Foreign Policy Blogs

Andriy Boytsun,  August 30, 2021

Western Support and Leverage

For decades, Ukraine has been engaged in a strategic partnership with the West aimed at promoting deep structural reforms. At times Ukraine’s leaders have been honest partners in this effort, sometimes they have been dragged reluctantly, and at other times they have offered determined resistance.

As a democratic country currently facing external military aggression, partial Russian occupation, economic difficulties, and a large debt burden, Ukraine cannot do without significant US and Western support. As a result, Ukraine’s economic dependence on aid and diplomatic support has created great leverage on the part of the Euro-Atlantic community, which the West has exploited to prompt reforms.

President Biden himself has a long, even impassioned, record of support and nudging of Ukraine down the bumpy road of reform. Similarly, following the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, the European Union has been a staunch supporter of Ukrainian civil society, anti-corruption measures, and the rule of law.

While this dynamic has often driven important progress, at other times, Ukraine has had to acquiesce to poorly conceived or poorly executed reforms designed in Washington or Brussels. Such programs are often implemented in coordination with Ukrainian NGOs, which themselves have limited room for independent action as they, too, rely on Western aid and donor support.

Ultimately, this means that the success or failure of reform is often dependent on Western reform strategies with a mixed record. When real and measurable advancements are made, all is well and good. Yet, when setbacks occur, who then is to blame? The public and Western governments too often are quick to blame Ukrainian leadership, citing a stubborn corporate culture plagued by corruption, influential oligarchs, and murky business dealings.

For the sake of fairness, created by the poor track record of successive Ukrainian leaderships, this expectation is certainly not groundless. However, it should not be automatic. With the Ukrainian corporate governance reform once again in the headlines, and a part of the forthcoming summit between Presidents Biden and Zelensky, Western leaders also ought to recognize the shortcomings of their own involvement in the reform as a key variable in the equation.

SOE Reform

Following the Maidan Revolution of 2014, the West and Ukraine’s leaders agreed to tackle the problem of Ukraine’s large array of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which for many years were a den of massive corruption and mismanagement, resulting in billions of dollars in losses to the state.

The corporate governance of Ukrainian SOEs started with Naftogaz, the state oil and gas champion and Ukraine’s largest SOE, initiating and pioneering the change in 2014. I am proud to have been part of this initiative from the onset. The international community joined in the effort in early 2015, and an independent supervisory board – the first-ever in a Ukrainian SOE – was established at Naftogaz in early 2016.

In parallel, Ukraine agreed that state-owned companies would be governed by supervisory boards in which the majority of seats would be held by independent members, sourced through transparent, competitive, and merit-based procedures.

Long sustained with massive state subsidies, Naftogaz became the leader in deep reforms. Its executives, appointed in 2014, and the new independent supervisory board, established in 2016, delivered impactful changes which turned the company around, improved its performance, and brought billions of dollars of profits to the state, assisting in filling the state budget and eliminating massive corrupt revenue flows to oligarchs.

The 2016 board was adamant in demanding proper and sustainable corporate governance reform. However, it was not able to come to terms with the government at the time, which itself was extremely reluctant to relinquish its nearly manual control over SOEs. In protest, the board’s independent members resigned in 2017.

Over time, Naftogaz’s role as a leader in best practices began to erode. It began to change after a new supervisory board was appointed in late 2017. The selections were made in haste and did not follow a competitive or transparent process. Instead, candidates were appointed via closed-door consultations between the government and a handful of foreign embassies and international partners.

Importantly, the process was not overseen by the SOE Nomination Committee or supported by a reputable executive search company. In that respect, it did not follow the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of SOEs, a standard which the international community continues to uphold as a requirement.

Corporate Governance Failings at Naftogaz

Initially, the new board functioned as intended. Over time, however, the well-remunerated board (its chair receives around $285,000, while independent members are compensated at about $237,000 annually for their part-time supervisory role) became enmeshed with the executive leadership, providing generous bonuses to management and overlooking worrying signals that the corporate targets and projected profits were not being met.

The dysfunction of the board became evident in the controversial decisions it made in 2020. That year, instead of delivering on a projected $400 million profit fueled by an increase in gas prices at the end of the year, Naftogaz delivered losses of nearly $700 million. Despite this outcome, executives were paid out multimillion bonuses. Naftogaz chose not to disclose individual executives’ remuneration in 2020, despite doing so in 2019. This apparent lack of transparency has led to accusations that the supervisory board deliberately concealed information from the public.

In response to Naftogaz’s underperformance, the Ukrainian government, acting as a concerned shareholder at its annual meeting, temporarily suspended the board to dismiss the company’s CEO Andriy Kobolyev and replace him with Yuriy Vitrenko.

In return, US and G7 officials, as well as representatives of international financial institutions, declared that the leadership change violated best practices and Ukraine’s obligations under SOE corporate governance reform. Indeed, while the Ukrainian government’s action was within Ukrainian law, it was certainly not in line with the OECD SOE Guidelines.

Due to international criticism, the government kept the current board. The Prime Minister even offered to add a “US representative” to the Naftogaz board and an “EU representative” to the SOE Nomination Committee. This suggests that Ukraine’s authorities may troublingly see the international community as a set of constituencies each promoting their own interests rather than a well-meaning partner advocating a transparent nomination process, the OECD standards, or, more generally, better rules in Ukraine.

Under protection of the international community, the board doubled down in another controversial act in June 2021, approving a further package of multimillion dollar bonuses to top management – in the middle of the year, well before results were announced, and over the objection of the company’s new CEO.

The Role of the International Community

Not surprisingly, the role of the international community in the board’s performance has resulted in a growing mistrust towards foreign influence in Ukrainian institutions. Mistakes on the part of both Ukraine’s previous government and key Western partners were unfairly blamed solely upon Ukrainian leadership. And Naftogaz’s most critical stakeholder – the Ukrainian public – has suffered for it.

The June 7th statement on the phone call held between Presidents Biden and Zelensky noted that the leaders discussed Ukraine’s “plan to tackle corruption and implement a reform agenda, based on our shared democratic values and Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations, that delivers justice, security, and prosperity to the people of Ukraine.”

It is likely that the forthcoming summit will echo the same sentiment. What should be added to the agenda, however, is the recognition of the shared responsibility for Naftogaz and its board’s performance.

Importantly, the 2017 “deal” on the Naftogaz supervisory board was made between the international community and the country’s previous leadership, who bears even more responsibility. Ukraine’s current leadership may then find itself in the precarious position of engaging with its international partners who not only have their fingerprints on the matter, but continue to focus on it as an inherently Ukrainian impediment to its own progress.

In this instance, the international community’s silence over the (under)performance of Naftogaz is harmful to Ukraine’s interest. This idea is, at best, inconsistent with OECD standards and, at worst, can be dangerously construed as being consistent with the concept of “external management” of an independent country and its vital state enterprises.

What Next?

Given Ukraine’s ongoing dependence on Western support, the country’s leaders quietly listened to the criticism that was not entirely founded. Moving forward, the US and other democratic allies of Ukraine should rightfully acknowledge that something went wrong with the governance of Naftogaz, and, critically, work with the company to make the necessary corrective measures to get back on track.

Specifically, if we all want the Naftogaz board – and the boards of all other Ukrainian SOEs – to be truly independent, one must start to think differently and abandon the idea of foreign board members as country “representatives.” It is a concept that critics dismiss as infringing upon Ukrainian sovereignty.

This starts with acknowledging the right and obligation of the state to “act as an informed and active owner, ensuring that the governance of SOEs is carried out in a transparent and accountable manner” in the interest of the country’s citizens as the ultimate beneficiaries of these SOEs – an important basic principle of the OECD SOE Guidelines. Further, with a new board elected via a transparent process in accordance with the OECD SOE Guidelines, Naftogaz can be restored as the bellwether of Ukraine’s corporate governance reform.

Ultimately, the West has great strategic interest in adopting some new thinking about supporting the country (and Naftogaz) to ensure that it becomes a strong, independent, European partner and ally. Helping to set up a transparent, competitive, and merit-based process to select an independent supervisory board at Naftogaz is an excellent first step.

Andriy Boytsun is the Lead of the Corporate Governance Stream at the Kyiv School of Economics. He designed the corporate governance reform of Naftogaz in 2014-2015, advised large SOEs and governments, and drafted Ukraine’s corporate governance law. Andriy leads the team that publishes the Ukrainian SOE Weekly, a digest on state-owned enterprises in Ukraine. He holds a PhD from the University of Antwerp, with a thesis on corporate governance.

 

* The Foreign Policy Association does not take positions, the views of the author are his own.

(Getty Image)

One day, the Kim regime’s diplomatic envoys around the world might be haunted by Otto Warmbier’s name, which will be written on every incoming mail. The heightened bipartisan consensus among NYC councilmen to rename after Otto Warmbier – an American college student who passed away in 2017 from injuries sustained while imprisoned in North Korea – the street on which the Kim regime’s mission to the UN is located, is creating a ripple effect: Washington’s most prominent public figures and the heads of international NGOs are joining a growing wave of enthusiasm for commemoration of Warmbier’s sacrifice. As Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), anticipates, this local activist movement could be “the opening salvo in a coordinated effort by international NGOs to have each and every street where there is a North Korean embassy or consulate mission, all over the world, renamed after Otto Warmbier, from Bucharest to Madrid, and from Stockholm to Kuwait City—everywhere.”

Otto Warmbier at the Kim regime’s Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea, March 16 2016 (Yonhap News)

“We are a symbol of human rights to the whole world, and we have confronted in this city dictators and tyrants historically; this is a place that has really led the international effort against oppression.” So said NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio recently to a City Hall news conference last June, in order to emphasize that his support for “Otto Warmbier Way” is part of NYC’s long history of opposing tyranny. At America’s birth in the late 18th century, the Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan was the venue for two of the three sessions of the First U.S. Congress: During the course of the sessions, fierce yet fruitful debates took place between federalists and anti-federalists over the just definition of tyranny (whether of the majority over the minority, or vice versa), and checks and balances and the bill of rights were officially enshrined in the Constitution. Past street re/naming ordinances in NYC have reflected this heritage, the latest being the new “Black Lives Matter Boulevard” along a portion of Centre Street.

The proposed bill for “Otto Warmbier Way” was first introduced by City Councilman Joe Borelli in 2019. The goal, in the councilman’s own words, was to “recall that this was a life given up … in the face of an absolute dictator and authoritative government” and to “draw attention to the plight of the people of North Korea.” If the bill is passed, the address of the Kim regime’s mission to the UN will change from “820 second Ave” to “820 Otto Warmbier Way.” The passage of the bill requires 51 NYC councilmen’s approval votes as well as the mayor’s final signature. Some prominent public figures who have expressed their support for the bill include former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Mike Pompeo, former U.N. Ambassadors Bill Richardson and Kelly Craft, and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. Many North Korean human rights experts are also highly supportive of the bill. Suzanne Scholte, the chairman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, enthusiastically applauded the bill: “We actually reached out to the council member in New York, Borelli, when he introduced the resolution two years ago. I think it’s really important because we can never forget what happened to this young man. He is the face of the cruelty of this regime. So we, the North Korea Freedom Coalition, enthusiastically endorsed this back when it was first proposed…We can’t forget that this is how this regime treats people, and this is how they treat their own citizens as well.”

Pacing with NYC’s local activist efforts, the Congress introduced another bill named after Otto Warmbier on June 19, 2020, the fourth anniversary of Otto Warmbier’s passing. The Otto Warmbier North Korea Censorship and Surveillance Act proposes to annually allocate $10 million to the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) over the next five years to foster human rights activities countering the Kim regime’s repressive information environment. In particular, it allows the USAGM to develop new means and partnerships to empower North Korean people with both non-digital and digital access to outside information. Furthermore, the proposed bill imposes sanctions on those within and without the regime responsible for precipitating such an environment. In conjunction with previously enacted Otto Warmbier bills, the Otto Warmbier Banking Restrictions Involving North Korea (BRINK) Act of 2017 and the Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions Act of 2019, the proposed bill is expected to strengthen the overall effectiveness of sanctions against the Kim regime’s brutal tyranny.

 

 

The Talmud says, “Whoever destroys a life, it should be considered as if he destroyed the world entire.  And whoever saves a life, it should be considered as if he saved the world entire.”   As American citizens, it is of pivotal importance that we all demand that Armenia hand over the remaining landmine maps to Azerbaijan at the soonest possible date, as Armenia’s refusal to do so is killing innocent people daily.  

On June 4, in the village of Susuzlug in the Kelbajar region, Siraj Abishov and Maharram Ibrahimov, employees of the Azerbaijan State News Agency and Azerbaijan Television, were blown up by a mine when performing their official duties as members of the press.  This incident was condemned by Israeli Ambassador to Azerbaijan George Deek: “We are deeply saddened by the news of the death of two journalists by a landmine.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims.” 

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Teresa Ribeiro, also condemned what happened to these two Azerbaijani journalists: “The tragic death of Maharram Ibrahimov and Siraj Abishov is terrible news and I extend my deepest sympathy and condolences to their relatives and colleagues.”     

