited later that day by Chinese President Xi Jinping and all of the top leadership of the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee.

The exhibition comes at a time when relations between Beijing and Tokyo have soured over the last few years, largely as a result of Beijing’s dissatisfaction with the depth of Japanese apologies for war suffering and heightened tensions over competing claims to islands in the East China Sea, alternatively known as the Diaoyu or Senkaku. Beijing also frets over Japan’s recent constitutional push for greater militarism, while Tokyo claims Beijing is becoming more aggressive in asserting its maritime territorial claims.

While the exhibition includes the usual weaponry and gruesome photos, it differs little from similar war-time exhibitions found in other countries, as it is intended to serve as propaganda for furthering patriotic education. Yet the seemingly harmless exhibition can be viewed as but one in a series of efforts toward the promotion of nationalism, following last year’s creation by Xi of three new annual national holidays linked to the war. Also this week, Beijing announced on Monday the staging of 183 war-themed performances, and the screening of new movies, television shows, and documentaries intended “to increase patriotism.” Beijing will also hold a military parade in September to mark the anniversary of the end of the war in Asia.

Unfortunately, the enhanced drive by Beijing to create nationalists and promote citizen patriotism has worrisome parallels to its attempt to promote stock ownership among its citizens. The party’s attempt at hyping stock ownership and propping up share values has only increased expectations of higher and unreasonable returns, as the average price-earnings ratio reached 64 for the Shenzhen exchange (anything above 25 is considered expensive). These high valuations eventually proved unsustainable, with fears causing the markets to crash over 30 percent from their peak on June 12 and forcing Beijing to restrict trading in close to half of the market’s shares. The inability of Beijing to impose effective stabilization measures to limit the downward spiral of share selling has many Chinese now wondering just how effective their government is at overall control measures.

Could the same downward spiral happen because of rising nationalism? Were changes to the Japan constitution to allow for greater militarization, could Tokyo seek to aggressively assert its claim over the Senkaku island chain, thereby prompting a strong (and face-saving) response from Beijing? With growing patriotism and today’s social networking capabilities, angry nationalistic mobs could rise up more quickly and coordinated in provinces and cities throughout China. We have already witnessed rampant Chinese nationalism against the Japanese in recent years, as patriotic citizens burned a Panasonic factory in Qingdao, looted a Toyota dealership and Japanese restaurants, and torched Japanese-branded cars (being made in China by Chinese workers). Meanwhile, Chinese fishermen have amassed in huge flotillas to challenge fishing rights in disputed waters.

Xi’s willingness to foster a greater patriotism among his citizens is a method copied from Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution with his backing of the Red Guards. The growth of nationalism and the encouragement of a New Red Guard in China is potentially as dangerous, as it raises expectations which may spiral out of control. Growing nationalism and subsequent support for Chinese companies vis-a-vis foreign companies (through increased regulation) also has the potential to scare off new foreign direct investment. Japanese manufacturers are already reconsidering investing in China and other countries may follow.

While the excesses of Mao’s Red Guard cannot currently compare with the patriotic fervor Xi has begun to promote, China is not strengthening its cause by encouraging these nationalistic forces to draw attention in international media and is failing to draw international sympathy for its cause. Instead, China is heightening anxieties among neighboring nations and inadvertently stoking the nationalist fires of other countries who are racing to upgrade their military capabilities. By firing up nationalism, the party is shooting itself in the foot as it weakens its ability to partner with these countries (and others not directly involved in maritime territorial disputes) to secure the resources it needs for its somewhat diminished, but continued, growth.

This escalation of nationalism will no doubt backfire as countries realize the extent the party will go to in order to secure its own interest — to the detriment of its trade partners. Perhaps most importantly, though, the party must be careful not to raise the nationalistic expectations of its patriotic populace in similar ways it raised the materialistic expectations of its profiteering populace — witness the recent anger and resentment over the all-powerful party’s inability to stem losses on the Shanghai and Shenzen stock markets. The new party leadership under Xi should reconsider its approach to promoting nationalism, in light of its failure to control the stock markets, and reign in its latest effort to promote nationalism, for as Mao Zedong once said, “It only takes a spark to start a prairie fire.”

 

Public anger over austerity in Greece. Via: Flickr by how will I ever

There seems to be a widespread belief that Greece is in the trouble it is in today because it will not implement the policies that Europe has demanded of it. While it has neglected some reforms, it has adhered to Europe’s key austerity demands more faithfully than any other country in Europe. It appears, however, that this very policy, far from constructing the anticipated sound foundation, has driven the Greek economy into the ground. That is why Greece does not want to follow that path any more.

A Structure without Institutions

You could argue, I suppose, that the roots of the Greek crisis go back to the failure of traditional Keynesian economics to explain the “stagflation” of the 1970s. Stagnation and inflation were not supposed to happen at the same time. Thus, many academic economists began to move away from Keynes and his assumptions. Governments, too, were becoming less enthusiastic about Keynesian fiscal policies, in particular, which were rarely nimble enough to deal with the relatively quick fluctuations of the routine business cycle. As a result, there were fewer active efforts to manipulate the economy to avoid recessions and inflation and toward a greater reliance on markets to regulate themselves.

When the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was built within the European Union (EU) in the 1990s, it followed this model. As several countries moved toward the use of a single currency (eventually called the euro), a European Central Bank (ECB) was built, but its functions were limited to fighting inflation. No common fiscal institutions were created whatsoever. Instead, member countries retained their own sovereign fiscal institutions and policies. They were instructed to keep their budget deficits within three percent of GDP and national debt within 60 percent of GDP, but these restrictions have been routinely violated by member countries without triggering sanctions.

Germany, the largest economy in the European Union, was particularly fond of the new arrangement (indeed, it had insisted on it), given its own focus on balanced budgets and inflation. Germany had been scarred by the hyperinflation that it suffered in the early 1920s. (In November 1923, a loaf of bread cost 200,000,000,000 marks.) One of its highest priorities was to prevent any of the less disciplined countries of Europe from imposing inflation on it through the new monetary union. That, however, has not prevented Germany from violating its own restrictions on deficit and debt.

A System That Feeds Imbalances

Most EU members transitioned to the euro as the common currency from 1999 to 2002. Greece’s acceptance into the EMU was delayed until 2001 because of its unacceptable deficits and inflation rate, and many Europeans were skeptical of its prospects even then. Once the “eurozone” was born, it created the impression that lenders were dealing with a single politico-economic entity, that buying euro-denominated bonds from the Greek treasury was the equivalent of buying euro-denominated bonds from the German treasury. Money began flowing freely out of core European economies into Greece and other peripheral economies.*

In Greece, interest rates fell, inflation grew and relative productivity plummeted. Current accounts were soon out of balance in both core and periphery. The periphery ran large deficits, while the core ran correspondingly large surpluses, as the peripheral economies used the money to buy things from the core economies. The core economies were, in effect, growing at the expense of the weaker peripheral economies, which financed their deficits by borrowing even more from German, French, and other European banks.

Then, in 2010, the euro crisis hit, the Greek bubble burst and demand collapsed. The unemployment rate in Greece peaked at 28 percent, and has been holding steady at 25 percent. Youth unemployment approaches 50 percent.

A Remedy Worse than the Disease

Despite the appearance of a single European politico-economic system, when the crisis hit, Greece was not able to rely on overall European fiscal resources, but on its own meager capacity, immediately generating a fiscal crisis at the national level. When the Germans and other members of the European core looked at Greece, they saw the profligate and sometimes fraudulent borrowing accompanied by corruption, widespread tax evasion, an unaffordable pension system and other fiscal problems.** These problems were real and needed to be addressed, although arguably the middle of an economic crisis was not the best time for some of them. Yet the leaders of the core economies failed to recognize their own contribution to the problem, or even raise the issue of addressing their own current-account surpluses, which continued to siphon money out of Greece.

Because Greece was a member of the EMU, certain policy options available to other countries in crisis were not available to it. For instance, it could not improve its current-account balance by devaluing its currency relative to its major trade partners because they were using the same currency. (As a consequence of the single currency, German companies that export outside the eurozone benefit every time the Greek crisis drives the value of the euro lower.) Greece could not expand its money supply in an effort to lower interest rates and boost domestic demand because it had no control over monetary policy. Monetary policy was decided at the continental level, primarily in ways consistent with Germany’s preferences, which are the opposite of Greece’s needs.

While Greece’s fiscal problems required reducing its budget deficits, a logical accompaniment to that would have been for Germany to expand its own economy and buy more things from Greece. That would have given a boost to demand in the Greek economy and helped reduce the imbalance in their mutual current accounts. Instead, European leaders offered Greece a bailout consisting of even more loans, the proceeds of which were dedicated not to easing a Greek fiscal transition but almost entirely to paying back European banks for older loans. In return for this, Greece was expected to eliminate its budget deficits through austerity — by increasing taxes and reducing government spending and pensions, laying off workers and privatizing state-owned assets.

The austerity approach has proved to be counterproductive. That may not be true in every situation, but it is true in the conditions prevailing since the global economic crisis of 2008, a situation in which consumer demand and corporate investment collapsed and interest rates are stuck near zero. The problem of insufficient demand cannot be remedied by depressing demand even further, which is the consequence of reducing government spending. Even if other reforms were to succeed in improving productivity, companies will have no reason to take advantage of that productivity if there are no consumers. The IMF’s own research department, after studying the impact of Europe’s austerity policies in the aftermath of 2008, concluded that for every $1.00 cut from government spending, economic activity was reduced by roughly $1.30. Thus, austerity has depressed economies even further, and no country in has pursued austerity more than Greece.

The Greek bailout of 2010 had to be followed by another in 2012. That one involved writing off 75 percent of Greece’s debts and the transfer of most of the remaining debt from private banks to public European institutions (shielding the core economy banks in the event of a Greek default). It appears that yet another bailout is required now.

From 2007 to 2014, Greece reduced government spending by more than 20 percent, far more than any other country in the EU, including countries held up to Greece as models. In the same period, Greek GDP has contracted by 20 percent, and per capita consumption by even more. (Keep in mind that 20 percent of GDP is much more than 20 percent of the budget, even in Greece.) Greece’s debt burden (that is, its debt-to-GDP ratio) has worsened under the recovery plan not only because of the additional loans but because its GDP is smaller. Whereas the Troika supervising Greece’s economic recovery program (the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF) predicted in 2010 that their program would turn the Greek economy around in 2011 and have it approaching precrisis levels by now, the Greek GDP still remains 20 percent below that figure. While Greece showed signs of growth in 2014 (0.8 percent) for the first time since 2007, it slipped back into recession in 2015.

