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Integration, disintegration, expansion and conflict
OK, so this blog is closed... but I couldn't resist the temptation to scribble down some predictions about international relations in the year ahead.
First, a debrief on 2008. Last year's predictions were - predictably - mixed. I was right that the Beijing Olympics would be surrounded by controversy - Tibet and Uyghur violence did occur - but they weren't the failure I envisaged. And I was dead wrong about Russia, what with the attack on Georgia and all.
However, predicting a failed ratification for the Lisbon treaty was dead on, and Musharraf bowed out too.
Turning to 2009, the underlying theme has to be the recession. This colours everything, as does the new POTUS, Barack Obama.
Unfortunately for Obama, who will certainly enjoy a protracted honeymoon period, expectations are so high that failure is inevitable. A third intifada is on its way after the December shoot-out in Gaza, and since its the Palestine-Israel conflict that lies at the heart of all the Middle East's woes instability will be high.
This will affect Western policy in Afghanistan too - as political capital dwindles, troubles in that part of the world will increase. I have repeatedly said that Pakistan will eventually implode and have been wrong every time. Civil society is too strong. But eventually the government will collapse, which will lead to renewed tensions with India and Afghanistan and a resurgence of Islamism on the borders.
India is relatively protected from the effects of the global recession, but chances are that the people will still give Congress a bloody nose in the forthcoming elections. That means a return for the Hindu nationalist BJP perhaps, or a looser and inherently ineffective coalition including communists and right-wing elements at best. Again, this will contribute to further tensions with Pakistan and China too.
China is not going to enjoy the depression: closures are already occurring, and renewed protectionism in the West will not help exports. The more jobless and disenfranchised people there are, the less authority the CCP will have. The Party is not going to break yet, but its slide into the abyss may well begin. With a series of government collapses post-Koizumi and a nasty recession, Japan, meanwhile, could also take a turn to nationalism. Not a good combination.
And as Kosovo comes under EU control, it will be a turning point for both 'old' and 'new' Europe. Could Britain be forced to join the Euro? Unlikely, but not unthinkable - just as there's always a chance someone could get kicked out (Greece?). Russia, meanwhile, will take advantage of this year's weakish presidencies (Czech Republic and Sweden) to tighten the screws on the pipelines.
Under these conditions, the role of the UN is going to come under scrutiny. The ICC's ability to try Omar Bashir of Sudan will be the focus of attention, while all eyes will be on the viability of UN peacekeeping in Africa.
Overall, 2009 will be uneventful, something of a holding period setting the scene for the next decade.
I won't publish the entire 2009 deathlist (predicted deaths of famous people), but at least one symbolic leader will kick the bucket in 2009. Maggie Thatcher? Mikhail 'Vuitton' Gorbachev? Or even Mr. Obama? We shall see.
Here's the thing, right? There are two clear underlying causes to all the major problems on earth. The first is overpopulation. Overpopulation means that there are too many people chasing after too many resources - energy, water, land etc. which inevitably leads to conflict. Enough has been written about that to sink a battleship.
Second, there's subjectivity. What's that? It's a lack of objectivity in our approaches to these problems. It's a natural trait of humanity to form into groups, but every group defines itself by a subjective outlook on the world around it. It's thus these groups that enter into conflicts.
Some examples. No objective discussion of the Middle East is possible due to Israel's emotional outlook: thanks to the Holocaust, any criticism or compromise is decried as 'anti-Semitic'. Likewise, Arab nations and Islamic terrorist groups cannot see past the Palestinian question.
The same is true wherever you look. Such is China's emotional attachment to Taiwan and Tibet that any questioning of the situation is condemned as "interference in our internal affairs". Same goes for Serbia, Russia and Kosovo. The dysfunctional tendencies of the UN and EU are all down to questions of national interest. Even the US defines itself these days with reference to 9/11 and any attempt to rationally tackle the greater issues are met with the same response.
So states and other actors are not rational - they are indeed irrational. International relations theory has it exactly wrong.
The only answer is to find a unifying threat or goal, a way to bring all the conflicting groups together into one. And, ironically, overpopulation provides us with that. We are faced with a significant common problem, that of climate change, for which overpopulation is a major cause. Too many people needing too many products, burning too much fuel and cutting down too many trees... you get the picture.