Since the Second Karabakh War ended, more than 120 people have been killed by landmines, even though 35,000 landmines have been removed to date and the death toll just continues to rise. It did not need to be like that.  If Armenia handed over all of the landmine maps to Azerbaijan in a timely manner, instead of sending them over in piecemeal after getting bribed to do so, like they are required to do upon the cessation of hostilities under international law, then these deaths could have been avoided.

As the Committee to Protect Journalists declared, “The killing of Azerbaijani journalists Maharram Ibrahimov and Siraj Abishev in Nagorno-Karabakh was a needless tragedy.  Armenian authorities should share their landmine maps with the members of the press to ensure that no other journalists will become victims of this conflict.”

Yaakov Abramov, who heads the Azerbaijani Jewish community in the United States, added: “Armenian armed forces continue to commit criminal acts against civilians by mining these territories in gross violation of the basic norms and principles of international humanitarian law, including the requirements of the Geneva Convention of 1949.  Despite the three-sided agreement on the cessation of hostilities signed on November 10, people continue to die and mines continue to explode, killing civilians.   Subversive groups from Armenia continue to penetrate inside Azerbaijani territory, raise flags of non-existent entities, continue to ignore UN Security Council resolutions and refuse to provide maps of minefields.”

In the eyes of Abramov, the West has refrained from condemning Armenia sufficiently over the death of these two journalists: “Europe is silent.  But if they say anything, they only condemn Azerbaijan.  This reminds me of how the whole of Europe is unanimously condemning Israel while not saying a single world about the more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israel during the last war by terrorists from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.”

Adika Iqbal, who heads the Azerbaijan Friendship Organization, concurred: “What happened to the two journalists is heartbreaking.  Deliberately planting landmines is a gross violation of Armenia’s international obligations.  They immediately need to hand over the landmine maps, so that more lives can be saved.”

In fact, Azerbaijan has filed a petition to the European Court on Human Rights, hoping to compel Armenia to hand over the landmine maps.    Chingiz Asgarov, who represented the Republic of Azerbaijan before the ECHR, said: “Armenia’s refusal to hand over the minefield maps has no strategic, legal or moral merits, and solely intends to cause loss of life and suffering to Azerbaijani civilians in the region. Armenia’s actions also endanger Armenians who continue to live in the liberated territories.  We once again urge Armenia to live up to their international legal obligations by releasing the minefield maps and any relevant information.”

Ayoob Kara, who served as Israel’s Communication, Cyber and Satellite Minister, concurred: “It is very tragic that two Azerbaijani journalists were killed in a landmine explosion in the Kelbajar region.  Their untimely deaths represent a violation of humanitarian values and freedom of the press. It is of critical importance for the fragile peace agreement that was established between Azerbaijan and Armenia that Armenia hand over the landmine maps at the soonest possible date, so that no more innocent civilians will get killed.”

If the West seeks for the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan to last and not unravel, then it is of paramount importance that all landmines get removed from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, so that both Armenians and Azerbaijanis who live in the area can travel freely and peacefully, without endangering their own lives. 

It is critical to note that many of these landmines are unmarked, so a child playing soccer or another civilian conducting their business can accidentally step on them and cause a series of explosions, thus rendering the whole area uninhabitable.  Without the freedom to play soccer and conduct business without getting killed, how can the peace last?   Thus, solving this issue is of paramount importance to every citizen across the globe who values peace and security in the region.

Economic sanctions have become an increasingly common foreign policy tool, especially for the United States. What is the nature of the politics behind U.S. policy regarding economic sanctions? Recent events, especially the negotiations concerning the United States’ possible return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, often called the “Iran nuclear deal”), as well as a stint as a discussant at a political science conference featuring a paper on sanctions, prompted me to try to systematize some of my own thinking on the subject of sanctions and their role in U.S. policy and politics. Here is what I came up with.

First of all, economic sanctions are not a single thing but a category of related policy actions. Collectively, they are a foreign policy tool, an option among others such as military force, diplomacy, propaganda, or simply ignoring a problem. These tools can be used in isolation or in combination. Each category has certain costs and benefits, which will vary with the assigned task and target. Some may be better suited to achieve a specified objective in view of a particular set of tasks, targets, resources, risks, and opportunity costs. None of them will always be right for all situations. It may well be that none of them will get you all the way to the goal you seek, yet you still may feel compelled to do something. Objectives may range from convincing a target state to change its way of thinking, to compelling it to change a particular behavior, to imposing a change of regime, to simply demonstrating your dissatisfaction.

Changes over Time

In recent decades the U.S. government’s policy tool preference has shifted from a preference for military action under President George W. Bush, particularly in his first term, to a preference for sanctions under Barack Obama and especially under Donald J. Trump. The Obama administration sanctioned about three times the number of individuals and entities in its final year in office as it did in its first. The Trump administration, on average, imposed sanctions at twice the annual rate of the Obama administration. (The Trump administration, on the other hand, undertook fewer, and often smaller, enforcement actions after sanctions were imposed, and two-thirds of those resulted from companies self-reporting their own violations).

Also, the nature of economic sanctions has evolved. During the Cold War, for example, sanctions generally came in the form of full trade embargoes intended to undermine a country’s entire economy. These, however, often failed because of the political divisions rooted in the Cold War itself. The Soviet Union could not smother Yugoslavia as long as the United States was there to rescue it; the United States could not smother Cuba as long as the Soviet Union was there. That changed with the temporary unity of the immediate post–Cold War era. A trade embargo imposed on Iraq after the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91 had devastating effects on Iraqi society, devastating enough to discredit that form of sanction.

What followed were targeted, or “smart,” sanctions. These were designed to reduce a country’s capacity to threaten others or to target the policy makers responsible for a country’s unacceptable behavior without causing undue suffering to the entire civilian population. Examples include arms embargoes; targeted trade sanctions restricting certain commodities, such as “conflict diamonds”; travel sanctions against specific targeted individuals; and financial sanctions, such as asset freezes or the blocking of electronic transfers.

Advances in technology created further possibilities, sometimes referred to as “weaponized interdependence.” While the growth of widely distributed networks in the cyber age was originally expected to have a leveling effect, networks in certain fields, for reasons of efficiency, evolved in such a way as to create a few key nodes, or chokepoints. Control of those nodes is a tremendous advantage. A prime example is the global financial system. Not only do U.S. banks play a prominent role in global finance, but nearly all international transactions pass through a single chokepoint: the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system. Even though SWIFT is physically located in Belgium, the United States has considerable influence over it. Unlike the Cold War examples noted above, a country that controls key financial nodes can impose effective sanctions unilaterally. It can even impose sanctions on countries with which it has no transactions to cut off. The Trump administration was not only able to re-impose sanctions unilaterally on Iran, with which it had no trade or financial ties, but it could also credibly threaten sanctions against our own allies if they failed to go along.

Two Views of Sanctions

Within the United States, there are two different approaches to economic sanctions, two different understandings that are quite different from each other. The first we can call the professional view, that of the foreign policy elites, including those who fulfill relevant roles in the foreign policy bureaucracy. The second, the popular or existentialist view, is held by many people in the general public, but frankly it is also shared by a number of foreign policy elites, including members of Congress and presidents.

Sanctions as a Practical Tool

First, in the professional view, sanctions are a practical tool for achieving a specific, well-defined outcome. To be effective, the goal needs to be achievable and the sanctions have to be accompanied by a credible promise of relief in exchange for compliance.

The issue of achievability leads to two further questions:

1. How important is the targeted behavior to the country being sanctioned?

To the extent that the leaders of the targeted country view the sanctioned behavior as vital, bringing the targeted country into compliance with the sanctioning country’s demands will become more difficult.

The difference may be seen in the contrasting results of nuclear negotiations with North Korea and Iran. North Korea evidently sees nuclear weapons as essential to its security, which has made it difficult to reach a lasting settlement, or even a short-term settlement. On the other hand it is not entirely clear that Iran even wants nuclear weapons. It was reportedly a few months away from a bomb’s worth of nuclear material for years and never went there. At the very least, Iranian elites have been divided on the issue. That’s part of why JCPOA succeeded. In recent years, with President Trump’s policy of maximum pressure, we may have been on the verge of pushing Iran into a nuclear weapons program intended just to show us that they won’t be pushed around.

2. How many countries has the targeted country offended; or, what is the magnitude of the risk inherent in the situation?

The targeted country will try to avoid the impact of embargoes by cultivating alternative sources. If sanctions are to be effective, then it will be necessary to include as many potential alternative trading partners as possible in the sanctions regime. The number of countries willing to join will depend on what the targeted country has done. Offending American sensibilities will not be enough.

Cuba, for example, survived generations of U.S. sanctions. Initially, as noted above, the United States organized a sanctions regime among its allies, but the Soviet Union came to Cuba’s rescue. With time, even that sanctions regime started coming apart. As Cuba stopped trying to promote revolution in Latin America, fewer and fewer countries saw the trade embargo as necessary. Eventually, the United States was the only country left, allowing Cuba to blame its economic problems on U.S. sanctions while trading freely with much of the rest of the world.

The United States was successful in organizing multilateral sanction against North Korea in the 2000s and 2010s, on the other hand, because many countries saw North Korea’s behavior as threatening. In an odd twist, Trump—perhaps in a witting or unwitting application of Nixon’s “madman theory” of bargaining—raised the general threat level with his “fire and fury” rhetoric in 2017. Soon, South Korea was reaching out to North Korea to calm the situation, and China was pressing North Korea to respond. But then Trump not only backed away from his rhetoric and engaged in talks, which was a positive thing, but announced that the problem had been resolved when in fact nothing had changed. The result was to undermine his own sanctions regime.

The other condition—relief for compliance—should be self-explanatory but is too often forgotten. If the targeted country does not believe that compliance with the sanctioning country’s demands will lead to the end of sanctions, then it will have little incentive to comply. Certain of the sanctions faced by Iran, for example, were imposed by the United Nations, the United States, and other countries expressly to compel Iran to negotiate about its nuclear program. When Iran reached an agreement with the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia, which was then endorsed by the UN Security Council, those sanctions were lifted. (Sanctions imposed for other reasons were not lifted, much to Iran’s annoyance.) The Trump administration’s decision to re-impose sanctions unilaterally undermined any confidence Iran (or, for that matter, North Korea) might have had that the Trump administration would abide by any agreement that it made. Thus the administration could not even get Iran to discuss the “better deal” that it had insisted it could achieve.

Sanctions as Moral Imperative

The second understanding of sanctions, the popular view, is existential and moralistic. To oversimplify just a bit, this approach holds that some regimes are good and other regimes are evil. Evil regimes are targeted at least as much for what they are as for what they do. Thus sanctions are the punishment for being evil. In this conception, sanctions may not be aimed at curtailing a specific activity. The only worthy objective is to bring down the evil regime—or at the very least to demonstrate one’s disapproval of the regime and thus assert one’s own moral superiority.

In this conception, mere compliance by the targeted state is a trick, an attempt to escape sanctions while remaining evil. The only valid way to escape sanctions is through regime collapse. Here regime collapse is always seen as a solution to problems and never seen as likely to cause further problems—despite, say, the still continuing years of chaos and turmoil following the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq in 2003, and the Muammar Qadhafi regime in Libya in 2011.

It is this existential understanding of sanctions that prompted the Trump administration to shift the goal posts and sanction Iran even after that country had fully complied with the JCPOA. Lifting sanctions on Iran was “siding with the terrorists.” Damage to the Iranian economy was proof of success. It did not matter that Trump’s abandonment of the JCPOA and re-imposition of sanctions were counterproductive in terms of the administration’s own stated goals.

Sanctions as a Wasting Asset

Logically speaking, the use of economic sanctions to achieve a foreign policy goal assumes that the targeted country has economic ties to the outside world, the disruption of which would be damaging to the targeted country. Otherwise, there is little point. The extended use of sanctions, however, reduces those very ties. The ability of the United States to impose unilateral sanctions on North Korea is reduced by the fact that the United States has sanctioned North Korea since 1950 and has virtually no economic ties to it at all. The Trump administration’s trade war with China has induced China to reduce its dependence by striving to produce more of its necessary goods domestically and diversifying its sources of those it cannot produce.

In cases of weaponized interdependence, where the sanctioning state controls key chokepoints, reducing outside dependence will be harder and certainly time consuming but not impossible. Avoiding the impact of sanctions might require establishing alternative institutions, which one country working alone would not be able to do. Extensive use of sanctions by a single country for its own purposes, however, could prompt others to do so eventually. In the case of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran, U.S. allies Britain, France, and Germany undertook efforts to establish an alternative system, the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), to enable transactions with Iran without going through SWIFT. In that particular case, Western corporations, fearing U.S. sanctions against themselves, avoided using the alternative system. But the possibility still stands if the incentives grow strong enough. Weaponized interdependence is resilient, but sanctions may still be a wasting asset. The more you use them, the less you may be able to rely on them in the future.

The Domestic Politics of Sanctions

Sanctions may be imposed for a variety of reasons, either professional or popular, either for purely foreign policy purposes or in response to domestic political dynamics. Once imposed, however, they often prove difficult to remove.