Greece’s deficit reduction (first bar) has been substantially greater than any other European country’s. (Graph: European Commission, via Paul Krugman’s blog, Conscience of a Liberal, www.nytimes.com)

The Syriza government that came into office in Athens in January sought to renegotiate the terms of Greece’s recovery program. The latest offer from the Troika, which officially expired on June 30, would have required Greece to increase austerity further, raising the country’s primary budget surplus (i.e., revenues minus expenditures excluding interest payments on outstanding debt) in stages from 1 percent of GDP this year to 3.5 percent of GDP starting in 2018. Although Greece did achieve a primary budget surplus in 2014, it is back in deficit in 2015.

All this comes at the same time that the IMF is acknowledging that Greece will never be able to pay its debts in full even if it follows the Troika’s demands to the letter. Some observers see this as a European conspiracy to keep Greece down, yet that does not seem right either. European leaders appear to believe in the healing effects of austerity; the entire continent has followed the austerity path, albeit not as extremely as Greece. They do not want to bend the rules for Greece in large part because they fear that other countries will then demand to be released from the general austerity prescription. Yet, according to some economists, austerity is the reason that the entire European continent is barely keeping its collective economic nose above water — and has repeatedly threatened to drive the global economy back into recession — regardless of the repeated proclamations of success coming out of Brussels. In 2009, unemployment was 9.5 percent in both the United States and the eurozone; in 2015, unemployment is 5.4 percent in the United States and 11.1 percent in the eurozone.***

Now, of course, the United States also has states with different economic trends and different levels of development, just like Europe, but because the United States considers itself a single country, it handles fiscal issues differently. Florida did not have to deal with its real estate crisis on its own in 2008; if it had, it would have suffered bankruptcy as well. Federal funds flow freely from state to state. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has calculated that Mississippi, for example, receives $500 per capita more in federal transfers than it pays in federal taxes, whereas Delaware pays $13,000 per capita more in federal taxes then it receives in federal transfers. This goes on perpetually. Since we all live in the same country, however, we do not see it as a crisis, do not call it a bailout, do not demand that Mississippi pay the money back, and do not exact punishment for the state’s failure to cover its own expenses. It is simply government functioning.

Since 2010 the ongoing euro crisis has prompted the EU to strengthen some of its economic and financial institutions. Still, Jean Monnet’s dream of a United States of Europe clearly is still a long way off.

 

 

*In the case of Greece, the government borrowed large amounts. In Spain and Ireland, large amounts flowed into the private sector, fueling large real estate bubbles. When the crisis hit, both of those countries suffered despite the fact that their government budgets were actually in surplus at the time. Greece is really the only country where government debt played a substantial role in the crisis, which suggests at least the possibility that the Greek crisis could have happened even if the government had not borrowed so much.

**The Greek pension system manages to be a significant fiscal burden (about 18% of GDP, half of which comes out of the national budget) without being especially generous on an individual level. For nearly half the recipients it is below the poverty line, and for many households (especially these days) it is the only source of income. Unfortunately, this makes it extremely difficult to forge a compromise.

***The United States has probably focused too much on deficit reduction, slowing its own recovery, but not as much as Europe.

Recently, the Foreign Ministry of Israel released a cartoon mocking (Western) reporters, portraying them as clueless and ignorant.

The cartoon shows a blonde American reporter missing all of the obvious atrocities happening around him as he reports live from Gaza.

“We are here in the center of Gaza, and as you can see, people here are trying to live quiet lives. There are no terrorists here, just ordinary people,” he says.

In the meantime, a militant launches a missile in the background, and a Hamas official carries off an LGBT activist with a bag over his head, presumably for execution.

The cartoon was in English, clearly intended for a foreign audience.

It was released to preempt the publication of a U.N. Human Rights Council report critical of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip last summer.

Then, Israel released another cartoon this week. It was tweeted out by account of the Prime Minister of Israel (as opposed to Bibi’s personal account) and shared through their Facebook account. In fact, at the time of this writing, @IsraelPM has it as a pinned tweet and the Prime Minister of Israel‘s Facebook account has it as a pinned post.

The cartoon presents the case that Iran is just like ISIS:

“The Islamic State of Iran.
Like ISIS.
Just much bigger.”

Again, the cartoon is in English.

Neither cartoon got much of a warm reception online, or from the press. If Israel was hoping to change hearts and minds, they need look no further than the YouTube comments of the most recent video to see they fell short. It has twice the number of thumbs down as thumbs up, and that was the polite response. The comments are particularly nasty.

Many have compared both videos to be of the “South Park style.” Neither swayed anyone who didn’t already agree with their point, and both gave ample room for mockery, if not outright anger.

If nothing else, whoever was tasked with creating this videos should be reprimanded for keeping the comments section open on YouTube.

Follow me on Twitter @jlemonsk.

The threat of nuclear war was diminished greatly in the early 1980s after the SALT II treaty between the United States and Soviet Union created an agreed upon reduction of nuclear arms. The emergence of MIRVs, missiles that could release multiple warheads on various targets using one rocket as its base, was considered to be a significant risk to both sides. MIRVs and similar systems were limited and eventually banned by the SALT I and SALT II treaties. However, in 2013, the Russian government announced it was going to replace their late generation SS-18 Satan missiles with a new system. The new system, named Sarmat, will begin testing in October 2015. This new ICBM will likely be the newest and most advanced system to be put into service in a generation.

The re-establishment of Russian and NATO military units across the borders is ramping up while diplomacy in Ukraine continues to be usurped by active battles in Eastern Ukraine. NATO’s commitment to place heavy tank and artillery divisions in countries bordering Russia has given Russia the narrative and catalyst to increase its military presence on its own border. Russia’s 2015 May Day parade showed several new ground systems being introduced into their arsenal based on the T-14 Armata tank hull and chassis. Air defense systems similar to that of the BUK-M1 were also on display, such as the related BUK-M2, TOR-M2E and Pansir-S1. Russia’s public demonstrations of new equipment used to be the way Western powers saw how the Soviet army’s capabilities changed from year to year. It seems like this tradition will continue with the “Armata” parade

Mobile nuclear missile systems like the SS-25 Sickle have been the mainstay of Russian nuclear forces for the last few years. The May Day parade featured the SS-27 system, an updated SS-25, along with the new Armata-based systems. Another recent announcement that Russia will start to upgrade more TU-160 strategic bombers after years of stalled production also confirmed a return to the Cold War status quo that was diminished at the end of the 1980s.

The return to large and complex weapons systems might require a shift in U.S. policy in order to compete with new Russian equipment. If the United States and NATO are unable to balance Russian forces on the border, diplomacy may only come after deterrence neutralizes any future “hot” conflict in Eastern Europe.

“Nhiệm Vụ Tối Mật” – “Secret Mission” 2015 by Pham Huy Thong

Just when the memories of anti-Chinese protests and rioting have started to fade among the Vietnamese, the Chinese are stoking the fires again with another salami-slicing maneuver.

Last Thursday, Beijing announced the redeployment of the deepwater oil rig Haiyang Shiyou-981 to the waters near the disputed Hoang Sa (Paracel) Islands. The placement of the rig this time around is in waters south of the Gulf of Tonkin and northwest of the Paracels, according to the website of the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration, and is expected to be operational up until August 20.

The website announcement also requested passing vessels to stay at least 2,000 meters away, perhaps fearing a repeat of last May’s confrontation, where several Vietnamese coast guard boats, fisheries surveillance ships, and fishing boats were rammed by Chinese naval vessels for coming too close to this same Chinese rig deployed offshore but within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone.

This year, however, the Chinese have located the rig outside the exclusive economic zone of Vietnam, in a grey zone currently being negotiated between Vietnam and China. According to a Vietnamese Coast Guard source, should the Chinese oil rig violate Vietnam’s sovereignty, the Coast Guard would “make announcements.”  This small, possibly incremental step by Beijing can be described as “salami-slicing”, or “Salami tactics,” a term first coined by the Hungarian Communist leader Matyas Rakosi in the late 1940s to describe the destruction of the non-Communist parties by “cutting them off like slices of salami.”

The announcement of the rig’s arrival by Vietnamese media follows a visit by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh to Beijing on June 17 to 19 for the eighth meeting of the Vietnam-China Steering Committee on Bilateral Cooperation. During the meetings, both sides agreed to use negotiations to keep territorial disputes under control, avoid any actions to complicate disputes, emphasize the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (East Vietnam Sea/West Philippine Sea) and make progress toward a Code of Conduct. Given the lack of outrage here in Vietnam over the rig’s deployment, the positioning of the Chinese rig was also likely negotiated between Hanoi and Beijing, with Beijing promising to strengthen economic, trade and investment ties.

So far, the Vietnamese people appear to have accepted the deployment of the Chinese rig, as there have been no reports of anti-Chinese protests or rioting despite media coverage. However, some Ho Chi Minh resident representatives voiced their strong opposition to China’s recent actions in the East Sea on Monday to State President Truong Tan Sang and Tran Du Lich, head of the NA delegation of the city. Residents there called for a strong, official response from the National Assembly to China’s violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty, which President Sang acknowledged has not been strong enough.

The arrival of the Chinese rig also coincides with the delivery of a fourth of six Russian-built Kilo-class submarines to Vietnam, under a $2 billion deal signed in 2009. Vietnam may be able to tolerate some salami-slicing by the Chinese, but for this tactic to work most effectively, the true long-term motives should be hidden and cooperation emphasized. Given Vietnam’s long history of successfully fighting off the Chinese, the Vietnamese are traditionally skeptical of Chinese motives and cooperation, and should Beijing choose to slice too much, history tells us the Vietnamese will be ready once again.

Photo Credit: CH’7K via Flickr

A leading naval strategist asks: Could cyberattacks actually prevent war?

In this two-part series, leading thinkers from a prior era of globalization directly inform our understanding of critical issues today. Part 1 examined the lessons for current maritime security concerns from naval strategist Alfred T. Mahan and Nobel laureate Norman Angell. Part 2 considers their competing insights into a very modern challenge: cybersecurity.

Mahan’s ideas of the late 19th century set the track for U.S. naval policy for decades, including growing and strengthening the fleet and developing reliable resupply stations worldwide. Angell described in 1909 that war had become futile as a means to enhance state power and wealth, but not impossible because men sometimes act irrationally. Each saw enormous potential from the surges of trade and technology by the turn of the 20th century. Mahan saw mostly threats; Angell saw more possible benefits.

For Angell, the extent of trade and investment created an “interdependence” among European powers, so that “war, even when victorious, could no longer achieve those aims for which peoples strive.” His ideas are found in international relations theories that developed nearly a century later: complex interdependence, democratic peace, and even constructivism. In each of these, states choose paths other than conflict-for-power and power-for-conflict. The Internet would have made perfect sense to Angell: Social networking, online commerce, and “Twitter revolutions” across borders and cultures increase national wealth, standards of living and human aspirations.