So work together to solve the population crisis and you have an answer to the irrationality that causes conflict and environmental degradation. It's so simple.
 It's looking increasingly like we have just one week to go before the big events of 2008 really begin. Many of the papers are giving 17 February as the date for Kosovo to declare independence, and it already appears that there's a behind-the-scenes plan.
Under the current Cold War climate, that's really not a good idea. Deliberately orchestrating recognition of Kosovo before the UNSC can meet - and Russia veto - is going to be seen as a big provocation in Moscow. That's not good. We've already got guys getting poisoned with polonium, energy cut-offs and Tupolevs making incursions into sovereign airspace... all getting a bit Tom Clancy for my liking.
What's worse, possibly Beijing will object too. Kosovo's recognition by the US and EU nations may set a precedent for Taiwan, which is set to hold its own referendum on a UN bid in March. If Kosovo can secede and be recognised, Taipei will say, then why can't we? Thus the schism in the UNSC will widen further, undoing much of the good work that's been done in recent years.
Though the prospects of Serbian and Russian tanks rolling in are remote, what may occur could be a re-run of Israel's declaration of independence back in 1948. Just as the Palestinians took up arms and ended up a displaced people, so too could the 200,000-odd Kosovar Serbians. Just as the Arab countries failed to recognise Israel, so too may a number of black sheep within the 'international system'.
An insidious problem that could last for decades may be in the offing. And who's going to manage it? The EU - which can't even come up with a unanimous position on Kosovan independence, let alone deploy a peacekeeping force that can cope when things go bad. Yes, they've been handling Bosnia, but this may heat up.
The biggest contradiction in the UN charter is its respect for both self-determination and sovereignty. If things kick off this month, then there's going to be some grave implications. Better that the situation was managed differently - it's still not too late for compromise.
Serbs warn of Kosovo clash | World news | The Observer
Critics of the plan to declare independence, which follows the failure of Serbia and the Kosovo-Albania leaders to negotiate terms for separation, have already warned of the risk that Kosovo's Serbian population, concentrated in northern Mitrovica, would respond by declaring their own independence, setting the stage for violent confrontation.
The renewed Serbian warning comes as Kosovo's leaders struggled to calm rising 'independence fever', fearful that wild celebrations from the ethnic Albanian majority could spark violent clashes with scared and furious Serbs.
Kosovo is expected to proclaim itself the world's newest state next Sunday or Monday, allowing European Union foreign ministers meeting on Monday to give the green light to a 2,000-strong mission to oversee the running of the ethnically divided region.
While Washington and most EU members will quickly welcome independent Kosovo into the world, Tadic's grim predictions of spiralling instability in the Balkans, still scarred by a bloody decade that ended with Nato bombing Serb troops out of Kosovo in 1999, will gain credence if the region's long-awaited independence celebrations give way to ethnic violence.
Kosovo's parliament is expected to meet next weekend and Hashim Thaci, the former separatist rebel who is now Kosovo's Prime Minister, or President Fatmir Sejdiu is likely to announce independence on Sunday or Monday morning, preventing Russia from immediately responding through the Security Council, six hours behind in New York.
By the time Russia can muster an emergency meeting of the council, the US and major EU nations will have drawn its diplomatic sting by recognising the sovereignty of Kosovo's two million citizens. 'We have the confirmation from some 100 states which say they are ready to recognise Kosovo's independence immediately after we declare it,' Thaci insisted last week after Serbia said that it expected a declaration on 17 February.
If there's one thing that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - and arguably, sad to say, Vietnam - have proved is that in order to bring peace and stability to a country you need a lot of troops, a lot of money and a lot of time. All of them must be spent wisely.
That was the essence of Donald Rumsfeld's disastrous failure of vision, the deeply misguided belief that the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs was the be all and end all. But he eventually found out that once the high-tempo warfighting phase is over, then the force multipliers of US technology count for nothing.
Incredibly, the US Army has only just redrafted its manual to suggest that "stabilising countries and winning over locals required more than just military skills... and knowledge of foreign languages and local cultures are also important." Duh. That says it all.
That's why developments in NATO are alarming. The SecGen attempts to gloss over the problem, but it's certainly the case that many of the old European nations are still cashing in on the post-Cold War peace dividend. Times have changed, however. At least France under Sarkozy is beginning to pull its weight.