In part, the difficulty is rooted in technical/legal obstacles or interactive connections to other issues. For example, the Bush administration’s sanctions on a Macao bank, Banco Delta Asia, imposed for its role in money laundering, interfered with the Bush administration’s later efforts to lift sanctions on North Korea and resume negotiations on its nuclear program because North Korean assets were frozen in that bank and the legal process of unfreezing them was convoluted. With regard to Iran, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) of 2015 requires the president to certify every 90 days that Iran is “transparently, verifiably, and fully implementing” the agreement. Iran, which continued to adhere fully to the agreement for one year after the Trump administration renounced it, then began a program of planned escalating violations at preset intervals in an attempt to coerce the United States back into compliance. Iran now says it will not comply with the JCPOA until the United States does, but INARA implies that Iran must in compliance first. Depending on one’s interpretation of INARA, returning to the agreement may also trigger a host of political/legislative hurdles that the agreement originally had to overcome in 2015. INARA thus complicates efforts to restore the deal even though it was the United States that initially—and more fundamentally—violated it.

On the other hand, the difficulty can be political rather than technical/legal, owing to the likelihood of existentialist arguments to attach themselves to the issue. Sanctions on Cuba persist decades after the original foreign policy justifications (support for guerrilla movements, alliance with the Soviet Union) have passed from the scene. Even the hurdles created under INARA were put there by arms-control skeptics taking an existentialist perspective. While foreign policy professionals may not share the existentialist understanding of sanctions, they will have to take it into consideration for domestic political reasons.

Advocates of economic sanctions often argue that they represent a reasonable middle ground in foreign policy between doing nothing and resorting to military force. They are only reasonable, however, if they are attached to realistic goals and adjusted for changed circumstances. Too often sanctions are employed to demonstrate disapproval or outrage, while the underlying issues are allowed to fester. In that respect, they are really a self-oriented activity. They create the impression of doing something, tar the adversary as morally inferior, and allow one to feel better about oneself. If demonstrating outrage is your purpose, you can do it, but it is unlikely to go far toward resolving international issues.

How Do We Look From the Other Side?

There are two aspects of the theory of just war, jus ad bellum, or the justice of any given war, and jus in bello, referring to just conduct in the waging of war.  There may be an overlooked analogy for American diplomacy.

In the late 1990s I heard a Brazilian ambassador address an American lunch group, saying that Brazil’s growing economic heft would force a re-balance of power between the U.S. and Brazil.  I queried him on what issues made a power relationship relevant.  I expected him to point to less-visible, but real, trade or regulatory contentions.  But he did not specify any issues in his response. Rather, he answered that the U.S. would “have to take account” of Brazil.  The U.S. and Brazil had no differences of principle, and any disputes were quotidian, not all that significant.  But, it seemed, he felt U.S. diplomacy treated Brazil cavalierly because our power allowed us to.

On June 30, Vladimir Putin characterized U.S. diplomacy as “trying at all costs to maintain their monopoly position.”  Of course this statement ignored U.S. complaints of principle over Russian national conduct.  Putin also maintained his practice of casting the complaints as tools of tangible interest, and ignoring any questions of principle.  He diverted the question of pressuring dissenting social media voices by claiming the right to tax U.S. firms in Russia.  He elided legal questions around Russia’s firing on a UK ship with a comment that the world would not go to war over it.  Putin does not contest the principles but buries them by citing U.S. attitudes and hard interests.

In the analog to jus ad bellum, America is on the side of the angels.  But it should always be much more difficult for a Putin to miscast our nature, or for a friendly nation to feel slighted.  In diplomacy’s operational analog to jus in bello, we make it far too easy to dislike us.

As in a war with a just cause, we carry freedom’s moral appeal.  That appeal, however, imposes an unusual burden on American diplomacy.  A justly-originated war can retain that justice even if it is unjustly fought.  But failure to “fight this war justly” can negate the justice of the cause. 

The principles under American diplomacy and under its conduct both rest on America’s self definition in the Declaration of Independence: “We,” the “one people” separating from another, only describe ourselves as “holding” certain truths.  Our conduct must show we hold them sincerely.  America’s core interest requires U.S. diplomacy to act by our principles. 

Harmony between our deep ends and worldly means can pose a paradox.  The creed’s ethos, of rights and government by consent of the governed, leaves people free to undermine that very freedom.  The self evident truths we hold are abstract, making us free to indulge chaotic, self-defeating, even immoral pursuits.  Further, an abstract creed needs a body politic in which to live, and that body has unavoidable needs, which will conflict with others’.  We have to defend our nation, if only as the vessel of our principles, and we must act by democratic choices, even if they are selfish – or self-destructive.  Yet we cannot let our principles look like cosmetic cover for craven self interest. 

America must constantly shape its diplomacy for comportment with America’s founding creed.  That process must keep a national continuity through political mandates that can swing radically.  The nation needs an institution that sees the paradox, and can keep constant vigil for the founding tenets through shifting electoral outcomes. 

Such a guardian must have its own legitimate mandate to maintain this review.  Any American may voice an opinion about American principles – but not as national expression unless given an electoral mandate.   The only exception is for those formally charged to represent America through changing administrations.  The diplomatic service, the nation’s official, professional institutional representative, carries that charge. 

To acquit that charge today requires a highly specialized capacity.  The diplomatic service must know the jus ad bellum analog of our principles, in deep fluency with the case for the unalienable rights.  They must also keep national conduct supportive and exemplary of our ethos, in a sophisticated operational art to ensure the analog of jus in bello.  Such a capacity was unheard of before.  But 21st Century disruptions and dysfunctions confront us all with radical, basic questions: whether free will is an illusion, whether a free humanity can manage its impact in the world, whether technology can replicate people.  Everyone needs a touchstone.  America has one.  If our political process calls for this capacity, and our diplomats grasp the role, America can carry our creed in our conduct.  Brazilian diplomats will have their indignance salved.  Putin will have his cynicism debunked.  Freedom will have an unalloyed champion.

 

Prominently written on history’s ‘gate of shame’ are these haunting words: Hubris never had a worse enemy than itself; you may ask these specialists: Hitler, Pharaoh, or perhaps Lucifer. So, the extreme arrogance and the above-all-laws attitude expressed by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his apartheid regime committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the so-called 11 day war is likely to be remembered as Israel’s self-administered demise.

The newly formed coalition government led by another darling of the extremist settlers—Naftali Bennett—asserted its commitment to continue business as usual.

Israel has been viciously oppressing the Palestinian people for more than seven decades while most of the American and Western media groups were providing disinformation or highly sanitized versions of the reality on the ground to keep their audiences oblivious and apathetic.     

Defining the Crime

The most heinous and indeed most politicized form of oppression is what is known as genocide or ethnic cleansing.  

Semantic smoke screening is often used to veil one brand of genocide or another, to accentuate the suffering of one community over others with similar experiences, to underscore sanctity of certain lives over others. Most of us, for one reason or another, have internalized such moral cognitive dissonance, therefore it is seldom challenged, And those who directly or indirectly challenge that mindset are labeled anti-Semite.

You may recall the storm of controversy and slanderous campaign targeting the prominent African-American film director, Spike Lee, after he tweeted: ‘American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust.’ 

Whether one calls it ‘Holocaust’, ‘Shoah’, or ‘Nakba’, or cataclysmic suffering or the catastrophic one, there should be no exceptionalism in such crimes against humanity. The Palestinian people have been suffering physical, economical, political, and psychological holocaust like no other society in contemporary history. 

When it comes to this issue, we need to find a footing in the moral clarity of the younger generation. It does not matter whether genocide was executed in 100 days as in Rwanda, or in 4 years as in Nazi Germany, or in decades as in apartheid Israel. The latter is executed incrementally by way of relentless daily brutality, extreme humiliation, periodical invasions, economic strangulation, mass imprisonment, torture, expulsion, home demolitions and land-grab to uproot the indigenous Palestinians in order to build, as the Jewish human rights organization B’Tselem put it, a regime of Jewish supremacy.  

So unless we play politics with justice and in the fundamental worth of human lives, we should accept the fact all aforementioned cases represent the same evil. And in that spirit, and with utmost respect to the sentimental or collective history value of Nakba, this analyst will deliberately use ‘the indigenous Palestinian holocaust’ to remind the world that the cry ‘never again’ should not be a selective moral outrage.          

Nature of the Beast

While ‘apartheid’ does provide historical reference to the racism that drives much of what the Jewish state does, it does not capture the magnitude of the horrific oppression and dehumanization that the indigenous Palestinian people live under.

If the apartheid regime could deliberately target homes, apartments or commercial towers that are the headquarters of international media such Associated Press, Aljazeera, and host of other aid organizations and civil societies on a broad daylight, try to imagine what they could do away from the cameras and media scrutiny.

Since 1948, indigenous Palestinians have been ‘cleansed’ out of much of the land that was once known as Palestine, and that vicious process is now in full force to put the last few nails on the two-state solution that has been dangled in front of the Palestinian authority for so long time. In the West Bank—an area recognized under the international law as an occupied territory—has been peppered with over 400 Israeli colonies with more than 600,000 Jewish settlers

However, if you are somewhat confused due to the false narratives advanced by certain politicians, think tanks, and media groups and you found yourself sitting on the fence on who is the oppressed and who is the oppressor, you might need to read the Human Rights Watch’s 217 page damning verdict entitled A Threshold Crossed.

Ironically, outdoing its trademark arrogance, in less than two weeks after the report ignited broad debate over the nature of the Israeli regime, Benjamin Netanyahu started in-your-face orgies of war crimes and crimes against humanity violations. So much in violation of the international law that if they were committed by another country in the world, the apartheid-protecting world’s moral police, otherwise known as the U.S., would have mobilized a ‘coalition of the willing’ to invade that country and brought it down into submission. 

But, if you still find yourself unconvinced that Israel is a racist country, let the ill-famed Jacob The ‘Settler’ tell you how the last apartheid regime in the world operationalizes land grab and justify it. In the video, a courageous Palestinian female home owner confronts Jacob (Yaakov Fauci) who literally stole her home and tells him: you are stealing my house. He responds with this heartless colonial logic: “If I don’t steal it, someone else (another settler) will….so what’s the point?” Here is him doing what he called a “damage control”.  

Will the Current ‘Cease fire’ Bring Lasting Peace?

The short answer is ‘no’; because this cease fire is not grounded on a sound political settlement,  Hamas that should be part of any political solution is still considered by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, and the apartheid forces are still provoking and violating Islam’s third holiest mosques, al-Aqsa.

For Israel and its Zionist supporters, the cease fire was a great opportunity to defuse the global moral outrage against the brutality of the apartheid regime and the above-the-law status secured to Benjamin Netanyahu who should have his day at the International Criminal Court.

Let’s be frank here, the apartheid regime has no incentive to change its modus operandi of constantly moving the goal post for solution by establishing new facts on the ground (more colonies and more Jewish settlers who mostly migrated from U.S. and Europe).

Moreover, under its current tactic, Israel deliberately destroys lives, significant number of residential and commercial towers, hospitals, schools, bridges, sacred places and other components of Gaza’s already frail infrastructure without suffering any consequences.

The U.S. provides the apartheid regime absolute protection with its ‘Veto Power’ at the UN Security Council and it mobilizes a few of her oil rich friends to bankroll the cost of reconstruction. Israel is like that spoiled boy who smashes all pottery on display at the store so his dad’s clients would pay for the damage. Apparently the ‘you broke it, you pay for it’ rule does not apply to Israel. So under such unchecked privilege and indeed power, why would Israel respect the international law and stop its war crimes and crimes against humanity?

Enhancing the Non-violent Strategy

No liberation is achieved and sustained at random, so those who have been at the forefront of the indigenous Palestinian struggle would have to think and act more strategically than ever before. And that may require pulling together divergent ideas, personalities, and priorities.

Some New and Od Ideas to Ponder:

Collecting and documenting property deeds, house keys, family photos, decapitated dolls, dead person’s shoes, bullet-ridden garments, and all other belongings that attest to the humanity that those indigenous Palestinians were denied in their lifetimes. These items should be displayed at a future museum to be named the Indigenous Palestinian Holocaust Museum.

Establish International Friends of Palestine Registry to list all organizations and activist groups for effective collaboration and motivation to sustain the global moral outrage, and intellectual intifada for liberty, justice and peace. 

Organize, fundraise, and find pro bono legal services for victims and their families to file criminal and civil lawsuits against Israeli officials and military commanders at various U.S. courts and in other Western countries that will allow.

Streamline the anti-apartheid movements and Palestine liberation advocacy groups under one vision, distinctive logo and inspiring slogan. 

Now that a federal judge has declared Georgia’s anti-BDS law to protect Israel as against the First Amendment, thus unconstitutional, the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) should reach every household using television, radio and other media ads as well as billboards.

Recruit celebrities, congressional figures, and other influencers to invite international media to cover their constitutionally protected civil disobedience and maybe subsequent arrests. In addition to the Israeli embassy, targets should include the State Department, Zionist and Right-Wing institutions, and all others that lend the apartheid regime funding and blind support. Imagine the curiosity and the debate it would’ve provoked if Senator Bernie Sanders—who is a Jew and a civil rights activist—getting arrested for protesting against apartheid Israel.    