For Mahan, the analysis is more complex, and the policy implications more surprising. Mahan’s cybersecurity policies depend upon his views on “freedom of the seas” and on populations used to material comfort. Freedom of the seas popularized by Grotius’s 1609 Mare Liberum, which asserted that the high seas are open to all, especially for commerce. This idea has been supported by the American Continental Congress, Elizabeth I, Woodrow Wilson and the U.N. During the Cold War, the U.S. and USSR generally left alone one another’s seaborne trade.

But for Mahan, commerce produces the national wealth necessary for military power:

Ships and cargoes in transit upon the sea …are national wealth engaged in reproducing and multiplying itself, to the intensification of the national power…[commerce is] therefore a most proper object of attack.

Additionally, Mahan argued that modern populations had an “excessive sensitiveness” to their new wealth. Attacking international private (commercial) sea trade was actually a benefit to mankind, “more humane, and more conducive to the objects of war, than the slaughter of men.”

The lessons for cybersecurity are evident. Mahan’s realism would endorse state-on-state cyberattacks, like digital spying, Stuxnet, or degrading the military systems of a country you are planning to attack. But Mahan essentially validates cyberattacks on civilian and commercial interests as well. Where private property is the ultimate source of national power, he argues, it is a legitimate target. When populations are “exasperated by the delicacy of financial situations,” not used to widespread discomfort or “privation,” cyberattacks might be used to achieve the intended goals of the attacker without the extensive violence and casualties traditional warfare.

In this way, cyberattacks among great states might serve as proxy wars did during the Cold War: great power contests with minimal casualties to the principals. The risks of this approach then and now, of course, are multiple. Cyber casualties can still occur from economic, financial, industrial or infrastructure damage. Cyberattacks can begin or escalate a conflict which leads to kinetic warfare. Mistaken attribution of cyberattacks can widen the conflict to unrelated or unintended parties.

If Mahan is right, a number of implications follow. Countries are already developing offensive and defensive cyberstrategies – these need to be fully integrated into national security and economic means and ends. (As Peter Singer and Allan Friedman note, whether these questions are fully understood by the key decision makers remains a question.) Governments must work closely with other public and commercial organizations – preventing a cyberattack on finance, industry, and infrastructure as they would from a terrorist or traditional warfare. Many countries are already well into these kinds of discussions, including with each other. Too often though, security measures have proven inadequate. The recent U.S. government’s loss of millions of employees’ personal and security data is just the latest example. Internet security firms like Mandiant and Symantec have detailed intense ongoing efforts, not merely hypothetical ones.

The Internet offers “interdependence” far beyond what Angell could have imagined. But the natures of conflict, spying, industrial espionage, organized crime, and “attack” are all very different from what Mahan understood. By Mahan’s logic, withholding energy exports as diplomatic leverage, theft of commercial intellectual property, manipulating industrial controllers or breaches of financial institutions may be “more humane” alternatives to conventional war.

But Mahan’s logic helped lead the great powers into war.

This post and the previous one are drawn in part from J.Quirk’s article in the Mediterranean Quarterly, June 2015.

Photo Credit: Theophilos Papadopoulos via Flickr

Greece’s far-left may have reached its day of reckoning far faster than anticipated.

As negotiations between Greece and the troika came to a screeching halt last week over the terms of a multibillion-euro bailout — a few days before the country is expected to vote on the troika’s terms and conditions for a bailout — the country’s already-weakened economy has come to a standstill. Just hours before the deadline for the country’s 1.6 billion euro debt payment on Tuesday, markets were relatively calm, but capital controls to prevent cash from flowing rapidly out of the country have been in full effect. Banks have been forced to close as well and will remain so until July 7, and withdrawals, if one can find a working ATM, are severely limited.

But for Alexis Tsipras and his party, Syriza — both of whom rode into Athens on a wave of popular frustration with Greece’s pro-austerity political establishment — what comes next will be the make-or-break moment for the party’s ability to lead in difficult times.

As far as leadership is concerned, Tspiras’ motives for backing such a referendum are clear. Putting the creditor’s offer to a vote takes some of the weight of his shoulders and opens up the opportunity for the party to lead the country through a time of trial without (presumably) as much backlash. In essence, it’s a way of saying: Whatever road we choose to take, we’re all in this together.

It’s no surprise, then, that Tsipras has presented the referendum not as a vote on Greece remaining in the eurozone, nor as a vote between the euro or the drachma. Rather, for Tsipras, the referendum is a democratic imperative — an exercise in sovereignty before all else.

“Greece, the birthplace of democracy, should send a resounding democratic message to the European and global community,” he said in his address on the referendum on June 27.

“I am absolutely confident that your choice will honor our country’s history and will send a message of dignity worldwide. In these critical times, we all have to remember that Europe is the common home of all of its peoples.”

Whether or not the referendum is a practical exercise has been the matter of some controversy. Those opposing the referendum, including a number of former Greek government officials, have framed the vote as “yes” or “no” to Europe. Even Former Prime Minister George Papandreou — who carried out a similar referendum in 2011, which he has since defended — has repeatedly condemned the July 5 referendum, referring to it as a “tactical ploy” and a sort of negotiating weapon.

Still others have argued much of the blowback comes from the fact that the European project wasn’t all that democratic to begin with. Writing in The Guardian, economist Joseph Stiglitz noted, “[W]hat we are seeing now, 16 years after the eurozone institutionalized those relationships, is the antithesis of democracy.” European leaders, Stiglitz continues, want Tsipras and Syriza out, and they want a Greek government in power that is willing to accept the terms and conditions of eurozone membership without a fight.

What happens on July 5 is up to the Greeks, and only the Greeks, to decide. No matter that outcome, it’s impossible to deny that this is the moment for Syriza. Tsipras’ government is young, but it’s already had its share of fights. They’ve already confronted the EU — but will they capitulate?

“More than ever we must be clear that there is no middle course between confrontation and capitulation,” wrote Stathis Kouvelakis, a member of Syriza’s central committee, after the party was elected in January 2015. “The moment of truth is at hand.”

Those words couldn’t be more relevant now.

MC3 Ian Carver/U.S. Navy

Is the U.S. accidentally preparing for World War I again? In this two-part series, leading thinkers from a prior era of globalization instruct us on maritime and cyber security today.

In our constant consumption of the latest news, we risk overlooking history and missing context. Competing insights from a century ago inform debates today on Russian and Chinese naval strategies (this post) and cybersecurity (the next).

Alfred T. Mahan and Norman Angell were prominent thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mahan was a U.S. naval officer who literally wrote the book that shaped American naval strategy for decades. Angell warned of the futility of war for so long that ended up he winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Mahan and Angell each saw enormous consequences of the trade and technology boom of their time, with steamships, transatlantic telegraphy, radio communications and the Panama Canal. Mahan focused on the many new threats posed by the emerging technologies, while Angell saw a range of potential benefits.

Mahan understood that a surge in technology and trade could lead to more luxuries, but at heart was a realist: “All around us now is strife…. Everywhere is nation against nation.” He warned, for example, about European access through the Panama Canal to the undefended West Coast of the United States, the dangerous rise of Asian states and wars driven by economic ambition. European and U.S. navies responded with massive shipbuilding campaigns and by securing ports throughout the Caribbean.

Angell, meanwhile, concluded that the rise of trade and economic integration – “interdependence” – made war an irrational choice. The direct and indirect costs of war were greater than any possible gains. Trade became a more efficient means to wealth than accumulating geography. Moreover, the role of government had evolved: raising a country’s standard of living became more important than conquering foreign territory.

Mahan’s views seemed to be borne out by World War I, punitive postwar policies, the failure of the League of Nations, and World War II. These (and the Cold War) demonstrated a world of zero-sum, state-vs.-state conflicts less focused on democracy, human rights, and trade. But beginning with the Atlantic Charter, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the new UN Declaration of Human Rights, Angell’s ideas began to rise. By the 1980s into the 1990s, democracy, global trade and investment, non-state actors and the World Wide Web were replacing simple realism.

Al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States in 2001, though, provoked a complicated response of

new, new realism – high-tech network-centric warfare with global surveillance and targeting technologies, along with special forces on horseback, to fight state and non-state actors, in order to preserve the presumed benefits of the peaceful globalization status quo.

Today’s geopolitics blend and contrast Angell’s and Mahan’s visions. Seaborne international trade fuels much of the global economy, while increasingly assertive naval strategies are changing geostrategic analysis.

China’s naval ascendance focuses for now on the South China Sea. Its claims of sovereignty are contested by Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries in the region. China uses diplomatic and military pressure, and the construction of “new islands,” to strengthen its claims. Locally, the disputes impact fishing, mineral and drilling rights. Key commercial shipping lanes, and the passage rights of foreign navies, are concerns of India, the United States and others. At the same time, the U.S. military asserts that China’s naval upgrades aim toward an “anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) force — a force that can deter U.S. intervention.”

The Russian question is even more similar to Mahan’s concerns over “coaling stations” for a global navy. With a coastline extending across nearly half of the Arctic Circle, Russia is developing its Arctic infrastructure to support its naval and merchant fleets. Supported by scientific expeditions to extend it claims — an effort other countries also undertake — it is preparing for considerable increases in shipping Arctic melt is expected to allow. On its southern front, Russia has been developing Novorossiysk to house the Black Sea Fleet, and annexed Crimea, home of Russia’s naval facility in Sevastopol. Meanwhile, in 2014, Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu announced negotiations for military bases and refueling sites for Russian strategic bombers in Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Seychelles, Singapore and other countries.

The question of American and allied policies also look back to Mahan and Angell’s time. In the decades before World War I, the United States and European powers engaged in a naval modernization arms race and secured bases across the Caribbean Sea. The U.S. then partially withdrew from European politics until World War II, after which it took a dual-track approach. Toward the Soviet Union, it waged a Mahan-informed foreign policy of strength, expansion and containment. With its allies, though, it helped build a new community of interdependence.

How is the U.S. moving today? In recent weeks, the U.S. has moved forward on two elements of its “pivot to Asia”: the Defense Department’s new Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative (like Mahan) and progress in Congress on the coming Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (like Angell, except that it excludes China). The deputy secretary of defense talked tough when he testified to Congress on Russia nuclear plans (and softer on China), while the Pentagon also announced it would move “approximately 250 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers throughout six countries that are close to Russia” (both Mahan).

And while it is useful to understand that Mahan and Angell offer insight into current maritime security debates, it is remarkable that they also contribute significantly to understanding questions of cybersecurity – the subject of the next post.

This post and the next are drawn in part from Jim Quirk’s article in the Mediterranean Quarterly, June 2015.

Gathering at a religious festival in Ajmer, India. This northern city of 550,000 has been selected to become a smart city, with modern infrastructure systems operated by “smart” technology. PM Narendra Modi unveiled the $7.5b plan on June 25. But will it work? The jury is still out. Photo: The Hindu (newspaper)

On June 25, 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a plan to modernize the infrastructure of 100 cities. The Indian government is devoting $7.5 billion to the initiative, with a goal of completing the upgrades by 2022. Yet there is criticism that the idea is destined to fail as it is putting the cart before the horse: attempting to bring Indian cities into the 21st century when many are barely in the 20th.

Modi’s vision is based on the cutting-edge design of so-called smart cities, which use technology based on computer networks to create “grids in which water, electricity, waste removal, traffic, hospitals and schools are seamlessly integrated with information technology to run them more efficiently.” Prototypes have been installed in South Korea, India and Abu Dhabi.

Adapting the smart city to India faces significant challenges. Notable among them is that Indian political, economic and cultural focus has traditionally been on its villages. Despite its burgeoning population, creating policies centered on villages has been practiced for decades. Only recently has attention shifted to cities, which politicians can no longer ignore. Now about 350 million Indians live in cities; staggeringly, this figure is projected to nearly double (to 600 million) by 2030. Yet the infrastructure of many of India’s cities cannot support their strain currently, let alone the additional burden of population growth expected soon.

For example, take Ajmer in northern India, with a population around 550,000. It is one of the cities selected for upgrade by Modi. In May 2015 representatives from IBM, Oracle and several other companies visited Ajmer to plan out (and promote) how smart city technology will fix the city’s debilitating water and waste management and traffic problems.

Yet, Ajmer only provides running water for two hour per day. A pitifully small number of homes are connected to a sewage system. Dirty water freely flows through open drains. And only 2 traffic lights function properly in the entire municipality. As Mukesh Aghi — president of the U.S.-India Business Council, which organized the meeting with U.S. companies in May — deftly observes, “While we are trying to bring 21st-century technology, we also need to sort out some 19th-century challenges in Ajmer.” Suresh Mathur, a retired schoolteacher in Ajmer, asks, “Can we first work toward becoming a functioning city before aspiring to be a smart city? We lack even the basic services that a city should typically provide.”

Technology has the potential to solve many problems but also tends to create just as many. The infrastructure problems in India are severe and also unique, meaning solutions that worked elsewhere would likely not work there. Of course the smart city model could succeed if adapted properly, but this process needs to be carefully planned and tested. Thus expecting fully functioning modern cities by 2022 seems completely unreasonable.

I saw a BBC program recently that talked about the many problems with installing highway overpasses and alternate routes aimed to combat traffic congestion in Mumbai. Dozens of these structures sit half-completed, with no progress being made and no realistic completion date in sight. With this in mind jumping directly from antiquated to modern doesn’t seem feasible.

Maybe Modi should focus on making the infrastructure of India’s cities average, before arriving at smart.

Old Fanous Ramadan, also known as Ramadan lantern is a famous Egyptian folklore associated with Ramadan. The holiday takes place from June 17 to June 17 this year. Photo Credit: Ibrahim.ID

The $80 Million Fake Bomb-Detector Scam—and the People Behind It
By Jeffrey E. Stern
Vanity Fair

Historically, advertisements that depict a product as “foolproof” are better off not being believed. But in the uncertain, dangerous and tumultuous climate of Iraq today, it’s a promise that, even if too good to be true, is easily embraced. In this article, Stern delves into the bizarre and depressing story of how Iraqi officials were tricked by a deceitful British salesman selling bomb detectors that, in the end, were nothing but a glorified golf-ball detector.

The Lonely End
by Matthew Bremner
Roads and Kingdoms

Bremner looks into the Japanese phenomenon of kodokushi, or “lonely death.” The word has become increasingly prominent in the country since 1995 — so common, in fact, that an industry tasked with the sole purpose of cleaning up homes after these deaths has begun to appear.

The Decline of International Studies
By Charles King
Foreign Affairs

“The rise of the United States as a global power was the product of more than merely economic and military advantages,” notes King. Indeed, one large, and comparatively inexpensive, factor has been education. Why, then, are federal and non-governmental international educational programs coming under attack?

Can Politico make Brussels sexy?
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus
The Guardian

In the eight years since its launch in 2007, Politico has become a media staple in the United States, turning inside-the-Beltway reporting into the “clubby and exhilarating” coverage we see today. Now, it’s expanded to Brussels. Lewis-Kraus looks into the media outlet’s new transatlantic operations.

A World Without Work
By Derek Thompson
The Atlantic

One day this list could be written by a machine — it’s certainly not inconceivable. Jokes aside, the eventual automation of numerous jobs could rattle the framework of our society. Work — how we define it and how we engage with it — is at the heart of our society, our politics. So, as Thompson asks, “What might happen if work goes away?”

Blogs:

The Case for Regional AUMFs by Michael Crowley
Much Ado about the South China Sea by Tim Wall
Pirates of the South China Seas by Gary Sands
The Systemic Deficiency in the U.S.’ Cybersecurity Mindset by Joseph Karam
In Ukraine, Peace Should First be Made with Words by James Nadeau

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration submitted to Congress a draft Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). President Obama, like President Bush before him, has claimed authorization for military activities to combat terrorism under a previous AUMF passed on Sept. 14, 2001 and dedicated to combating those responsible for the 9/11 attacks (the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were authorized under a separate AUMF). The emergence of IS and the simple passage of time prompted a re-examination of the terms of the prevailing AUMF. However, the White House and Congress each have reasons to pantomime action on an AUMF without committing to it. They reach beyond the standard legislative gridlock to matters of military strategy, preserving the president’s military authority, and simple partisan politics. Many observes see a new AUMF as unlikely politically or unnecessary constitutionally. Were it to happen, there is reason to consider framing it in a different way: on a regional basis, rather than against a specific military threat.

Start with the analysts who see a new AUMF as unnecessary. Max Boot, a conservative military historian, argues that U.S. military actions on executive authority have a long history, dating back to the early 19th Century Barbary Wars. Moreover, the Obama Administration explains that it seeks the new AUMF for reasons that are more propagandistic than constitutional; writing in Foreign Policy magazine, Micah Zenko quotes White House spokesman Josh Earnest’s argument: “It will send a clear signal to our enemies that if there is any doubt in their mind that the United States of America takes this threat very seriously, it will eliminate that doubt.”

Earnest’s quote telegraphs a larger issue: whether or not the AUMF is necessary constitutionally, the debate surrounding it highlights a political need to organize and constrain U.S. military activity. The AUMF debate may be more useful in clarifying policy as a forcing event than an actual AUMF would be in practice.

That debate has been forced, and it has pointed to the complexity of the problem. In January, Army Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey gave in interview outlining broad principles to which a new AUMF should adhere. Gen. Dempsey pointed to the need to avoid constraints on future action in a way that makes identifying and enforcing boundaries around such action difficult. While emphasizing that all military options should be preserved, Dempsey said that “In particular, it shouldn’t constrain activities geographically, because [ISIS] knows no boundaries [and] doesn’t recognize any boundaries – in fact it’s their intention to erase all boundaries to their benefit.”

What Dempsey requests is unrestricted authority to fight ISIS, a non-state actor. Congress’ war powers are designed to be administered against sovereign nations. They have changed as the nature of war has changed. Congress has declared war a total eleven times – all against sovereign nations – and six out of those 11 declarations pertained to enemy countries in World War II. There is no precedent for Congressional declarations of war against non-state actors.

A “regional AUMF” would codify the long-standing practice of executive “doctrines” governing U.S. policy towards particular regions. The Monroe Doctrine set U.S. policy in opposition to any foreign intervention into its sphere of influence in the Americas. President Jimmy Carter used his 1980 State of the Union Address to announce that the U.S. would defend its interests in the Persian Gulf by military force if necessary (the “Carter Doctrine.)” These executive statements amount to regional policies governing the use of force that were never codified by Congress, but which nonetheless influenced U.S. policy. Moreover, there is an active precedent for organizing U.S. military and diplomatic activities regionally in the way a regional AUMF would. The State Department has a Middle East and North Africa (MENA) section devoted to countries within that region. The Defense Department assigns the countries of the MENA region to its Central Command. An AUMF organized to address military threats within the MENA region – rather than against a specific actor within that region – would fall within the current logistical framework.

The idea of a regional AUMF presents a major drawback to presidents and generals alike. It infringes on the ability to “pick and choose” which conflicts in a given region merit U.S. action. However, the current debate acknowledges the need for AUMFs to be updated consistently. A three-year “sunset” clause is widely discussed as way to keep its terms from growing outdated. In that sense, each AUMF would be temporary. It would have to be: after all, ISIS did not exist three years ago. Debating new AUMF terms could (as now) lag well behind changing security needs. That may give further ammunition to those who see AUMFs as unnecessary. However, if they focus U.S. regional policy priorities and clarify objectives when America commits to using force, they are worthwhile. Given the lives in the balance on both sides of U.S. firing lines, the stakes merit more concerted attention to U.S. military strategy around the world.

Photo Credit: CH’7K via Flickr

Information regarding the size and scope of the cyberattack against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) continues to grow. As many as 18 million current, former and prospective federal employees — ranging from military personnel to the IRS — are now thought to be affected. This figure is a massive increase in the initial OPM estimate of 4.2 million and it’s likely to grow. Officials speaking about the breach, which is believed to have originated in China, have now acknowledged the incident goes back to June of last year.

The slow drip of information regarding the extent of the security breach has frustrated policymakers, many of whom expressed those feelings to besieged OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, during her testimony on Capital Hill to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.

Archuleta defended her time as director saying, “In an average month, OPM, for example, thwarts 10 million confirmed intrusion attempts targeting our network. These attacks will not stop — if anything, they will increase,” she said and went on to promote her “aggressive effort” to reform and update the policies and procedures that govern OPM’s aging cybersecurity infrastructure.

The Obama administration continues to express its confidence in Archuleta’s ability to lead OPM. Such a statement is deeply concerning, considering that the Office of the Inspector General warned OPM that critical vulnerabilities in its security authorization system left it open to exploitation. A warning that Archuleta seemed content to ignore, or at best move at a snails pace to address.

The lackadaisical attitude surrounding the OPM breach is indicative of a wider cyber security mindset that is plaguing our national security infrastructure in cyberspace. The U.S. is simply not adapting fast enough.  Every year the U.S. fails to adequately meet the threshold for the development of a robust and comprehensive cybersecurity platform, and we fall farther behind our digital adversaries. There is a mindset in Washington that addressing these security threats are somehow beyond our capability, and that no matter what we do there will always be penetrations of critical systems. You’d be hard pressed to find a policymaker that would tolerate, much less express, such an idea when it comes to terrorist threats from al-Qaeda or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Why such an attitude is allowed to exist when it comes to cybersecurity is deeply troubling.

In February 2013, President Obama issued Executive Order (EO) 13636: Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. The EO was intended to lay out the administrations priorities and commitment to improving critical infrastructure and thus mitigating the threat from cyberattacks. The plan was developed in conjunction with recommendations from the Internet Security Alliance, a multisector trade association that provides a unique combination of advocacy and policy development. The EO outlines a robust plan, full of big ideas but short on a strategy for how it can be implemented.