Establish a counter-MEMRI TV that archives and translates into English violence inciting hate-speeches by zealot Rabbis, politicians, settlers, and others. Also the abuses, provocations, and violence intended to make life unbearable for the indigenous Palestinian people.

Meeting with editorial boards of major newspapers such as New York Times, Washington Post, etc. as well as decision makers on television and cable news to pressure them for fair coverages and to place correspondents in Gaza to better educate their respective audiences. 

Streamline speakers under one bureau that cultivates them to become well-versed on the liberation cause, to speak at various gatherings, conferences, human rights platforms, conferences such as the Congressional Black Caucasus, and call in right-wing and apartheid supporting radio programs with factual information to dispel their disinformation.

Organize a diverse team of social media savvy young men and women to monitor disinformation, to expose BOTS, disseminate factual information, and persuade the misinformed.

Solicit wealthy Muslims and non-Muslims to produce Hollywood films that tell this holocaust from the indigenous Palestinian perspective. These investments could produce films that are educational, empowering, and profitable.

Lastly and perhaps more importantly, build diplomatic, media, academia, think tanks, and social media activists alliance to pressure the U.N. to reform. And that reform must include restructuring of the Security Council and the absolute authority or ‘veto power’ granted to current 5 permanent members. Imagine if the permanent members were 9 and a ‘veto power’ required two thirds’ vote. Also, the UN must become an independently funded institution that is not politically beholden to one wealthy funder or another.

Though Israel has advanced militarily, scientifically, and in the fields of intelligence and entrepreneurship, the Zionist project is clearly a failed project of first degree. With U.S. taxpayers’ $4 billion annual free check, apartheid Israel is the mother of all ‘welfare queens.’ And that certainly is not sustainable.

America continues to lose a great deal of international credibility in its unconditional or absolute support of a ruthless colonizer and an apartheid regime that is bent on holocausting indigenous Palestinians for an exclusive Jewish state.

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With the recent and severe condemnation of Belarus’ actions against an opposition activist and a civil airliner, with must acknowledge that the same level of continuing condemnation should continue to address the murder of the passengers and crew of Ukrainian Airlines Flight PS752 over a year ago. Recently, the crime that was the murder of hundreds of innocent civilians on PS752 by Iran’s Air Defense forces was acknowledged as an “act of terrorism” as well as “intentional” by a Canadian court in the Province of Ontario where many of the surviving families of the victims reside.

The late Cold War sophistication of the TOR-M1 system that shot two surface to air missiles at a passenger plane three minutes after takeoff from Teheran’s International Airport is well known to have a horrific and brutal effect on victims of an airliner. The TOR-M1 has several fail safe plans and mechanisms as part of its design and implementation. It is difficult to see how an accident could have occurred on so many levels. With the firing unit of the TOR-M1 having its own radars and optical systems, as well as being linked to the tracking and guidance systems of several other TOR-M1s in the unit, PS752 would have been seen on all of their radars and ID systems. The units are always under the control of a dedicated control unit in the field that is in communication with the central command structure of the Air Defense Forces of the Iranian military, who also have information and flight plans for civilian air routes. The TOR-M1s were purchased from Russia, who often trains and organises the use of such weapons when sold abroad, and it is doubtful that the method and training on the TOR-M1s would have been lax when they were purchased and installed within Iran’s Armed Forces.

Despite the obvious horror of the murder of the passenger of Flight PS752, there has been a somewhat passive approach by Canada where most of the victims resided to achieve true justice for the families. Many of the families who lost loved ones were harassed in Iran itself, and the Prime Minister of Canada was photographed bowing, joyful and shaking hands with Iran’s foreign minister weeks after Iran killed his citizens. Hopefully the recent judgment will motivate the Government of Canada to respect the victims of this clear human rights atrocity, by acknowledging how the use of military grade weapons on civilians occurred, and move beyond simply a financial compensation package for victims where an account of justice clearly needs to take place. Considering their lack of immediate action in condemning the Uighur Genocide, there seems to be a moral deficit with many Western leaders in 2021.

With the two missiles that shot down PS752, it has been reported that many of the 4000 rockets that were fired into Israel were supplied and designed by Iran’s military as well. These missiles were aimed and fired at civilian targets in order to continue their use of military grade weapons against civilians, even pointed towards civilian airports, hospitals and schools. While the TOR-M1 missiles were precise weapons, the rockets fired are similar to smaller calibre GRAD, or Katyusha type rockets used as deadly artillery by the Soviet Army against the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. One of the most feared weapons of the Soviets during the Second World War, the GRAD rockets are designed to flatten a wide area using multiple missiles to destroy full units of dozens of tanks and troops. To fire such a military grade weapon in a populated area is a clear crime against humanity, as was the firing on Flight PS752. Governments need to show that shooting into a crowd of civilians with any type of weapon is horrific, those that choose to delay or qualify condemnation are clearly ignoring fundamental rights.

Zero tolerance is paramount in the use of military grade weapons on civilians, without an ounce of qualification.

 

After being a resident living in the UK and EU, learning the legal foundations and delicate intricacies of British and European Commercial Law and Intellectual Property rights, it still amazes me how these two powerful entities could still place the weakest and most needy in society at peril over the political aspirations of a few wealthy, elite politicians and their political movements. This being done to the clear detriment of everyone’s parents. The birthplace of Parliamentary Democracy and Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite chose to squabble during a deadly pandemic over vaccines, a possible cure to the Covid crisis, in the middle of a third horrendous wave because there are two camps with well dug in positions over the issue of the UK leaving the EU.

When a community votes for an issue that affects them directly, a democracy should work to respect their decision even if it is not wholly correct in the eyes of professional democrats who run democracies. That is the foundation of society in Western Europe. A weakness of the EU system is that direct democracy is often lacking, and large Supranational bodies often apply policy without the constraints of grassroots communities in the process. This was a key failure in the process that lead many in the UK to push away from the EU. If the British people and those of the now streamlined European Union chose a path for their society, it will be taken by vote, but the decision should not result in a political punishment of those voters.

Citizens on both sides need vaccines, and if the parents who need it the most who lived in the European Economic Community need help, they should be helped in concert with other European nations. The European Economic Community was after all mostly a trade agreement before the legal and cultural ties of the modern EU took shape, and it functioned fairly well for citizens of both communities. A shared trade agreement between many of the current EU members and the UK needed and needs to get everyone vaccinated, whatever their politics might be in 2021, to help those who lived well under the EEC in the 70s. A people first approach should be sacrosanct when everyone’s family is at risk, whatever their political opinion on borders are currently.

While the EU as a quasi-Federal political entity did fracture, other Federated states have taken to charging at their political opposition in different regions of their country. While regional health initiatives produced more effective local results in combatting Covid, the challenging of states against other states seems to have more to do with shifting blame to political opponents instead of sharing useful health policy in an environment where honest science produces life saving healthcare strategies. On top of elites challenging elites to the detriment of the greater community, there have even been cases of petty politicians using their petty politics to belittle and even dehumanise their political opponents who are clearly members of the 1% crowd, concerned more about their job than the people they believe they govern. Such individuals need to be ejected from polite society, still landing on a cushion of power, with great rewards depending on how corrupt the system they gave birth to has become. This will not save any lives but their own it seems.

Welcome to 2021…or for most of us still waiting for vaccines under lockdowns, 2020 plus 5.

The Source

To many Americans, foreign policy discourse comes in broad themes punctuated by very specific issues.  China policy may well form the largest of those themes, and reasonably so.  China could pose a threat to displace America’s international system, arguably the only one.  News and commentary focus heavily on China’s actions and their rulers’ intent: whether they aim to displace us in our influence or merely want to insulate themselves from us; whether they want to supplant democracy with their system; and how far they will go to disrupt our society.  Our China experts, and others, report every fact and parse every analysis of China.  They yield deep insight on China’s nature and intentions, possibly deeper than George Kennan’s 1947 study of the Soviet Union.

Relatively few raise the question of what the U.S. seeks in our China policy. AEI’s Giselle Donnelly calls for a true strategic approach, and Ali Wyne of Eurasia Group has queried what we compete over in “great power competition.”  We should recall the old adage about friendships and interests, and add that enmities as well as friendships defer to interests.  Kennan established the Soviet Union as an existential danger, so opposing that country became a proxy for our interests.  But today we lack consensus on America’s core interest.  Having been immersed in what China might do, our discourse should turn its focus, to coin a phrase, to the sources of American conduct.  The same holds for our foreign policy in general.

U.S. policy toward China will variously cite a rules based global order, democracy, human rights, trade, common interests in curbing climate change, U.S. competitiveness, and jobs.  Policies shift between these various concerns, but rhyme and reason to any given shift is hard to see, while the common denominator is that we oppose China.  And we offer no coherent and durable narrative to say why.  We do not confront the Chinese leadership with a durable counter to their self-serving but coherent interpretations.

America in fact has a fundamental bottom line.  The nation was conceived on a short, abstract creed, of unalienable rights and government that exists to secure those rights, under the consent of the governed.  This definition of national identity underpins American national legitimacy, the deepest interest a nation can have.  Yes, we have more tangible interests, of fair trade in principle and of trade advantages of our industries, of democracy in Taiwan and of peace, of human rights in Xinjiang and of climate policy.  But we need to organize our priorities around the deep interest, our commitment to the creed of the Declaration of Independence.

Today, U.S. foreign policy serves as a tool of bipolar politics.  Two partisan camps occasionally voice the same incontestable common points, but they are more concerned to do better than the other side. Everyone knows China is a one party dictatorship, so no one is overly friendly.  Everyone knows we share interests from financial market stability to climate issues.  But Republicans act to hobble China’s tech firms, while Democrats seek collaboration on climate policy.  What degree of support either side would muster for other goals is a matter of political convenience.  Both sides found reasons to ditch the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact.  Will either find it useful to defend Taiwan?

Walter Russell Mead points out that all potential policy stances toward China carry risks.  He further asserts that a flourishing Asia is the answer to the U.S.’s China problem. If flourishing includes growth in personal freedom, as it has in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, then that approach also fits America’s founding ethos.  A world that not only protects, but promotes, people’s right to the pursuit of happiness best serves everyone, and fulfills our creed.  A flourishing world goes very far toward securing America’s deepest interest, for all of our foreign policy.  If U.S. foreign policy organizes itself to express that aspiration, then to the American public, and to billions of others, that’s what matters most.

Somalia, Is It Time To Part Ways?

If there was any undisputable lesson gained from the three miserable decades of civil war and that lesson was engraved on a stone, it would have read: Avoid the road most traveled; pave yourself a new one.

But, ‘who cares’ is sadly the prevalent attitude. Currently, Somalia is at the tail end of that mindless political combat that occurs every fourth year that many Somalis know as ‘xilligii kala guurka’ or time to part ways. If the phrase was intended to inculcate attitude of apathy toward nationhood and mutual interest, it has worked effectively; certainly among the political class. Make no mistake, language matters.

Today, Somalia is governed by a government whose president’s term has ended on February 8, 2021, is kept in-check by a parliament whose term has ended on December 27, 2020, is guided by a provisional constitution that has been in the making since 2012, which is interpreted by a constitutional court that is yet to be established. This foreign-funded façade of a government is being told ‘you lost legitimacy’ by foreign-funded federal-state presidents, and presidential candidates who telegraph their willingness to preserve the status quo.

Meanwhile, professional narrative framers, foreign intelligence, and mercenary media outlets in Mogadishu, Nairobi, Johannesburg, and other localities continue issuing one-sided reports, stories, interviews, and articles intended to disseminate disinformation and promote that ever-recycled fallacy: ‘Election is the panacea to all of Somalia’s problems therefore all other issues should be shelved.’

Sadly, they are being effective as they have been before. In the past three decades, Somalia has been trading one visionless charlatan for other; at least in most cases.

‘Mutiny’ or ‘right to self-govern’ in Jubbaland?  

The federal-state of Jubbaland still remains the microcosm of the Somali political paradox. It has all the highly flammable political material necessary to detrimentally undermine the progress made since 2013- direct involvement of two frontline states and their local cronies, aggrieved and marginalized clans, political sensitivities between the federal and state governments.  Two of the three regions that constitute Jubbaland (Lower Jubba and Gedo) are currently at odds.

At the outset let me say this: in the past three decades no Somali region has been more tormented with periodical persecutions and military attacks than Gedo. The latest was the attack on Beled-Hawo. that killed dozens of civilians including 5 siblings and seriously injured their mother.  That attack was led by a controversial figure named Abdirashid Janan- a man who is considered by the Federal Government of Somalia and Amnesty International as a fugitive, ruthless criminal accused of committing serious crimes against humanity by “killing of civilians and obstruction of humanitarian aid.” On the other hand, the same man is recognized by the federal-state of Jubbaland and Kenya as Jubbaland’s security minister.

 

Against that backdrop, the FGS has deployed some of Somalia’s newly trained forces to the Gedo region to bulwark against what it described as ‘Kenyan aggression’. Whereas the latter claimed its forces carry out attacks inside Somalia only when in hot pursuit of al-Shabaab and that all other military operations are within AMISOM the legal framework. And Jubbaland authority claimed forces led by Janan were trying to defuse mutiny that was ignited by FGS.

In reality, neither of these authorities are being entirely candid about the real issue that was pouring kerosene on the Gedo fire.

Bone of Contention

Kenyan forces have been in Jubbaland since 2011 when they illegally invaded Somalia. Though the Kenyan forces are now under the AMISOM mandate, they operate an illegal enterprise of exporting charcoal, smuggling in contrabands, and splitting checkpoint extortions collected by al-Shabaab. More dangerously, the Kenyan forces have been attacking the Gedo region at will, destroying mobile phone antennas, and building a wall to annex part of Gedo as ‘a buffer zone.’ On top of all these, you have the ICJ maritime case regarding the ownership of a 58,000 square-mile area off Somalia’s Indian Ocean coastline.     

In 2017, after the people of Gedo organized demonstrations against Kenya’s illegal construction of a border wall, the FGS could no longer keep its head in the sand. It dispatched a fact-finding committee led by its interior minister. The discovery of the fact-finding committee was affirmative. But, upon their return, or the day before presenting their report to the Council of Ministers, the interior minister was sacked and the report never saw the light of day.

Then in 2019, Kenya’s then speaker of the parliament, Aden Du’ale, made an unannounced visit that violated diplomatic protocols to Kismayo to attend Ahmed Madobe’s controversial second inauguration that the FGS declared null and void. While there, in a speech that was clearly intended to ridicule, if not outrage, President Farmajo’s of-cited ‘Somalia’s territorial integrity,’ Duale said he had to attend that celebration (despite FGS’ position) because Kenya has a special relationship with Jubbaland which it shares a border of 800 kilometers.

So, why were all these not outrageous enough for FGS in the past four years? Why did the FGS not demand the Kenyan forces be removed from AMISOM? How could a country with questionable record and shady motives that you severed diplomatic relationship with them be trusted as a partner against al-Shabaab?

Aside from the contention between Farmajo and Madobe on leverage and electoral advantage over the Gedo members of the parliament, there is another issue that has not been on the surface.

The real bone of contention between FGS and Kenya is the future of Jubbaland president Ahmed Madobe and his security minister Abdirashid Janan. This duo had a very close relationship with TPLF, thus PM Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia wants them out of the picture. Not only for their past but for the danger that they could present when Ethiopia starts to cash on the corrupt 4 seaports deal it acquired under Farmajo. Ethiopia has been bankrolling the transportation of the federal troops and other logistical cost of the deadly showdown in Gedo. Kismayo happens to be one of the aforementioned sea ports. Meanwhile, the civilians of Gedo suffer. As a ‘loyal friend and partner’ of Abiy Ahmed, Farmajo successfully facilitated getting rid of former al-Shaab leader Mukhtar Roobow and the leaders of Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama’ah and host of other less known Abiy targets. On his part, President Uhuru Kenyatta wants Madobe and Janan to sustain the annexation process of Gedo region, and leverage against any drama that may set back the maritime case. 

The Farmajo Legacy

In fairness to Farmajo, he has inherited from his predecessor, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, eight challenges. Among them, the mother of all corruption- the Soma Oil & Gas deal, a deal that gravely compromised Somalia’s natural resources.  What he did about fixing that issue is a chapter of its own. 

Four years later, his presidency would probably be remembered as one of the worst.  Security has never been worse and al-Shabaab has never been deadlier. Finishing four straight years at the bottom of the Corruption Index, Farmajo’s presidency is apparently worse than the one before him whom most Somalis consider the most corrupted president. Over a million IDPs still live in pitiful shacks exposed for rape and other abuses in Mogadishu. The country is ever more dependent on foreign assistance. FGS neither institutionalized national currency nor does it collect taxes. Its four years ended without a Somali-owned reconciliation, for taking over security, for ending the unjust 4.5 clan power sharing system, for protecting the national resources, for a robust foreign policy and for flushing out Halane or shutting down the green zone. 

Farmajo will be leaving behind a gridlock of false narratives, a country that is bitterly polarized and dangerously exposed for exploitation and perpetual division. Staying on course with current trajectory will only lead Somalia back to the same dead-end that it marched into too many times in the past three decades.

Those of us who were against clan-based federalism that was modeled after Ethiopia’s ethnic-based have been arguing that it only creates perpetual inter-clan hostilities and endless fragmentation of the Somali state. Now that we know for a fact, shouldn’t the FGS and federal state governments such as Jubbaland and Hirshabille refrain from forcing grudging clans together?

Starting with Gedo, Hiiraan, Sanaag and Sool, let these regions either stand alone states, or go under the federal protection, or decide freely which other federal-state they wish to join. Why not if that would stop senseless bloodshed and political manipulations? 

If there is one last chance for the Somali state to reemerge and reclaim its rightful place among community of nations, FGS must gain legitimacy from its own people. And there is no political legitimacy without genuine national reconciliation.

 

It was recently reported that the Shah Deniz consortium has commenced natural gas deliveries to Europe.  Shahmar Hajiyev, an AIR Center expert, noted, “This is very important because Azerbaijan became the first country to supply Caspian natural gas to European energy markets.  It represents the future of the European Union’s energy supply.  Azerbaijan will supply 10 billion barrels of gas per year to the EU.   This is very important for Europe’s diversification process.”   According to Hajiyev, it is very important that the EU stop relying upon Russian oil for the sake of its own energy security: “It’s very dangerous for the EU to rely upon Russia.  What happened in the Ukraine shows that this is dangerous.  There was a huge crisis between Russia and the Ukraine.  The terms of the transit issue and later also the conflict with the separatists supported by Russia created major problems.  This showed the EU that relying upon Russia is dangerous for the EU.   Also, there was the price issue.   For all these reasons, they prefer to diversify their sources and Azerbaijan was the best option.”   Paolo Bergamaschi, a European energy expert, concurred: “the European Commission declared that the Southern Corridor is critical for the strategic security of the EU.  The pipeline is thus critical for the security of the EU, especially related to the diversification of supplies for we want to decrease the influence of Russian gas on Europe.  That is why the EU has pursued the support of the TAP pipeline to create an alternative to Russian gas.”   According to Bergamaschi, it is also good for the United States that the EU diversify its oil supply: “One of the foreign policy objectives of the US is to decrease Russian influence on the EU, so that is the purpose of this pipeline.  If I look at the Eastern Mediterranean and the many gas and oil fields all over, the discoveries of Turkey in the Black Sea, etc., there will be many markets.  I believe in a quick energy transition.  But if I must choose, I prefer the Azerbaijani gas for they won’t use it as an instrument to impose their foreign policy objectives like Russia does.  Azerbaijan is a friend of Europe and that is important for us.”   Hajiyev concurred: “The United States always supports the EU on energy security.  They also are against the Russian monopoly on the European market.  The US put sanctions on the Russian gas pipelines, for they would help Putin to improve his position and dominate the European gas market.  Therefore, the US supports the EU in its diversification to decrease the Russian monopoly on EU market.”   When asked how Azerbaijan supplying natural gas to the European Union will influence Israel, Hajiyev responded: “Azerbaijan and Israel are remarkably close.  Azerbaijan supplies 45 percent of Israel’s energy needs.  Israel will also build pipelines, but there are geopolitical issues, so we cannot say exactly when Israel will build the pipeline.  The Azerbaijani pipeline is ready.  Azerbaijan supplies 10 bcn to Europe every year.  They will increase to 20 bcn in the future.  It won’t contradict Israel, for the EU market is very big and there is room for more gas.  It is against the Russian interest, for Azerbaijan and Israel can jointly fill what Russia supplied.  In the end, these two countries will supply Europe and there will be no conflict of interest between Israel and Azerbaijan.  Israel needs 3-5 years to complete the project, if everything goes right.”   The Azerbaijani diaspora in the European Union countries also support first direct gas deliveries to Europe, which will serve to strengthen the diplomatic and economic relations between their motherland Azerbaijan and their host countries.  It will also reinforce the position of the Azerbaijani Diaspora organizations in the EU countries to promote more effectively these relations.

 

Healthy democracies do no burn legal documents. This recent and disturbing trend when confronted with an issue that took place during Covid policy approaches should be considered as an attempt to hide serious crimes from the public at a time when the public is at its weakest. When such options are available to a government that is found to be assisting in human rights abuses, an immediate and swift judicial response should become the norm. Zero tolerance for actions that contribute to human rights abuses should be a standard response. If that response is delayed, ignored or evidence is outright destroyed, criminal charges should follow for anyone interfering with an investigation, as in some cases eliminating evidence can become part of contributing to the atrocities.

Plus Jamais ça, or Never Again is a concept that followed the end of the Holocaust, where humanity dedicated itself to never allowing another genocide. The world has failed on many occasions, but the concept should be adhered to religiously. While average citizens often support human rights, politicians often are the ones enabling atrocities for personal gain. Recently, French footballer Antoine Griezmann cut his sponsorship ties with Huawei  in protest to abuses being waged against China’s Uighur population. Griezmann pointed out that Huawei was tied to an app that apparently was going to be used to digitally identify members of China’s Uighur Muslim minority, a group that has been subject to abuses by China, with many being placed in mass detainment facilities simply for being born Uighurs.

The actions against China’s Uighur population has been known for some time, but little has been done directly about it due to China’s political and economic weight. Protests like those done by Griezmann stand out as money often controls the narrative when speaking about human rights abuses in that part of the world. In reality, in Communist systems almost all organisations and companies are controlled and owned by the government, and actions taken by those organisations are almost always to the benefit of their home nation.

Recent revelations that Canada’s government had been encouraging its own military and intelligence service to accept coordination and training with China’s military has shocked many in Canada, the US and NATO establishment. While still not completely clear the extent of the cooperation, it has been noted that Canada’s leaders took steps to give China winter war training and allow Chinese Generals training inside Canadian military colleges. It is more than likely that Canada has been aware of human rights abuses done against Uighurs and any other abuse that could be easily accessed by reading Human Right Watch reports. With Canada acknowledging its own nation committed genocide against its indigenous populations, the same standard should be applied to other humans abroad.

Training soldiers to operate more efficiently in the regions of the country where Uighurs reside, Tibet is located and where skirmishes with India have taken place, likely contributes to actions taken in those regions as well. It might be the case that actions by Canada may have exacerbated human rights abuses against those groups and populations, and as a result those officials in Canada should be open to questioning by Canadian and international human rights tribunals. While the same government has been those in a democracy that have destroyed legally obtained evidence by its own government’s committee in the recent past, society as a whole needs to demand justice at home, so it can legitimately demand justice abroad for those who have lost all freedoms.

 

 

 

 

Healt

By Stanislav Aseyev and Andreas Umland

The Russia-controlled East Ukrainian separatists have been operating a small concentration camp in the city of Donetsk, Ukraine, for more than six years now. Outside any regular jurisdiction, men and women are being physically and psychologically tormented on a daily basis, in ways reminiscent of Europe’s darkest times.

Throughout the fateful year of 2014, the Russian state’s mass media, spokespersons, and friends abroad managed to impress upon large parts of the Western public a distorted interpretation of the violent conflict in the Donets Basin, commonly called the Donbas. In parallel to the annexation of Crimea in spring 2014, Moscow intervened with agents, special forces, volunteers, and mercenaries into an inner-Ukrainian civil conflict in the Donbas, thereby turning non-violent domestic tensions into a Russian pseudo-civil war against the new post-Euromaidan Ukrainian state. Influential observers in and outside Ukraine nevertheless adopted the Kremlin’s narrative that the Moscow-instigated, six-year long war in Eastern Ukraine resulted from the central government in Kyiv’s violations of human rights in the Donbas. According to Moscow’s story, in March 2014 Ukraine’s Russian-speakers stood up against a new Ukrainian allegedly “fascist” regime that had emerged from the Euromaidan revolution. As the Kremlin story continues, “anti-fascist” Donbas “rebels” (opolchentsy) rose to defend the rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers to use their native language and enjoy Russophone culture.

Without much concern for the actual course of events on the ground, numerous politicians, activists, and journalists—especially in Western Europe—have since been reproducing Moscow’s narration of the sources and nature of the Donbas war. This has not only led to belated and, so far, ineffective sanction policies from Brussels vis-à-vis Moscow: it has led the European Union, Russia’s largest trading and investment partner, into an ethical no man’s land. While Western media has been continuously interested in Ukraine’s marginal right-wing groups and their attacks on minority groups, there has been far less public scrutiny of the worse and more frequent infringements of human rights in Crimea and in the Donbas. This concerns the penitentiary systems in occupied territories, among others, where even Russia’s deficient rule of law is not or, at best, partly functioning.

Since summer 2014, one of the most brutal prisons of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, a Kremlin-installed pseudo-state in Eastern Ukraine, has been functioning in the city of Donetsk. Being a secret institution, this grim facility is unofficially called “Izoliatsiia” (Isolation). It was set up on the territory of a former plant producing insulation. Having seized the factory, the separatists led from Moscow created a military base there. The administrative premises of the former plant and a system of bomb shelters were turned into prison cells and torture chambers. The “Izoliatsiia” prison became quickly akin to a concentration camp where torture, humiliation, rape of both women and men, as well as forced hard physical labor are the rules of the day.