The perfect example of this is White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel. During an interview with Information Security Media Group, Obama’s point man on cybersecurity came under heavy fire when he down played his own lack of technical expertise and dismissed the importance of understanding the nitty-gritty of implementing cybersecurity policy. While Daniel’s pedigree is impressive, especially in terms the scope and skills he has brought to his numerous positions in government, the decision to appoint him to the position of White House Cybersecurity Coordinator is indicative of a pervasive belief cybersecurity leadership doesn’t require technical expertise in the field. Can you imagine the Director of the Center for Disease Control not being a doctor or the Attorney General not being a lawyer?

A report released from the software security firm Veracode highlights the staggering deficiencies in civilian federal agencies. Entitled State of Software Security, the report examined 208,670 applications over the course of 18 months, and the company audited source code from government and private sector clients.

This particular report focused on the government sector, comparing it to 34 industries across a variety of different sectors. Veracode found that the government agencies ranks last in how often and how fast they are addressing security vulnerabilities — only 27 percent of identified vulnerabilities were adequately fixed and three out of four government sector applications consistently failed the OWASP Top 10, the pinnacle standard assessment of web application security. One reason cited for this high degree of vulnerability cited was an outdated programming language used in many government systems.

So why aren’t these government agencies adequately addressing these problems? The short answer is the government simply lacks the regulatory demands that is so often present in the private sector.

Many in Washington are expressing their collective outrage over the OPM breach, but the alarm bells that have been ringing over the last two decades will continue to be ignored. Incidents of computer attacks have increased 1,100 percent since 2006, the cybersecurity threat facing the U.S. is very real, unfortunately, for many policymakers on Capital Hill these security challenges exist in the abstract. There is no body count to tally from a cyber attack. There is nothing present in the physical world to help policymaker — many of whom purposefully avoid diving into the technical nuances of cybersecurity — properly conceptualize the threat. Right now, unless the problem we are facing in cybersecurity involves a Middle East government on the verge of collapsing, the desire and wherewithal to take action will continue to fall short.

Nations spy on one another; it’s a fundamental reality of the international system. The idea that China is spying on us is not the problem per se but rather the symptom of a much broader disease. The Chinese government is not going to stop trying to breach our digital bulwarks, no matter how much we whine. The problem is, however, that the digital age provides the potential for critical national security information to be taken with far greater ease and at much greater volumes than at anytime in history. We are making it far too easy for foreign governments to exploit our soft cyber underbelly. Can we really blame them for capitalizing on that advantage?

The majority of the estimated 250,000 people displaced by the Houthi conflict scattered across the vast landscape of north Yemen, seeking shelter and food among the local rural populations.
Photo: Hugh Macleod / IRIN / 201003170737560353

U.S. policymakers face many difficult choices in pursuing rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. There is little chance that Iran and the Arab monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia, can countenance each another’s respective aspirations. The U.S. is trying to make a deal with Iran while still tying itself to the demands of its other security partners in the region.

Iran’s ambitions are not new or “revolutionary”: Before the overthrow of the last Shah, a number of modern Iranian leaders had hegemonic aspirations in the Gulf, expressed in terms of past imperial grandeurs. The revolution in 1979 unleashed a torrent of anti-Americanism, but it did not diminish Iranian leaders’ aspirations. Instead, it emboldened them, as they were now animated by true revolutionary zeal, and not the reactionary imaginations of some “pan-Iranists” who called for a “Greater Iran.”

Today, such naked ethnic supremacism holds little stock among even the most hardline Iranian policymakers. While Supreme Leader Khomeini expressed himself in religious terms, he and his colleagues still yearned for national greatness beyond Iran’s borders, to export their model of governance so that would be surrounded by far friendlier regimes. Now they must balance this desire with the realization that their rule cannot survive without better international relations and a lessening of economic sanctions.

Iranian leaders still fear that offensive action might topple them from power — they know full well Western powers could stoke discontent against the ruling class — but they also want be feared and treated as equals. Iranian influence is seen in much of the Arab world as Shia, Persian chauvinism – an unsurprising view given the way Tehran carries itself. But that chauvinism is only exceeded in pretensions by the chauvinism of the Gulf States arrayed against the so-called Shia Crescent.

These Arab powers have many of the same underlying fears of their own citizenry that Iranian leaders do, though there are several notable differences. For one, the Arab states are not under the same sanctions as Iran and need to fear the socioeconomic impact of decades-long censure. Yet the underlying economic and political contracts they have with their subjects are under strain, because of the simple fact that people cannot be bought off forever, especially those who seek to overthrow the state, remove all “undesirables,” and institute a new Islamist order. Yet even with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) at the House of Saud’s doorstep, the Gulf States collectively seem to fear dissidents who may look to the Islamic Republic even more – and do too little to quell the extremist messaging emanating from their own religious establishments that has empowered ISIS and AQAP.

This shortsightedness is why the outcome of the current Gulf-led intervention in Yemen will prove decisive. Saudi leadership has sought to build up a consensus on Yemen among other predominantly Sunni nations. In drawing in as many of these countries as possible, including apparent outliers such as Sudan, Malaysia and Senegal, they wish to obscure that any political solution Riyadh finds acceptable will be unacceptable to many Yemenis.

Iran, for its part, seems content to let the coalition bleed itself. The previous beneficiary of Saudi (and American) largesse, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was tossed aside in 2011 not because he suddenly discovered reform or sided with the Houthis (as he did after losing power), but because he had so badly bungled things that domestic unrest threatened to embolden al Qaeda – which, we now learn, may have deeply infiltrated his security services. Riyadh fails to realize that its actions could deepen the quagmire that Saleh dug himself into with U.S. military assistance.

For now, the U.S. is content to distance itself from the Saudi campaign over Yemen while pursuing a grand bargain with Tehran. The coming months will tell if this remains doable, or if Washington will have to truly set down the rationale for its courting of Tehran while still upholding sanctions and arming the Gulf Arab and Israeli militaries.

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This Ramadan comes at a time when the world is facing a catastrophic leadership deficiency, and nowhere is that catastrophe more evident than in the Middle East. This resource-rich, predominantly Muslim region has produced some of the worst tyrants that the world has ever known — Bashar Assad, Saddam Hussein, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Muammar Gaddafi and many more.

Ramadan is the Islamic holy season in which the faithful diligently tries to maximize his/her spiritual benefit by seeking purification of the soul, enhancement of one’s moral vision and boosting one’s conscience. It is a time in which the faithful works hard to restrain all of material and flesh temptations by turning inward and increasing his or her level of worship, altruism and reflection.

However, Ramadan is not only about the individual’s relationship with God, but also about his/her relationship with other creatures on earth, especially human beings, regardless of their beliefs.

Dysfunctionality of the World Order

Never before in recorded history has the world — specifically the Islamic world — simultaneously experienced so many national and transnational challenges of economic, social, ecological, political and spiritual nature.

The actual and the perceptual order of things have been turned upside down. In a number of countries, the role of the state is being redefined, and the state’s power has diminished drastically. The role of the younger generations and disenfranchised communities has been systematically increasing; thus, setting the stage for reform, but also a power-vacuum, insecurity and chaos.

While the elements that created such daunting conditions are many, chief among them is leadership deficiency.

Many Muslim nations are in a functionally broken or a deplorable state of existence. Some, like Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen are already junglified. According to UNICEF, over 20 million Yemenis need humanitarian aid. Others, such as Egypt, Lebanon, Nigeria and Mali are perfectly placed on the conveyor belt while periodically projecting artificial agency or state authority. Meanwhile, economic predators continue to enhance their exploitation strategies into fine arts.

The Perilous Protection

Some monarchies and emirates have entrusted all their own personal security and that of their respective nations into the hands of mercenaries. Countries such as United Arab Emirates have cultivated deeply-rooted business relationships with the likes of the ever-elusive and infamous Blackwater, which is now known as Academi.

Ironic as it may seem, the UAE became the center where private security companies gravitate towards or the global trade fair where international mercenaries showcase their lethal services.

Unfortunately, times have profoundly changed from the day when Marzabaan the Persian emissary arrived at Medina and could not find a royal palace in the city. When the emissary was lead to Umar — the Second Caliph — took a nap under a shady tree in the outskirt of the city. That was the day when the wise emissary was compelled to make this famous observation: “You assumed authority over them, you served them justly, you felt safe among them, and earned to sleep (exposed and without guards).”

Today, most of the so-called Muslim leaders are known as dictators, kleptocrats and absolute monarchs. Many of them lack the trustworthiness needed to earn public confidence. They lack the vision to lead and the fairness and empathy to care for the least represented of their fellow citizens. But, make no mistake — the real power still rests with the people. Rulers need justice more than their subjects.

Nature of the Deficiency

Throughout today’s world, leaders who are morally anchored, who have the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of those in whose affairs are entrusted upon them, are in short supply.

What’s needed are leaders who can be trusted by their people and are agents for positive change. Leaders need to possess a broader vision and refrain from letting their own interests define their country’s national interests. They need to be driven by causes that transcend themselves their clan or region interests. They also need to recognize that their authority is a time-constrained privilege, not a right. Leadership, after all, should protect the rights of others and ensure that no grievance is left unaddressed.

At all levels — social, economic and political — these dire times demand transformational leaders who can inspire visions that transcend time and space, who have the capacity to translate those visions into actions, and who could cultivate the right minds and institutions to sustain that vision.

The Metaphor of the Double-decked Ship

In this month of reflection, it is worth remembering the many examples of bad endings of all bad leaders. History is peppered with such examples.

Warning against the abuse of privilege, Prophet Muhammad used the two-decked ship parable in which the morally pompous people were housed in the upper deck and the laity in the lower deck. Whenever the  people on the lower deck needed water, they had to go to the upper deck, where they were given a hard time. This went on for a while until one day, out of frustration, one of the lower deck people decided to bust a hole in the ship in order to access the water beneath. It wasn’t long before they all perished.

Transformational leaders are trend watcher. They are always vigilant of any seemingly small problem with the potential to develop into a major crisis.

Counsel to the Leaders

There is no good leadership without good ethics — the two go hand in hand. Ethics is as a code of conduct or values that distinguish right from wrong, the moral from the immoral, virtuous from the vile in governing the lives of individuals, groups, and societies. In Islam it is known as khuluq. “Deal with people in the best and the most ethical way,” said Prophet Muhammad.

As you reflect and refine your leadership qualities, you should consider these five points.

First, know your advisers as well as they know you, especially those in charge of national security.

Second, always keep in mind that anyone who would kill others for money or greed would have no moral obligation to compromise you and your nation for the right price.

Third, never assess your political crisis based solely on current events. If you are not into history, at least, try to rewind your memory database to recall how events came to be in the first place.

Fourth, keep your passions in check. Never become enamored with the seat of power; it is the only way to spare yourself, your people and your country’s imminent destruction.