One of the authors of this article is a former inmate of “Izoliatsiia.” As a Ukrainian journalist, Stanislav Aseyev was arrested on espionage charges by the so-called Ministry of State Security of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” in May 2017. He spent 31 months in custody, including a 28-month term in the “Izoliatsiia” concentration camp and experienced various forms of torture there. Aseyev was freed within a Russian-Ukrainian prisoners exchange in late December 2019.

At that point in time, there were eight ordinary multi-prisoner cells in the “Izoliatsiia,” two disciplinary seclusion cells, one basement-bomb shelter for holding prisoners, and a single cell adjoining it, as well as several torture cellars. Three of the eight cells were women’s cells. The maximum number of inmates held simultaneously in the “Izoliatsiia” could reach approximately 80 people.

The prison has extremely strict rules of detention that are themselves a medium for torture. Outside the cells, prisoners are obliged to move only with bags or sacks on their heads. When the cell door is being opened, the prisoners have to turn around, face their cell’s wall, put bags on their heads, put their hands behind their backs, and stand silent until the door is closed. There was a period when, by order of the administration, the prisoners in the cellar were also obliged to kneel down and cross their legs. Lying on the bunk was strictly forbidden. This right could be obtained only after having served a longer term, i.e. six months or more, in the “Izoliatsiia.”

The prisoners are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The cells are constantly lit. It is strictly forbidden to turn off the light even during the day. This rule has a deep psychological impact on the prisoners.

However, “Izoliatsiia” is best known for its system of cruel physical torture which is applied to prisoners of all ages and genders. The most common method of torture is exposure to electricity. A newly arrived prisoner is immediately lowered into the basement, stripped naked, tightly taped to a metal table and connected to two wires from a field military phone. Then water is poured over the person and electric current is released. Among the prisoners of the concentration camp, one is considered to be lucky if the wires are tied to one’s fingers or ears. More often, one wire is connected to the genitals, and the second is inserted into the anus.

The prisoner may also be forced to “hold the wall.” This is a method of torture in which inmates have to stand against the wall, spread their legs widely, and put their hands on the wall above their heads—and must stand like this for several hours to several days. If the prisoner gets worse and puts their hands down slightly or tries to sit down, they are immediately hit with a pipe on their genitals, by the prison administrators.

Heavy forced labor and rape are further forms of torture practiced in the “Izoliatsiia.” At any time of the year, mostly male convicts with a long duty time are forced to work in the industrial part of the former factory or are taken to do construction work on a polygon. Apart from the prison administration’s torture, the “Izoliatsiia” inmates community is subject to a harsh and peculiar system of informal rules and notions (poniatiia), by which criminals organize themselves in the penitentiary systems of the post-Soviet space.

For instance, there is a caste of the so-called “omitted” or raped men. These are prisoners on whose lips or forehead a prison administrator or guard had put his penis, thereby “downgrading” the status of the convict to that of an “omitted.” These men then have to do the dirtiest and toughest work in the prison. They can also serve as “tools” to transfer other prisoners to this status.

Much of Western discourse, under the influence of Russian or pro-Russian spokespersons, still revolves around Kyiv’s infringement of human rights in Eastern Ukraine. Yet, as demonstrated, the reality on the ground is very different. Moreover, scandalous infringements such as the above-outlined in Donbas have been reported from annexed Crimea. Various human rights violations within the occupied territories happen not only in their harsh prison systems. They have become part of public life in the Russia-controlled regions of Ukraine since 2014. In Crimea, the peninsula’s largest indigenous group, the Crimean Tatars, and their political institutions have become targets of systematic terror by the Russian state. In spite of these and numerous other Russian infractions, Russia’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), was readmitted to the sessions and granted voting rights in summer 2019 after it had been banned from the organ in 2014.

First published in the Harvard International Review.

Stanislav Aseyev is a writer and journalist who worked in the Donbas, for leading Ukrainian media outlets including “Dzerkalo tyzhnia,” “Radio Svoboda,” “Ukrainska Pravda,” and “Tyzhden.” In 2017-2019, he was incarcerated in the Donetsk “Isolation” torture prison before being freed in a prisoners’ exchange. Since 2020, he has worked as an Expert on the occupied Donbas territories at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv.

Andreas Umland is general editor of the ibidem Press book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society,” a Senior Expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and a Research Fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Program of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) in Stockholm. This article is part of a series of UI Stockholm articles related to Sweden’s 2021 Chairmanship in the OSCE.

Source: Eolas Magazine

With a new president-elect in the White House, it is now time for America to move forward with bipartisan efforts to resuscitate its global leadership. However, this return to normalcy depends on the liberal epicenter’s techno-industrial quest for energy infrastructure modernization and innovation (especially in adaptive energy management systems). Confronted with the inevitable 21st-century thrust toward de-carbonization, decentralization, and digitalization (3D), low carbon energy transition, clean, and energy-efficient adaptation to a low carbon economy has become more normalized and embraced worldwide, including by most of our allies. Thus, it is strategically necessary for America to evolve and adopt a new approach for the new global thrust. Besides joining our allies in committing to the Paris Agreement’s target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, we should further orchestrate a global climate alliance that establishes norms and standards for clean and resilient “energy freedom.” Such norms and standards would allow the world’s vulnerable populations to sustainably and democratically choose their preferred modes of production, consumption, prosumption, and governance for adaptive energy management, empowering them to cope with Orwellian energy exploiters’ technocratic energy acquisition and monopoly. However, the sufficiency of America’s global climate leadership critically depends on boosting domestic investments both in the clean technology and cyber-secure adaptive energy management system that is ultimately compatible with the “clean” network’s certification standards for quality 5G/6G network suppliers.

Domestic Need for Secure and Resilient Energy Infrastructure

From bridges to airports, the outdated status of America’s D+ infrastructural networks is slowing down the country’s economic productivity. Four in ten bridges in the country are almost half a century old, and 9.1% of these bridges, which account for the daily average of 188 million trips, are structurally deficient. A total of 90,580 of the country’s dams have an average age of 56, of which 2,170 are classified as High Hazard Potential Dams. The economic cost incurred from deteriorating infrastructure is enormous. Delays resulting from road traffic congestion alone costs over $120 billion annually, while delayed and canceled trips due to poor airport conditions similarly incur another $35 billion per year. Experts expect that, until 2025, the almost failing status of the country’s infrastructural networks will shrink the GDP by $3.9 trilion, take away 2.5 million American jobs, and reduce business sales by $7 trillion.

The bad news is equivalently echoed in many government and industrial reports on the status of energy infrastructure. Most national electric transmissions and distribution lines were built in the 50s and 60s with a life expectancy of 50 years, and the 640,000 miles of high-voltage power transmission lines that stretch across the country have already reached the full capacity. The dilapidated, choke-full state of the country’s energy infrastructure has ten-folded the chance of power outages from the mid-80s to 2012 while doubling its exposure to climate-related risks in the 2000s. In 2015, power outages had numbered as many as 3,571 with an average lasting time of 49 minutes. Such an exponential increase in the outrage rate cost American businesses approximately $150 billion per year in 2018 and has chronically left millions of east-coast residents in hours and even weeks of darkness during the hurricane season. Apart from the economic cost, the modernization and innovation of the energy infrastructure are further needed for security reasons. Eighteen million American’s residing in rural areas still have limited access to broadband internet, thus bringing into question America’s capability to deter future cyberattacks that could paralyze part of America’s critical energy infrastructure. Undoubtedly, the enhancement of the average Americans technological literacy would improve the country’s cybersecurity readiness. To circumvent the deficiencies mentioned above of the energy infrastructure, America needs a smart plan for modernizing and innovating its energy infrastructure. America has already developed 3.3 million clean energy jobs, which is three times more than fossil fuel jobs. Specifically, 2.3 million of these jobs are related to the promotion of energy efficiency. Wind and solar energy now account for 20% of electricity generation in ten states, and clean-vehicle jobs now represent 13% of all jobs in the motor vehicle industry; yet, more investments in smart/microgrids are critical since these grids are the fundamental catalyst stimulating the momentum in the transition to low-carbon energy.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy website, what makes a standard electric grid a “smart grid” is “the digital technology that allows for two-way communication between the utility and its customers, and the sensing along the transmission lines.” More specifically, the essential component of such technology is 5G/6G Internet of Things (IoT)-integrated sensor technologies and data analytics that allows energy-efficient, climate-risk-free, and cyber-attacks-proof energy consumption and production between diverse energy producers and technologically equipped consumers. The reliable future supply of these technologies depends not only on procuring “clean” networked vendors (especially in the semiconductor industry) and hosting their manufacturing facilities on American soil. Regarding policy, the recent amendment of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the Creating Helpful Incentives for Producing Semiconductors in America Act (CHIPS Act) introduced tax credits and grants as policy instruments to facilitate the latter aim; however, striking a balance between the national interest and strategic technological cooperation with allies is still an unresolved issue .

In addition to the sine qua non of securing reliable technology, smart grids that maximize “energy freedom” must also be politically manageable or decentralized enough to facilitate both urban and rural communities’ resilient adaption to a low-carbon energy transition. On the one hand, such a process of decentralization should recognize local communities’ energy freedom and environmental rights, ultimately widening their range of choice for energy governance and minimizing the socioeconomic impacts of the transition. On the other hand, the process should be accompanied by politically neutral economic policies that make the market competitive. In this regard, instead of using regulations to discourage energy producers and utility providers who are increasingly betting on clean energy technologies, a politically neutral carbon pricing policy should be used to incentivize energy producers and utility providers to actively engage in the energy transition. The Baker-Schultz Dividend Plan sheds light on the politically neutral path of carbon pricing by pricing a CO2 emissions allowance at $40 per ton, which, in return, pays off a monthly dividend of $2,000 to every four American family members.

 America’s ‘Smart’ Global Climate Leadership Matters

The Foreign Affairs Op-ed by Baker et al.(2020) succinctly persuades critics opposing America’s active climate leadership that such pressing leadership matters for the country’s national interest. The interdependence between climate action and the economy is so deeply embedded in today’s international political economy that it shapes the geostrategic balance of power. For example, water resource scarcity in the Middle East often escalates regional conflicts, and the discovery of new trade routes and new access routes to natural resources in the melting Arctic Ocean strengthens some great powers’ geopolitical leverage. Therefore, the interdependence is a rather telling caveat that America would be worse off by remaining isolated and letting its competitors dominate clean technologies and industries. Besides, the conditions of both fossil fuel and renewable energy markets are ripe for America to adapt to a low-carbon economy. The shale gas revolution has significantly reduced the country’s economic vulnerability to fossil fuel prices, while the costs of solar and wind technologies have dropped by 90% and 70%, respectively. Hence, America has an overall carbon advantage to gain from leading a global climate alliance that could raise stricter environmental and labor standards to penalize the competing great powers’ carbon-intensive manufacturing activities and reduce their neighboring associated economies’ energy and economic dependency. Unfortunately, as Baker et al. highlighted, America lacks a coherent climate foreign policy.

In the absence of a coherent climate foreign policy, the Democrats’ Green New Deal and Green Marshall Plan are garnering attention from the public. The Green New Deal’s idea of creating manufacturing jobs for the American middle class through large-scale clean infrastructural projects is no doubt, timely and strategic. Likewise, the Green Marshall Plan’s objective of restoring America’s liberal solidarity with allies through choosing positive-sum-creating-butter over guns captures the zeitgeist of 21st global peacemaking. However, as much as a low-carbon energy transition is inevitable, achieving a swift bipartisan compromise on a coherent climate foreign policy is also unavoidable. Perhaps, finding and protecting the shared values between America’s concept of “energy freedom” and that of our allies and the rest of the world can sustain a bipartisan climate foreign policy. Although its concept is partially applied to policymaking and policy production (e.g., lifting the net metering cap in the case of South Carolina’s enactment of the Energy Freedom Act in 2016), a “clean” networked climate alliance for “energy freedom” can help build international consensuses over local sustainably and democratically resilient governance codes on energy modernization and innovation. In doing so, however, America needs to work closely with European and Indo-Pacific allies with leading clean technologies in setting international standards for emerging energy governance challenges, especially in the interoperability of smart grid technologies that specify the competencies of trustful vendors and blockchain-based energy governance.

Not long before President-elect Biden started naming his cabinet, two sets of recommendations to reform the Department of State were published, one from the Council on Foreign Relations, one from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School.  The Economist noted their rich menu of proposals.  Secretary of State – designate Blinken will do well to implement a number of them. 

He should also go further.  A question has been hanging over State for decades, namely: what precisely is the U.S. diplomat’s function?  Every U.S. Marines is told they are riflemen; what is every U.S. diplomat, particularly in the transformative 21stCentury?