Fifth, the best protection that a leader can have is the authentic confidence of the people. Always listen to the people to know what might matter to them the most, and who among them might be disenfranchised, deprived or aggrieved.

The alternative is a roller coaster ride into a perpetual state of chaos, exploitation and suicidal extremism.

Photo Credit: Presidential Press and Information Office

The Chinese are notorious for copying Western products and adapting them to serve the Chinese market.  Look at Alibaba, often described as China’s answer to eBay, or Weibo, a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook. Plus, thanks to weak intellectual property protection laws in China, these companies often get away with it.

Yet there is nothing inherently immoral or illegal about governments copying geopolitical strategies from other governments, and China’s northern comrade, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, may be setting a dangerous precedent. The apparent success of Putin’s misadventures in Ukraine could serve as an attractive geopolitical militaristic strategy for other nations with territorial disputes, such as China. But if Putin’s strategy in Ukraine is so dangerous and widely condemned, why would Chinese President Xi Jinping bother copying Putin?

Some political analysts argue that when a nation’s leaders face economic difficulties, the public’s preoccupation with day-to-day problems can be alleviated by focusing on broader concerns like nationalism and the protection of the state’s interests. Economic growth in China is a serious concern, as overcapacity in real estate and heavy industry took gross domestic product (GDP) from the nine percent average from 1989 to 2015 to an expected seven percent first-quarter year-over-year growth rate this last quarter.

Russia is also facing an economic slowdown. Its GDP is expected to shrink by three percent in 2015 as $50 a barrel oil and capital outflows of $115 billion harm growth prospects. Despite an economic crisis in Russia, Putin’s popularity has soared, largely the result of increased nationalism. In May 2013, a little less than a year before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, Putin’s approval ratings stood at 64 percent. Following further intervention by Russia, which stands accused of providing arms and forces in the east of Ukraine, Putin’s latest approval rating rocketed to 86 percent. Some have questioned the legitimacy of the poll numbers, but many do concede a marked increase in Putin’s popularity among ordinary Russians.

Why would the approval ratings soar after military intervention in another country? One often-cited reason could be the public’s positive perception to any government willing to stand up and defy outside criticism. Other leaders have seen their approval ratings soar when nationalism is fired up — indeed, following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks former President George W. Bush enjoyed the highest approval rating of any president (90 percent). His father, George H.W. Bush, received an 88 percent approval rating in 1991 in the midst of the first Gulf War.

Joseph Nye,  a professor at Harvard University and the Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Clinton administration from 1994–95, hints this same strategy may be happening in China under Xi Jinping.  In a recent interview with The Diplomat, he warns of growing nationalism under Xi:

Xi Jinping needs a legitimizing force for his power and for the power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Economic growth has historically been the primary legitimizer of its authority, especially since communist ideology has declined greatly in importance. As China has an economic slowdown, nationalism will increase further, and I think we are undergoing a period of heightened attention to nationalism. I think nationalism has made it more difficult for China to resolve conflicts with its neighbors in the South China Sea. So far there is no clear indication that increased Chinese nationalism will result in military aggression. The high level meeting between Xi Jinping and Abe at the APEC summit was a positive step, as China had been resistant to these meetings in the past. But the potential for nationalism to boil over, it is something we need to watch closely.

I think the most probable scenario would be if Chinese planes and ships got involved in incidents with the Japanese in the Senkaku Islands, and lost. The Japanese might have superior capabilities in the event of conflict, and a defeat there would be a direct threat to Xi Jinping’s power.

Nye’s scenario is not so far-fetched. On Saturday, Japanese media reported on Chinese plans to build a large naval base in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province for its coast guard vessels. Wenzhou is not far from the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu to the Chinese), it and would allow the Chinese to closely monitor naval activities around the disputed eight uninhabited islands and rocks in the East China Sea controlled by Japan.

The potential for skirmishes in the airspace above the Senkaku is also real. In November 2013, China announced the creation of its air-defense identification zone in the East China Sea, which requires all aircraft to comply with Beijing’s rules.

China also claims up to 90 percent of the South China Sea, and draws a ten-dash U-shaped line (or “cow’s tongue”) around the sea on its maps, which overlaps territorial claims by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.  Originally an eleven-dash line formulated in 1936, two dashes were removed near the Gulf of Tonkin to appease its Communist brother Vietnam. Last year, one dash was added by Beijing emphasize its sovereignty over Taiwan. In recent months, Beijing has come under have international criticism for land reclamation on islands it occupies, and for attempting to impose its control over the fishing rights in, and airspace above, the South China Sea.

Should Xi copy Putin in building nationalistic fervor in order to distract the populace from domestic problems, the strategy could well backfire. Many of the student protests in Chinese history originally began as nationalistic protests against foreign countries and morphed into protests against government leadership. The strategy could also lead to strong reactions from both regional governments and the naval superpower in the region, the United States.

Such reactions have already affected Russia. In response to Putin’s latest misadventures in Ukraine, the U.S. announced plans this past weekend to store heavy military equipment in the Baltics and Eastern European nations. The U.S. may seek a similar strategy in the East and South China Sea, and position more and more of its naval military there to reassure its allies and other nations with territorial claims and deter any further aggression from Beijing. Vietnam and the Philippines are already requesting further support from Washington, and Japan is reconsidering its constitution to allow for greater military efforts.

Besides leading to a potential dangerous and costly war, what both Xi and Putin should not forget is that while military nationalism may provide a temporary boost to popularity, it may prove short-lived, inflict further damage on the economy, and result in a failure to achieve its military objectives.

Photo Credit: Annette Bernhardt via Flickr

The Hillary in Our Future
Michael Tomasky
The New York Review of Books

In this review of Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, Tomasky looks at the controversy surrounding the donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation and the speaker fees paid to Bill and Hillary. The issue, notes Tomasky, is the media is currently “[n]ot primed to investigate, or primed to scrutinize, or even primed to rake over the coals.” Instead, it’s “[p]rimed to take down” to the Clintons.

The Poet Who Died for Your Phone
By Emily Rauhala
Time

Emily Rauhala tells the story of Xu Lizh, a 20-something factory employee and poet who committed suicide in September 2014. Xu’s poetry sheds light on the lives of those factory workers charged with an array of electronic devices, as well as on the wave of suicides that brought their plight to the world’s attention.

The Missing Forty-Three: The Government’s Case Collapses
By Francisco Goldman
The New Yorker

Since the disappearance of 43 students in the Mexican city of Iguala eight months ago, the country has faced countless street protests, and its government has struggled with “an unprecedented credibility crisis” both at home and abroad. Francisco Goldman, who has been reporting on the incident for months, outlines some of the newest developments in the case.

What is Code?
By Paul Ford
Bloomberg

At 38,000 words, Paul Ford’s essay on the nature of code, hardware and everything in between might take more than one sitting. You’ll even get a personalized certificate of completion if you make it through the whole piece, so don’t be surprised when your browser tries to access your webcam.

Passion Points
By Eli Epstein
Mashable

There’s more to recent technological developments than hooking up your refrigerator to the Internet of Things or being able to program your coffee maker with your phone. In this Mashable piece, Eli Epstein looks at three stories showing how some recent technological developments has empowered and inspired people around the world.

Blogs:

Beijing Asserts, Hanoi Beefs Up by Gary Sands
Jeb Bush’s Bush Problem by Hannah Gais
BURDEN OF PEACE: A Candid Discussion with Filmmaker Joey Boink by Paul Nash
U.S. Policy Toward China: New Maps to Navigate Islands and Banks? by George Paik
Regulating Against Corrupt Practices, FIFA Edition by Richard Basas

Jeb Bush speaking at CPAC 2015 in Washington, DC. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Years ago, a few friends and I were walking down the streets of Sorrento, Italy, during some off-time on a class trip abroad. Few paid any attention to the teenage tourists — at least until one man stopped, did a double take and asked, “Are you from the United States?”

“Yes,” one of us said. “Massachusetts.”

“One question. Did you vote for George W. Bush?”

“We can’t vote yet, but we don’t support him either.”

We were all around 13- or 14-years-old, so voting was out of the question. He was pleased. We walked on.

Twelve years later, Jeb Bush has found himself grappling with a similar question on a trip Europe. That is, will Jeb follow in the footsteps of his father or his brother?

That’s a question that resonates stateside as well, but in Europe the need to choose either the 41st or the 43rd president as a source of inspiration is a bit more pressing. Thanks to his support for German reunification, George H.W. Bush remains popular in Western Europe; meanwhile, his son, George W., is likely the least popular American president in Europe since the end of World War II. One poll from 2006 found that a staggering 77 percent of Europeans disapproved of George W.’s foreign policy during his first and second terms.

Jeb’s strategy for avoiding being bogged down by his brother’s own failures appears to be shifting the conversation from his family’s political history to that of an old-but-new common enemy: Russia.

Upon his arrival to Germany on Tuesday, Jeb spoke before the Christian Democratic Union’s economic council in Berlin. He emphasized the need for strong transatlantic ties, took potshots at the Obama administration’s Russia policy, and called for a more aggressive response from the West against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Giving the sense that we’re reacting in a tepid fashion only enables the bad behavior of Putin,” Jeb told an audience of a thousand or so.

“We should never [respond] in a way that pushes Russia away for a generation of time. Then ultimately, Russia needs to be a European nation and that everything we do ought to be to isolate its corrupt leadership from its people, for starters.”

That message of aggression may appeal to leaders in the next two stops on Jeb’s European adventure — Poland and Estonia — but it’s not necessarily wooing German leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has had to wrangle sanctions skeptics like Cyprus, Greece and Italy, would undoubtedly appreciate some recognition of her efforts. Were tougher sanctions against Russia to be implemented — which G7 leaders showed support for this week — she’d have to do more of the same.

Yet, as Leonid Bershidsky, a Bloomberg View columnist, noted, “[Jeb’s] compliment to Merkel for her toughness on sanctions against Russia sounded like faint praise, once he warned against ‘tepid’ reaction to President Vladimir Putin’s ‘bad behavior.'” She’s too entwined with the U.S.’ Russia policy for Jeb’s “tepid” line to work.

The question of arming the Ukraine is also a contentious one. Jeb, like most of the Republican hopefuls, supports the idea. The administration’s “tepid” response presumably alludes to Obama’s unwillingness to embrace the idea. That said, Obama hasn’t ruled the possibility out either. Merkel, meanwhile, has made her views quite clear: Sending arms to Ukraine would not solve the crisis.

If Jeb’s European charm offensive rests on winning over German leaders with an aggressive anti-Putin agenda, he’s out of luck. Not all hope may be lost, though — at least someone admitted he’s better than his brother.

This post also appeared at The Eastern Project.