A fundamental, elemental answer is that diplomats are authoritative representatives of their sovereign.  In much of history, the “sovereign” has been personal, a monarch.  For the U.S., while the President is Head of State, sovereignty transcends any person or office.  This is especially important to recall in a time of political polarization, when Americans could yet imagine a 2024 Presidential contest between Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

The Kennedy School’s recommendations do start by calling for a new mission for the Foreign Service, asking the new President to “restore the State Department’s lead role in executing the nation’s foreign policy.”  Rex Tillerson’s “listening survey” of 2017 also made identification of State’s mission its first recommendation.  The CFR report opens with issues, seeking a special envoy for climate change – i.e. John Kerry – and “elevating pandemic disease to a core U.S. national interest.” 

Both the CFR and JFK School pieces seek a reduction in political appointments.  The latter says 90 percent of Ambassadors and 75 percent of Assistant Secretaries should be career officers.  The issue of political appointees has long been a complaint of Foreign Service Officers.  Though the numbers (summarized in the Economist) show the Trump Administration accelerating the trend, it has been growing for decades.  And while there are horror stories that every FSO knows, many political appointees have been highly effective representatives, due to their stature – think Mike Mansfield or Jon Huntsman, as just two – or their close relationship with their President. 

One complaint career officers make is that the powers that be would never make a political appointee a brigade commander or ship’s captain.  The question, though, is what is the U.S. diplomat’s expertise, equivalent to the military expertise of rifleman, sonar operator, or fighter pilot?   Many FSOs cite the service’s presence in foreign countries and ongoing conduct of business with their governments.  But relations with governments have been conducted by military, commercial, and many other figures, and many of them, as well as academics and others, spend more continuous time in any given country than the diplomat progressing through her career.  Indeed, both the JFK and the CFR reports espouse recruitment of mid-career and experienced professionals from outside the Department.  In another vein, both call for extended professional education, focused on diplomatic history and practice.  But international relations Master’s degree holders abound in Washington, universities, and NGOs. 

The CFR effort contains elements of a functional definition, seeking to overcome a culture of risk aversion and building an “I have your back” ethos.  It calls for “de-layering” State and streamlining decision making, with less top-down instruction and more “nimble” diplomacy in the field.  The picture that starts to take shape will require much hard thinking and organizational innovation to fill out, but it points toward a unique, necessary, and rigorous expertise that would define the U.S. diplomat.

Ultimately, the diplomat officially represents the American nation.  A nimble and enabled diplomat still will need an innate capacity to carry and project, fundamentally and durably, what that means.  The calls for professional education should be filled out in a manner to instill this capacity.  Gestating diplomats must be deeply imbued with a stress-tested commitment to the American foundation and the people who make our national life on that base.  Their professional formation should, yes, include full familiarization with the history of foreign policy and diplomacy and current knowledge of everything from M-16s to MI-6 to M1B money supply.  But it must be rooted in rigorous ingestion of the tenets, nuances, and arguments around the Declaration of Independence, of U.S. history and development, and of American life in its many communities and institutions.  As a collegial body, they should all be pushed not only to study and observe, but to test themselves and each other in their comprehension and commitment, arguing with each other into the night about their understandings and obligations.  All should know that each has made a deep personal commitment to their American ethos.  With this formation and esprit, and an enabling institutional structure, the U.S. diplomat can be that nimble and empowered agent for the nation, across any administration, capable of addressing long standing issues and surprise controversies coherently, even when full instructions are unavailable.

Such a rigorous formation will help in another respect.  As the two reports note, diversity and inclusion are major issues for a U.S. Diplomatic Service (as the JFK effort would rename the Foreign Service).  A deeply rigorous, stress-testing formative process will, given America’s fundamental definition, select for a service demographically representative of the nation’s population.  It should allow for minimal use of arbitrary numerical targets and external identity markers. 

Not incidentally, when such diplomats serve in Washington and provide their counsel to the policy process, they become more than just “other countries’ voice,” though they will have special knowledge of foreign sensitivities.  As experienced carriers of America’s national identity, they can be stewards of what that means.  They will be experts in Americans’ common creed amid the functional agencies, clinical specialists in the nation’s roots through diverse administrations and shifting partisan landscapes.

Finally, both reports call for a new Foreign Service Act, the JFK report sooner, the CFR report as new practices take hold.  Either way, if a legislative proposal included a fundamental commitment to America’s eternal truths, for a functional and commonly shared goal of sound national representation — might it just transcend polarized partisanship, maybe even give a small spur to unity?

With January 20th at hand, I have been thinking more and more about what I assume will be a great shift back toward normalcy in American foreign policy. Despite the failures of the last four years, I have confidence that the Biden administration, along with incoming Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, will reclaim America’s soft power influence and return to multilateralism. The Trump administration sought to undermine the Obama administration’s legacy by removing the U.S. from several important foreign policy initiatives purely on the basis of partisanship and isolationism. So reestablishing America’s international presence and signal the resurgence of U.S. leadership could be accomplished early on with these three foreign policy initiatives.

1. Rejoining the JCPOA Iran Nuclear Deal

Despite Trumps withdrawal from the JCPOA in early May of 2018, the seven other original parties still remain in the agreement. The decision to withdraw from the agreement was purely political and undermined faith in U.S. negotiations. Considering the recent easing of tensions in the Middle East in regards to Israel, I can’t help but think that Iran, Israel’s chief regional adversary, would’ve been better poised to get aboard the peace train had we not abandoned the agreement. The UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan all have agreed to normalize relations with Israel. Normalized relations between Israel and Iran is only impossible if people in power believe it to be. 

By withdrawing from the JCPOA, Trump signaled that the U.S. prefers a state of heightened hostilities. Knowing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had consistently confirmed Iran’s compliance with the agreement, I can not think of anything the U.S. could desire of Iran other than economic collapse. Despite how you may feel about Iran, I myself am Jewish, a collapsed Iran does not benefit the U.S. You would think by now we would have learned our lesson on toppling governments. Every time we removed a leader and toppled a government, we created a vacuum where extremists rise to power. If our goal is to end islamist terrorism, we should be focused on deescalation and a normalization of relations. Iran used to be our closest ally in the region and its people are not as illiberal as conservatives would have you believe. There is an opportunity to finally establish a grand strategy in the region focused on economic growth and liberal values. The Iran Deal provided the start of that strategy, but also left roam for punishing the funding of terrorism.

The JCPOA had stipulations that the U.S. and others could keep in place any non-nuclear related sanctions and also impose new ones if appropriate. Additionally, the agreement was also a show of good faith in multilateral negotiations between western powers and China and Russia. The pettiness of the U.S. withdrawal undercut the country’s ability to address the issues cited for its decisions to leave in the first place. Normalizing relations with Iran and integrating into their economy is the best option for reducing Iran funded terrorism. 

President-elect Biden has already said he would rejoin the JCPOA. Despite how U.S. politicians try to leverage this domestically, this is a foreign policy win. It signals to the world that America is ready to engage in multilateralism again, and that we are willing to make peace with adversaries. 

2. Renegotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Biden has expressed interest in reentering negotiation on the TPP free trade deal. The TPP was revised and rewritten into the CPTPP or Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Most economists agree that free trade is a net positive for all parties, however they do acknowledge that the gains are usually distributed unequally. While I am aware that the President-elect wants to renegotiate for more labor and agricultural protections we should be aware that China has already created its version of TPP named the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), with 15 Asia-Pacific countries expected to sign this year. The TPP would have comprised 40% of the worlds GDP, and it is not too late as the member countries have expressed favorable attitudes towards the U.S. returning to the negotiating table. 

The real reason the U.S. abandoned the TPP, like the JCPOA, was domestic politics. Contrary to claims that the TPP would benefit China, it would actually have reduced China’s economic control in the region. If the U.S. used the economic gains to invest in workers who’s industries would be adversely affected, it would be able to counteract the inequality that often occurs with free trade while both increasing it’s own GDP and developing close economic ties in the Indo-Pacific. Conservatives drastically reduce tax rates  and remove regulations for large corporations that in turn strangle small and medium sized businesses, reducing competition. To then turn and politicize free trade as harmful to the labor and agricultural class is shameless. 

The TPP, while not perfect, would have significantly increased U.S. GDP, created favorable economic ties in the Indo-Pacific region, and would have put pressure on China. The Biden administration should push for the labor and agricultural protections, but it must also include legislation that redistributes the gains of free trade to those who are adversely affected. The Democrats now control both chambers of congress and the executive branch. Getting the trade agreement passed should not be difficult for them if they are unified. Creating a winning narrative and properly framing the deal should be a key focus. However, if Democrats are unable to beat back Republican misinformation and fear mongering, the inclusion of economic support for adversely affected industries will be of great importance. The Democrats will be able to point to the GDP gains and those who held jobs that were negatively impacted would come out better for it as well. 

3. Paris Climate Agreement

Lastly we come to the issue of our time: Climate Change. It is an indisputable fact of science that humans are negatively impacting the global environment. Instead of grasping the mantle of leadership, the U.S. has abdicated its moral responsibility and reveled in pseudo-science and corporate propaganda. There was a time when progress and capitalism went hand in hand. Now conservatives, and even some liberals, cling to the past, subsidizing dying industries and deregulating environment destroying externalities. This global crisis can never be properly addressed if those in power still seek to obfuscate the truth and mislead the public.

The Paris Climate Agreement was adopted by 196 Parties. The U.S. was not one of them. It is a landmark international treaty on climate change and it is well passed time the U.S. signs on to it. Now more than ever, we need strong leadership. There can be no progress if Democrats give any political leeway to climate change deniers and corporate lobbyists dressed as politicians. The act of signing the Paris Agreement would do more than commit the U.S. to enacting sound policies to curb greenhouse emissions, it would signal that U.S. leadership is back. 

The Agreement also developed a framework for how developed countries can provide financial, technical, and capacity building support to those that need it. This would be a smart way for the U.S. to reemerge as both a leader and a global force for good. Increasing both our standing in the world and positive ties with developing nations. The only requirement is the political will to do what is right.

Conclusion

There was a time when the U.S. wanted a strong global presence and the world in turn wanted the U.S. to be present. We must return to that again, but this time focus on economic cooperation and diplomacy. In doing so we can create a more progressive and moral global society.

One of the most famous censored pieces of literature in the post Second World War era is Dr. Zhivago, a work by author Boris Pasternak about the life of a family during the Russian Revolution in the early part of the 1900s. Smuggled out of the USSR and taken to Italy for publishing, the story is critical of the early Soviet era, and resulted in it being banned during the Soviet era at the same time as earning international acclaim. The story focuses to some degree on the rapid collectivization of Russian society at the time of the Revolution from the perspective of a Doctor in Moscow. When his home is filled with other citizens and their family receive veiled threats by newly minted government Commissars, they make they journey to their Dacha, or second home in the far east of Russia. Dealing with the onset of Communism in a more contested part of the country, the Doctor and his family fight to survive in the reality of the new regime.

Much of the criticism from inside of the Soviet Union, one registered only by the government and hidden from the citizens of the Soviet state, was that Dr.Zhivago shows the Soviet system in a negative light. The reality was that tyranny was a large part of life in Russia at the time and still existed at the time the book was published. A true account of what life may have been like in the process of collectivization of the nation had to be censored, as the truth, that of a loss of rights and often life would undermine their political power.

There are many lessons to be learned from the Doctor and author Pasternak as well, mostly aimed at how free societies should repel any movements towards a Soviet style system, and how that style of top down government control can easily turn into a tyranny. These lessons are as relevant today as ever, and while no system is perfect nor can claim that justice is always paramount in the application of the law, the ability to fight and seek justice without the threats of violence or being ostracized from society needs to be preserved in order to have a free society with free citizens. The alternative, according to Pasternak, is always bad for individual citizens. When power is held by a few, it will never be equally distributed in a system that allows a concentration of that power. In Pasternak’s experience, Absolute Power certainly Corrupts, and the best of us are not able to protect ourselves, our family or even our lives.

If you live in a place where a large entity or corporation has disproportional power, you must take steps to create equality of justice. If your government wants to take more control of you without precedent or for the valid public good, you must take steps to ensure your voices are being heard. If you take the time to vote, but your government does things to limit your voice or your elected representative’s vote in your legislature, parliament, congress or local council, you must acknowledge it and demand your democracy remains sacrosanct. If your news and media is censored to protect any government and similar actions as those above, then they are not media, they are an arm of a system to protect those from being accountable to equality and justice. Tyranny always produces a strong response in the long term, as those without a democracy, justice or freedom have nothing to lose. Those who have freedoms but claim they have nothing to lose are often those who are seeking power, not equality nor justice, and not for the individuals of their community.

By Pavlo Klimkin and Andreas Umland

Once the Kremlin is persuaded that Joe Biden will become the US’s next president, it may go for the jugular. Already today, not election manipulation, but triggering civil conflicts in the United States could be the main aim of Moscow’s mingling in American domestic affairs.

Over the last 15 years, the Kremlin has played with politicians and diplomats of, above all, Russia’s neighbors, but also with those of the West, a hare and hedgehog game, as known from a German fairy tale. In the Low Saxon fable’s well-known race, the hedgehog only runs a few steps, but at the end of the furrow he has placed his wife who looks very much like him. When the hare, certain of victory, storms in, the hedgehog’s wife rises and calls out to him “I’m already here!” The hare cannot understand the defeat, conducts 73 further runs, and, in the 74th race, dies of exhaustion. 