Claudia Paz y Paz, former attorney general of Guatemala (Photo Credit: HRW Film Festival)

Among the 17 award-winning films in this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which is held in New York from June 11 to 21, is “Burden of Peace.” This brilliant documentary powerfully chronicles the day-to-day work of Claudia Paz y Paz, the first female attorney general of Guatemala, a country ravaged for years by a brutal civil war. That war, which took place between 1960 and 1996 but witnessed some of the worst violence in 1980–83, saw nearly 200,000 people, mostly indigenous Mayans, systematically massacred.

As attorney general from 2010 to 2014, Paz y Paz fought to bring justice to the victims of the genocide, as well as to prosecute members of deadly criminal gangs aligned with Mexican drug cartels.

However, her campaign to end impunity for corrupt police officers, prosecutors and politicians was cut short by seven months, ended by the county’s powerful business and political elite whose personal interests were threatened. Her landmark conviction of former dictator Efraín Rios Montt – the first ever conviction for genocide in a national court – was quickly overturned. Fearing violent reprisals, Paz y Paz was forced to leave the country.

Paul Nash of the Foreign Policy Association spoke with director Joey Boink about “Burden of Peace,” the challenges of he faced while filming in one of the world’s more dangerous countries, and human rights in Guatemala.

Q: Why did you feel it was important to make this film?

Joey Boink

Joey Boink: When I began working on “Burden of Peace,” Guatemala was in the midst of a security crisis. I had lived in Guatemala before and noticed how the culture of violence affected every Guatemalan. Ninety-seven percent of the murder cases went unsolved, while the country’s homicide rate was among the three highest in the world. People did not expect the state to address corruption and other crimes.

That changed after Claudia Paz y Paz was appointed to lead the prosecutor’s office. She was very outspoken on the need to change the justice system. Not only was she the first female to lead the office but also the first person with a background in human rights advocacy. Her mission to promote justice in Guatemala inspired me, together with my colleague Sander Wirken, to start working on this film.

Q: From day one, Paz y Paz gave you and your crew access to her work as attorney general. How did that collaboration come about?

Joey Boink: When Sander and I got to meet with Paz y Paz, we talked about our plans for the film and our own experiences in the country. We had both lived and worked in Guatemala since 2006, Sander as co-founder of an NGO dedicated to education and I as a filmmaker. During that time we learned how the violence and corruption affected the whole society. For example, bus drivers and people with small businesses were routinely extorted by local gangs and forced to pay them for “protection.” Those who didn’t pay were killed. Their families didn’t lay charges – they were simply too afraid and had no trust in the prosecution process.

We told Paz y Paz that with this film we wanted to discover how on earth it is possible to fight corruption and impunity in a country like this – one of the most dangerous places in the world. She agreed to allow us to follow her with a camera and gave us access to all levels of the prosecutor’s office.

Q: In the film Paz y Paz refers to you jokingly as “Big Brother.” Did she give you access to demonstrate her commitment to transparency?

Joey Boink: In her inauguration speech, Paz y Paz told journalists that the prosecutor’s office would have nothing to hide under her leadership and that her doors would always be open. I think she saw the camera as a means of bringing extra transparency. We were given exclusive access to her day-to-day activities as attorney general. The only condition she imposed was that we would stop the camera if she was meeting with people who didn’t want to be filmed.

After some time, we were able to get closer to her private life and film her with her family at home. I think we had an advantage in gaining this level of access because we are foreigners and were working there on a long-term basis. As foreigners, there was less risk we could be extorted by gangs to hand over copies of our footage. And as documentary filmmakers, we had a deeper human interest in this story, which required us to film behind the scenes rather than only the press conferences for journalists.

Q: Do you think films like this can help to stop the cycle of violence and curb human rights abuses, especially in a small developing country like Guatemala, which experiences more than 20 murders a day?

Joey Boink: A film itself cannot bring an end to such a cycle of violence, but it is my hope that Claudia’s story will inspire a few young people in countries like Guatemala to understand that the cycle can be changed and that you do not need to negotiate justice to achieve justice.

Our screenings in Europe and the United States have helped to generate awareness of conditions in Guatemala. Many people previously had no idea of the human rights crisis in the country, let alone the work of Claudia Paz y Paz.

The Dutch foreign minister was present at the film’s world premiere at the Movies That Matter Festival in The Hague. He recently visited Guatemala and warned against corruption, and he met with Paz y Paz in Mexico. I’m proud that the film has helped a little to put Guatemala on the political agenda and that people around the world are learning about Paz y Paz. If something were to happen to her, she will not be alone.

Q: One gets the sense from watching the film that many Guatemalans have become numbed to violence. Was that generally your experience?

Joey Boink: It is very normal for people to walk the streets in Guatemala with a gun in their pocket. Cars are searched for fruit trafficking, but not for weapons trafficking. When we went out to follow the homicide team of the Guatemala City Prosecutor’s Office, we didn’t have to wait more than fifteen minutes before a case came up. At the end of the 24-hour shift, the team had worked seven homicide scenes – and they called that “a quiet day.”

We used to play soccer with Guatemalan friends every week. One day, one of the boys didn’t show up. He had been run over by a bus and died. After this tragedy, the bus driver just drove on. Our friends said it was useless to go to the police because they wouldn’t do anything.

These are just some examples of how crime and violence has become a regular part of daily life in Guatemala.

Q: One reason for the violence is impunity – the impunity enjoyed both by those who committed crimes during the civil war and those in drug gangs today. What do you think it will take to finally end impunity?

Joey Boink: Violence and impunity are regional problems across Central America. Drug gangs that move cocaine from Colombia to the United States operate across borders and continue to grow in power. They have more powerful weapons than the police have and they have the money to bribe politicians, police officers, and people in the judiciary. As long as there is no regional answer to these problems, impunity will reign and Central America will continue to be the world’s homicide capital.

The impunity enjoyed by those who committed crimes during the civil war shows you that the power structures established by the military regimes at the time still hold sway today. But if you look at the current protests against the government in Guatemala – the largest in decades – you see that something is changing. People are done with these structures of impunity and are demanding change. I hope that social efforts and better regional cooperation at institutional and diplomatic levels will bring an end to impunity.

Q: To some, “Burden of Peace” might seem like a record of futility because there is no real closure for the victims. What would you say to such people who interpret it that way?

Joey Boink: I see the result of the genocide trial so far as representing two steps forward and one step backwards. To many survivors who gave testimony in court, it meant a lot to be able to tell their stories in front of a national judge. The trial allowed many Guatemalans to hear what happened to the Maya people in the Ixil area for the first time in their lives. Efraín Rios Montt was sentenced to 80 years for committing genocide and crimes against humanity, but the constitutional court ruled that the prosecutor had made procedural errors and annulled the sentence. To many, that meant steps have been taken towards justice but that there is still a lot to fight for.

It would be too cynical to call the story a record of futility knowing that survivors feel proud to have been able to share their long-hidden experiences, that Rios Montt was sentenced for his crimes in a national court, and that lawyers and prosecutors continue to make efforts after each victory and each loss. There is no real closure for the victims of the armed conflict, but the people of Guatemala have not given up their struggle for justice.

Q: Why is the film titled the “burden” of peace?

Joey Boink: When the Dutch minister of foreign affairs, Bert Koenders, spoke at the film’s world premiere, he explained our title better than I could have done myself. He said: “The impact of civil conflict persists long after peace agreements have been signed. When violence has been the norm for so long, and there has been no law and order, the burden of peace is the long road to justice that begins where conflict ends.” I think the film illustrates this long road to justice.

A second interpretation centers on Claudia’s personal struggle and sacrifice. Claudia’s surname, Paz y Paz, means “Peace and Peace.” It’s as though she was born with the heavy responsibility to fight for peace.

Q: Were you threatened at all during the making of this film, or ever feel your life was in danger?

Joey Boink: I never felt threatened. We got used to a life in which we could not tell everyone exactly what we were doing. Things that were normal in Guatemala seemed strange after we got back to the Netherlands. In Guatemala we couldn’t just hail any cab; we always had to travel with the same driver. We couldn’t talk about delicate topics on the phone because there was a risk it had been tapped. We couldn’t walk the streets at night. We learned when and with whom we could speak and trust in order to avoid possible dangers.

Q: Paz y Paz is very soft-spoken and compassionate, and yet she displays a steely, unflinching adherence to justice and the rule of law. What do you think people can learn from her?

Joey Boink: Over the course of three years we got to spend about a year with Claudia. We spent a lot of that time around her office and traveling with her through the beautiful country. Claudia is a person with an extreme dedication to justice. That strong commitment makes her outspoken and a person who dares to take on challenges and accept the potential risks. However, she is also a very humble person who doesn’t care about social status or social background. The elite attacked her for being dressed as a “hippie” in the prosecutor’s office, but many other people admired her for her transparency and genuine interest in listening to the families of victims. Sometimes it was hard to see the level of pressure under which Claudia had to operate.

If there is one thing I think people can learn from her, it is this: one can be humble and friendly but at the same time strict and clear. She may be soft-spoken and compassionate, but her policy was always clear: justice is not negotiable. If there is a case, there is a case, no matter if the perpetrator is a druglord, a politician, or a businessman.

Q: How does this film differ from other documentaries you’ve made on subjects like education in Guatemala, child labor in India, or the Millennium Development Goals in Latin America?

Joey Boink: This is the first feature-length documentary I’ve directed, and it is also the first feature film of the producer Framewerk. In terms of the time that the team invested in the film, it isn’t comparable to any other project I’ve worked on. It’s also the first festival film I’ve made, which has allowed me to discover a lot about those aspects of the documentary world.

Q: You financed the film partly through crowdfunding. How did that work?

Joey Boink: The producers of Framewerk organized a crowdfunding campaign while Sander and I were still in Gautemala. We needed funding for post-production, from editing to distribution. The campaign was focused on a Dutch audience and conducted through the Dutch platform cinecrowd.nl.

I was afraid that the target of €30,000 was too ambitious, but we managed to raise a bit more than that: €33,455. It turned out to be the most successful crowdfunding campaign for a Dutch documentary, and 436 people in total became sponsors. We managed to attract a wide range of people through media attention in Dutch magazines, newspapers, and radio stations. We offered various perks to investors, from online access to the film to tickets to the world premiere or having Framewerk produce a video for a sponsor’s organization. Some people thought it would be an easy source of funding. But it was a lot of work for the whole team to manage the campaign. I would recommend that anyone who wants to launch a similar campaign should not plan on doing anything apart from that campaign before and during the process.

Q: Paz y Paz says the film has not ended because the story is about the country as much as it is about her. Do you have any plans to do more work on the subject? Can you even work safely in that country again?

Joey Boink: I am very motivated to continue making films about human rights issues and human rights defenders. My next film will not be in Guatemala, though. That has nothing to do with safety issues. I want to learn from people in other cultures. I’ll always feel connected with Guatemala, though. I have very close friends there, so I hope to go back from time to time – but I don’t want to visit Guatemala’s homicide scenes ever again.

Q: What do you think American business executives and foreign-policy makers should take away from this film?

Joey Boink: I would encourage American executives to do business in Guatemala, but to be aware of who they are doing business with and who in Guatemala benefits from their business. Guatemala is a beautiful country that is rich in natural resources. However, the country’s wealth is very unequally divided. There is no other country in Latin America with such a large gap between the rich and the poor. The Maya population is often not considered when a mining or hydroelectric project is initiated on their land. They do not profit from the gold or the energy that is extracted in their regions. In fact, they are forced to leave. If they stay, the company’s operations destroy their source of drinking water. Local mayors, governors, and the state make agreements with foreign parties without consulting the people. A huge amount ends in the pockets of those individual stakeholders.

There are cooperativas, local organized farmers who export their goods, which do benefit the communities. I would encourage American executives to do business with such groups.

Our film gives a good sense of Guatemala’s difficult political and judicial landscape. I think foreign-policy makers should take this away from the film: that Guatemala is not a failed state, but rather a state in which many people are fighting for justice.

However, there is a small minority of people in power with such enormous influence that characters like Ríos Montt are able to run for congress years after committing the most heinous crimes imaginable, and that someone like former president Alfonso Portillo, who was in jail just a few months ago in the United States for money laundering, is able to run for president again. Meanwhile, someone like Claudia Paz y Paz, who has made clear progress against impunity in her country (a 12-fold increase in the number of the homicides solved under her leadership), can be framed in the Guatemalan media as a Marxist who is betraying her country and has to pay for her crimes.

If you have the right connections in Guatemala, you can get away with anything. But if you try to fight for equality and justice, you’ll wind up in trouble. On television and in newspapers you’ll be portrayed as someone trying to “destabilize” the community. The words “Human Rights” are framed in a negative context, as a curse. People like Claudia Paz y Paz who fight against corruption and impunity are the underdog. They have the choice not to speak out or to live in fear for their lives. You have to be aware that in Guatemalan politics the unthinkable is possible.

CORRECTION: This article originally stated the Guatemalan civil war took place between 1980 and 1983. It has been amended to reflect that the war took place between 1960 and 1996, although some of the worst violence took place between 1980 and 1983.

Photograph from the International Space Station of the South China Sea which includes the Eldad Reef and Itu Aba Island features. Photo Credit: Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center

The advent of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) appears to be a sign of U.S. geopolitical decline, or at least of China’s geopolitical ambitions. France, the U.K., Australia and South Korea are among our allies who have signed up; the U.S. and Japan have been holding back. At the same time, the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, which does not include China and appears to be an attempt to check Chinese power, seems to be on track.

Should the U.S. allow geopolitical rivalry to subsume economic matters? Economically, our interdependence with China is deep and mutually beneficial; disrupting it will damage both sides, and both governments know this. While U.S. influence remains dominant, China’s is growing. Using economic policy to reinforce our position puts the economic benefits at risk and exacerbates tensions. As China grows in international economic clout, extending the rivalry could even drag our economy into the relative decline of our overall power. If we let geopolitics alienate us from a global source of economic strength, we also cast ourselves as more interested in our power than others’ economic growth.

To be sure, we must follow up on commitments made to date and implement TPP and its Atlantic counterpart, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Principles pact (TTIP). Both liberalize trade, a good in itself, even if they are tied to geopolitical allegiances. Shoring up the latter is necessary right now, and dropping the ball on either pact would undermine U.S. credibility, both to our partners and to our commitment to liberalization.

The time has come to contemplate diplomatic foundations for a new global posture. The purpose of our geopolitics is to defend freedom, as we know it in our liberal democracy, and as understood by our closest allies. Our nationhood makes freedom our deepest strategic interest. Whether of containing Russia or China or Iran; of cementing economic power in trade or finance; or of enforcing human rights; policies must fit each other, and current realities, in a long-term orientation to that fundamental end.

Geopolitics and military security can be re-oriented, away from “containing X” (fill in Russia, China, Iran, ISIS, North Korea, or anyone else we dislike but prefer not to attack) toward “defending free society.” Established democracies, with a liberal ethos, largely comprise the memberships of our primary alliances, NATO, U.S.-Japan, and ANZUS. Knitting these into an integrated community, dedicated to protect precisely this vision of freedom, we can keep attacks of violence, malicious disruption, or external coercion, off the table as they are now. Our focus would be non-directional, responsive to any threat, and would hold not only our territories but our communications channels sacrosanct.

This group of nations has the technical capacity to deter any threat. The U.S. military is already orienting itself in that direction, toward a focus on the global commons. Diplomatic re-orientation of our alliances will align our military and geo-political strength with moral principle. Freedom will have a clear diplomatic base, on which we can orient further diplomacy to our best ends.

We should treat economic development as an influence for freedom. Those places where well-ordered democracy has taken root, or where rights are spreading, have seen freedom progress after economic growth. We should not condition our support of growth on such progress, but if a nation secures liberal values in its institutional practices, we should consider inviting it into our security alliance. Such a stance creates a mutual interest in developing nations’ intertwined growth and freedom.

Here, U.S. policy would assess other nations less as “friend or foe,” than as more or less compatible with our ends of freedom. The U.S. and China may well be inevitable rivals, as Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis assert in a recent Council of Foreign Relations report.  But China might become a “three (or four or two) out of ten” rather than a “frenemy.” With a single criterion to guide us, we will be better able to avoid schizophrenia such as dissident Chen Guangcheng felt when his refuge in the U.S. Embassy collided with Hillary Clinton’s economics-oriented visit. In this stance, questions over China’s islands in the South China Sea can be viewed in terms of how they “move the needle” of compatibility rather than who wins or loses a zero sum confrontation. A security policy emphasis “for freedom” more than “against China” also maintains an overriding defense commitment to Japan while allowing us to treat an AIIB on purely economic grounds.

Above all, steering policy toward the protection of freedom and commitment to economic growth, and away from “anti-X” habits, will better orient our policy to our nature.

An visitor rejoices after catching a large fish during his trip to Truong Sa Islands. Photo: Mai Thanh Hai

Here in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), the local government last week ordered its travel and tourism departments to draw up a feasibility study for tours to the Truong Sa (Spratly) islands, which Vietnam currently occupies.

The first tour is scheduled for June 22 with over 200 Vietnamese reportedly signed up for the 7-10 day tour of two islands and two reefs which Vietnam controls. According to the promotion offer, “Traveling to Truong Sa…means the big trip of your life, reviving national pride and citizens’ awareness of the sacred maritime sovereignty of the country.”

Other islands in the Spratly island chain are either occupied or claimed by several nations, including Brunei, China, Malaysia and the Philippines. China, using a nine-dash line, lays claim to around 90 percent of the South China Sea.

The tour announcement in Vietnam follows last month’s confrontation between the U.S. and China in airspace over the South China Sea, which has sparked concern and triggered increased militarization among the claimant countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The confrontation occurred on May 22 as a U.S. surveillance aircraft, with a CNN crew aboard, flew over Mischief Reef and Fiery Cross Reef — two artificial islands which China is constructing on submerged coral reefs it occupied in the mid-1990s and late 1980s, respectively. The aircraft was warned eight times to leave the airspace, over which Beijing has claimed the right to establish an air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Recently released satellite images reveal an airstrip, port facilities, cement factories and military barracks, and the U.S. has also received information China recently placed two mobile artillery vehicles on one of the islands.

China’s attempt to grasp the airspace follows last month’s grasp of the waters, as China’s municipality of Haikou, on Hainan island, issued its annual ban on all fishing vessels in the northern part of the South China Sea. The ban was first introduced in 1999 and typically lasts three months, ostensibly to protect marine resources. Haikou’s ban includes the waters of the Paracel island chain (known as Xisha in Chinese and Hoàng Sa in Vietnamese), which China grabbed from Vietnam in 1974, and the Scarborough Shoal in the Spratly island chain, taken from the Philippines in 2012. Last week, Vietnamese local media reported a Vietnamese search-and-rescue vessel from Da Nang was reportedly threatened and obstructed by a Chinese vessel while passing through the Paracel Islands en route to rescue a fisherman. (The fisherman was eventually rescued.)

These disputes over freedom of navigation in the air and waters are the latest in a series of spats China is having with the U.S., Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea, which is leading to an increase in defense spending, defense coordination among Asian nations, and an increased military presence in the region.

The largest presence in the region will continue to be from the U.S., whose combat ship, the USS Fort Worth, just completed its patrol in May. Four more warships are expected to be deployed to the region.

The Philippines is also keen to beef up its military alliances to defend its territorial claims in the South China Sea. Last Friday, Philippine President Benigno Aquino announced his government is ready to start talks with the Japanese government on allowing Japanese military aircraft and naval vessels access to Philippines’ bases on a rotational basis for refueling purposes. With refueling capability, the Japanese military would be able to significantly extend their range of operation into the South China Sea.

On Saturday, Taiwan commissioned two 3,000-ton navy patrol vessels capable of docking at a new port being constructed on Taiping Island, the largest of the Spratly islands.

Back in Vietnam, Hanoi is also responding to a heightened activity by China in the waters it calls the East Sea, reportedly courting the foreign defense contractor divisions of such companies as Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Saab, and the European consortium Eurofighter to buy fighter jets, patrol boats and surveillance drones. Vietnam is believed to be interested in Saab’s Gripen E fourth-generation fighter jet and the Saab 340 or 2000 twin-engine patrol turboprops, and the latest P-8 Poseidon surveillance technology from Boeing placed on a business jet. Hanoi is also interested in Airbus helicopters, the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet, the Lockheed/Korea Aerospace F/A-50 light fighter jet, and the Lockheed Sea Hercules, a maritime patrol aircraft similar to its C-130.

Though a state secret, Vietnam’s military budget was believed to be around $3.4 billion in 2013, having doubled in size from a decade ago, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Vietnam’s military personnel are estimated at 480,000.

From Russia, Hanoi has already taken possession of three Russian Kilo-class attack submarines and has three more on order.  Hanoi currently owns more than 100 old Russian MiG-21 fighters, and has on order a dozen Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets.

From the U.S., following U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s visit last week, comes $18 million toward the purchase of U.S. patrol boats. The U.S. began easing its long-term embargo on sales of lethal weapons to Vietnam back in October.

Hanoi may have chosen to talk to defense contractors of many nations, so as not to anger Beijing by focusing on U.S. technology while also diversifying their equipment purchases. Nonetheless, Beijing cannot help but take notice of the rapid buildup in defense capabilities of not only Vietnam, but the Philippines, and the joint military exercises and promises of support among South China Sea claimants. Each Chinese action to assert its sovereignty over the South China Sea has a counter action, and while some of the counter actions have been relatively mild so far (Vietnam’s promotion of tourism on disputed islands), the potential for a more severe military confrontation is growing should these small actions grow in number and significance.