Ever since Russia’s anti-Western turn of 2005, governmental and non-governmental analysts across the globe have been busy discussing and predicting Moscow’s next offensive action. Yet, in most cases, when the world’s smart “hares” – politicians, experts, researchers, journalists et al. – arrived with more or less adequate reactions, the Russian “hedgehogs” had already long achieved their aims. Such was the case with Russia’s invasion of Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, “little green men” on Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, hackers inside Germany’s Bundestag in 2015, bombers over Syria since 2015, cyber-warriors in the US elections of 2016, or “chemical” assassins at England’s Salisbury in 2018. 

Across the world, one can find hundreds of sensitive observers able to provide sharp comments on this or that vicious Russian action. For all the experience accumulated, such insights have, however, usually been provided only thereafter. So far, the Kremlin’s wheeler-dealers continue to surprise Western and non-Western policy makers and their think-tanks with novel forays, asymmetric attacks, unorthodox methods and shocking brutality. More often than not, Russian imaginativeness and ruthlessness become sufficiently appreciated only after a new “active measure,” hybrid operation or non-conformist intervention has been successfully completed.

Currently, many US observers – whether in national politics, public administration or social science – may be again preparing to fight the last war. Russian election interference and other influence operations are on everybody’s mind, across America. Yet, as Ukraine has bitterly learnt in 2014, the Kremlin only plays soft ball as long as it believes it has some chance to win. It remains relatively moderate as long as a possible loss will – from Moscow’s point of view – only be moderately unpleasant. Such was the case, during Russia’s interference into the 2016 presidential elections in the US.

The Ukrainian experience during the last six years suggests a far grimmer scenario. At some point during the Euromaidan Revolution, in either January or February 2014, Putin understood that he may be losing his grip on Ukraine. Moscow’s man in Kyiv, then still President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych (though very much assisted by Paul Manafort), may be kicked out by the Ukrainian people. As a result, Russia’s President drastically changed track already before the event. 

The Kremlin’s medal awarded to the anonymous Russian soldiers who took part in the annexation of Crimea lists the date of 20 February 2014, as the start of the operation to occupy a part of Ukraine. On that day, pro-Russian Ukrainian President Yanukovych was still in power, and present in Kyiv. His flight from Ukraine’s capital one day later, and ousting, by the Ukrainian parliament, on 22 February 2014, had not yet been clearly predictable, on 20 February 2014. But the Kremlin had already switched from merely political warfare against Ukraine to preparing a real war – something then largely unimaginable for most observers. Something similar may be the case, in Moscow’s approach to the US today too. 

To be sure, Russian troops will hardly land on American shores. Yet, that may not be necessary. The possibility of violent civil conflict in the United States is today, in any way, being discussed by serious analysts, against the background of enormous political polarization and emotional spikes within American society. As in Putin’s favorite sports of Judo – in which he holds a Black Belt! – a brief moment of disbalance of the enemy can be used productively, and may be sufficient to cause his fall. The United States may not, by itself, become ripe for civil conflict. Yet, an opportunity to push it a bit further is unlikely to be simply missed by industrious hybrid warfare specialists in Moscow. And the game that the Russian “hedgehogs” will be playing may be a different one than in the past, and not yet be fully comprehensible to the US’s “hares.”

Hillary Clinton was in 2016 a presidential candidate very much undesired, by Moscow, as America’s new president. Yet today, a democratic president is, after Russia’s 2016 hacking of the Democratic Party’s servers and vicious campaign against Clinton, a truly threatening prospect for the Kremlin. Moreover, Joe Biden was, under President Obama, responsible for the US’s policy towards Ukraine, knows as well as likes the country well, and is thus especially undesirable for Moscow.

Last but not least, Moscow may have had more contacts with Trump and his entourage than the American public is currently aware of. The Kremlin would, in such a case, even more dislike a Biden presidency, and a possible disclosure of its additional earlier interventions, in the US. The stakes are thus higher, for the Kremlin, in 2020 than in 2016. If Trump has no plausible chance to be elected for a second term, mere election interference may not be the issue any more. Moscow may already now implement more sinister plans than trying to help Trump. If Putin thinks that he cannot prevent Biden, the Kremlin will not miss a chance to get altogether rid of the US, as a relevant international actor.

 

Pavlo Klimkin was, among others, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany in 2012-2014 as well as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in 2014-2019.

Andreas Umland is a researcher at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv and Swedish Institute of International Affairs in Stockholm.

https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/20/10/2020/preparing-mayhem

Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign asked serious questions in unserious ways. His administration never answered them

In 2016, the United States faced a wide range of serious foreign policy questions. The United States had not readjusted key frameworks for ten or twenty years or more. Candidate Trump used populist rhetoric, pledging to “build a wall” to restrict immigration and to “drain the swamp” of Washington’s elite, globalist ecosystem. Claiming to be a peerless negotiator, he promised to protect Americans from corruption, free trade, China, immigrants, ISIS and “radical Islam,” to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem, to restore an era of coal- and steel-based economic growth, and to “Make America Great Again.” Enough swing-state voters were willing to take a chance on the outsider to defeat Hillary Clinton.

The questions Trump raised – however inarticulately – were real. Trade and technology created massive wealth for some Americans but had cost the U.S. millions of manufacturing jobs. Economic inequality rose from the 1970s to mid-1990s: twenty years later the Gini coefficient in the U.S. remained higher than in Germany, France, and the UK. President Trump demanded replacing NAFTA with a new agreement and engaged in an on-again, off-again trade dispute with China.

By 2016, Congress had failed for a decade to fashion comprehensive immigration reform to update the 1986 law. Trump promised to limit migration from Mexico and Central America. He added a “Muslim ban,” suspending the U.S. refugee program and nearly all immigration from seven Muslim-majority counties.

By 2016, China and Russia were formidable diplomatic opponents. China’s economic growth over four decades empowered it to make expanding maritime claims and transcontinental “Belt and Road” plans. Russia had transformed from a defeated, de-industrializing weak democracy to an increasingly confident, assertive, autocratic power. It was active in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria and menacing elsewhere, including in the U.S. elections via social media. Trump seemed to admire strongmen like Putin and Xi even as he armed Ukraine and contested China’s trade policies. Putin’s 2018 re-election and Xi’s claim to office for life indicate continuing challenges to the U.S. instead of new cooperation.

Nuclear proliferation, especially in Iran and North Korea, remained key concerns. Trump took the U.S. out of President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal as promised, but also held high-profile summit meetings with Kim Jong-un. Iran’s economy remains under economic pressure, and in January 2020, the U.S. killed a leading Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani. Meanwhile, no landmark agreements were reached with the DPRK.

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord. He had campaigned on restoring jobs in coal and steel industries. He promoted fracking, as Obama had, but without the concerns for advancing new energy technologies to reduce climate change.

Despite pledges to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the core issues remain unsolved. Afghanistan and Iraq continue to have unstable political, economic, social, and security environments. Each still suffers from its own brands of corruption, violence, and limits on freedom. After nearly 20 years, neither government is fully in control of its territory and neither seems on a path to steady improvement. More than 7,000 U.S. military forces have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with terrible numbers of Afghanis and Iraqis. Thousands of U.S. troops are still stationed in these countries, though with plans to continue to reduce their number.

In 2015 and 2016, refugee flows from Syria and elsewhere surged into Europe. EU democracies came under economic and political pressure, with right-wing (and some left-wing) populist parties gaining in popularity. The UK voted for “Brexit” to leave the EU. Trump’s NATO policy seemed rooted in other members “paying their fair share.” NATO members in the east were concerned about Russia intentions while some members, but not NATO as an organization, assisted Turkey in Syria.

More broadly, democracy was increasingly challenged around the world. Freedom House warned that “In every region of the world, democracy is under attack by populist leaders and groups that reject pluralism and demand unchecked power.”

Problems at home continue. The President presided over three years of economic growth from 2017 through 2019, with solid performance in GDP, income, and especially unemployment rates. U.S. public debt as a percentage of GDP remained relatively stable, totaling just over 100% of GDP, even after the 2017 tax cuts.

But other worries remained. Congressional Republicans failed to repeal or replace Obama’s Affordable Care Act, as they had promised/threatened for years. About 28 million Americans remain uninsured, while many more face the rising costs of insurance premiums and prescription drugs. The dramatic video of a white police officer killing of a handcuffed black man in Minnesota, in the context of a national economic crisis and global pandemic, sparked peaceful and violent protests around the country. The President promised law and order but failed to lead a credible and effective government response to the calls for reform or to the economy and pandemic. The Covid-19 death toll climbed throughout 2020, while millions of children were kept out of school, unemployment rates skyrocketed, and usual medical care like coronary and cancer screenings were missed.

“Threat to democracy.” Trump was seen as respecting autocratic and populist rulers like Xi, Putin, Kim, Brazil’s Jair Bolsinaro and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, while criticizing the U.S.’s democratic allies and their leaders. Trump’s statements and policy proposals were seen as a genuine threat to American democracy by scholars, pundits, and political opponents – and by some in his own party, enkindling groups like the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump. Trump’s tweets and speeches were characterized as misogynist, racist, xenophobic, and more. Promoting suspicion of electoral integrity and the peaceful transfer of power was seen by some as anti-American, unconstitutional, and un-democratic. Trump was impeached for embedding campaign politics into a foreign policy negotiation.

All this worsened the enduring difficulties of the two parties working together. They were unable to find common ground, or even to seek it. Obama signed the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal without offering either to the Republican Senate for ratification. Trump promptly led the U.S. out of each deal on his own. Obama authored immigration leniency in DACA instead of forging bipartisan immigration legislation with the Congress. Trump followed with a “Muslim ban” and increased family separations. Federal failures during the Covid-19 pandemic – between Democrats and Republicans in Congress and within in the executive branch itself – harmed the nation’s public health and economy and lowered global esteem for the United States.

What’s Next?  As a hotelier, television star, presidential candidate, president, and Covid survivor, Trump has always exuded extreme confidence. His 1987 bestselling autobiography, The Art of the Deal, offered this insight:

“You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.”

Trump faces former Vice President Joe Biden in the presidential election November 3. Early voting is already underway, with record turnout so far. The serious foreign policy questions the U.S. faced in 2016 remain.

 

Photo: Donald J. Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trump_accepts_nomination.jpg (public domain) from VOAnews.com

 

In an exclusive interview, Shipan Kumer Basu, who heads the World Hindu Struggle Committee and is now an honorary member of the International Police Commission alongside being an International People’s Alliance of the World Peace Ambassador, claimed that the coronavirus has led to more violence against women in Bangladesh: “The World Population Review survey found that there were 11,682 cases of violence against women in Bangladesh in 2020, which is really worrying. In 2019, 517 minor girls were raped, of whom 60 were killed after being raped and 6 committed suicide after the rape. Due to the shamelessness and indifference of the Awami League government, in the first 4 months of 2020, 164 girls were raped. In the next 3 months, the rape rate of minor girls went up 102% and increased to 332.”

Of course, Bangladesh is not alone in this.  The Sustainable Social Development Organization, an Islamabad-based charity, noted a 400% spike in child rapes, sexual assaults, and the abduction of minors in Pakistan during the coronavirus lockdown.  Sisters-for-Sisters, another charity, found that the fact that nearly a quarter of Nepalese workers lost their jobs during the pandemic has led to a rapid increase in child marriages in the Asian country.    And in Tennessee in the United States, marital rape and homicides have skyrocketed.  According to the Pulitzer Center, “In the COVID era, offenders are likely spending more time with victims because of social distancing, working from home or unemployment.”  

However, Basu noted that the rapid spike in rapes, gang-rapes, murder after rapes, incidents of physical torture, etc. is deeply concerning and that the Bangladeshi government should be held accountable for it: “The local media has reported the involvement of the ruling Awami League Party in many of the incidents.   The police and the administration have collaborated with the criminals.  Since the Awami league came to power in 2009, the crime rate has risen dramatically, especially regarding murder, rape, torture of Hindus, corruption, theft, robbery, and terrorist activities.  Yet, the pandemic made these already existing trends even worse.”

Basu noted that Bangladeshi anti-rape protesters have chanted, “The police are the watchmen of the rapists.”  He claimed this is because the police take virtually no actions in defense of Bangladeshi women who are sexually abused: “In recent times, the whole country has been consumed by a horrific rape culture.   The judiciary of the state has been corrupted against the woman to such a level that even women working prominent positions in the government are unlikely to get justice.”

According to Basu, towards the end of September, a Hindu girl was murdered for refusing to marry a Muslim.  So far, he claims that the police have failed to arrest the perpetrator.  Around the same period of time, Basu claimed that an Awami League official raped a seventh grade school girl and social media posts have emerged of mobs torturing a Hindu woman: “Due to this and many other cases, the Hindu community doubts that the police will ever give them justice.”   In conclusion, Basu called upon the international community to come up with a global plan of action to assist women and girls that are gravely getting persecuted in the Third World amid the pandemic.  As the late Elie Wiesel once stated, “For evil to flourish, it only requires that good men do nothing.”