What NATO has to do is create a virtuous circle in Pakistan: contain the Taliban long enough for development and prosperity to flourish, which in turn will provide people with an alternative to fighting for scarce resources and political control. For that there need to be boots on the ground, because one thing's for sure - there's plenty more where the Taliban came from.
Nato crisis grows over Afghan troops | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited
In Washington on Wednesday Gates told the House of Representatives' armed services committee that the alliance could split into countries that were "willing to fight and die to protect people's security and those who were not". He added: "My view is you can't have some allies whose sons and daughters die in combat and other allies who are shielded from that kind of a sacrifice."
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato's secretary-general, said more forces were needed to combat Taliban and al-Qaida violence but dismissed Gates' suggestion that Nato could become a "two-tiered alliance" based on a country's willingness to fight. "I do not see a two-tier alliance, there is one alliance," he said as he arrived for the Vilnius meeting.
 Next Thursday, 7 February, sees the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Rat, the first in the Chinese Zodiac cycle. No, this isn't some cod astrological analysis: but it does put a little bit of mystical context in. Just look at all the international factors that are just about to converge and you'll see what I mean.
Basically, the next weeks and months could see some rather serious developments in the global political picture.
Kosovo might soon be declaring independence, and despite dissent it looks like most of the international community is going to recognise it. What few realise is that, for Serbia, the secession of Kosovo would be a disaster of monumental proportions. And they're holding an election this weekend in which a hard-right president could be selected.
Already locking horns with the UK, Russia is probably going to stand by Serbia - which means increasing antagonism with the rest of Europe. I can certainly foresee the gas spigot getting turned off for a couple of days, which given the present frigid economic (let alone meteorological) climate could have a severe impact.
Speaking of elections, it's Super Tuesday this week, another moment that's going to define the course of things to come. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney or John McCain: the field of four will probably narrow down to two candidates for the top job in the world.
Not long after that, Monday 18 February is finally going to see elections in Pakistan. Whether rigged or not, there will inevitably be implications for regional stability.
Furthermore, set that against the context of Afghanistan. President Karzai has just shot his nation in the foot by turning away one of Britain's most competent statesmen, Lord Ashdown, as a potential UN envoy.
Moreover, NATO is lumbering towards a crisis with Germany refusing to pull its weight and Canada getting very cold feet in the face of what looks like sheer petulance from its allies. Thus, the NATO conference set for next week could well define the future of the mission, and general stability in Afghanistan. Condi is already jetting in do do her firewoman act.
We don't want to see either Pakistan or Afghanistan go down; both of them falling apart at the same time would be disastrous.
And finally, look at China.
Anyone who's queued for rail tickets at Spring Festival - even in a good year - will tell you what a nightmare it is. This year has seen the worst weather in half a century and chances are that the world's largest internal migration is not going to go ahead as planned. That means some unhappy chappies down Chinatown.
Add to that the very real danger of a food crisis - a failed crop could tip China over the edge - compounded by the general economic malaise and you have a recipe for civil unrest in Olympic year.
And finally, add to that a touch of spice in the form of an upcoming referendum in Taiwan (set for 22 March) and you have a fiery plate of noodles indeed.
In summary, there are various crises impending in Eastern Europe, South Asia and East Asia. The year 2008 could well be going for a bag of rats.
"Yankee go home, but take me with you!" How long is that going to last? This writer seems to believe tha the European and Chinese ways are catching on more now than the American way. I'm slightly sceptical as to the former, but there's certainly an element of truth in it.
On the other hand, the strength of America's style of democracy - I say 'style' since it's not an absolute democracy as one gets from proportional representation methods - does mean that we will have regime change in a year. It's the Bush administration that has sown alienation against the US, not America per se. It can still be turned around, though of course the trend is a general one.
Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial countermovements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order. That new global order has arrived, and there is precious little Clinton or McCain or Obama could do to resist its growth.
But Europe lacks a coherent foreign policy, even now, and the Treaty of Lisbon probably won't alleviate that fundamental weakness by 2016. Then again, as pointed out, the Euro is now the real tool of Brussels foreign policy.
As for Beijing: "Every country in the world currently considered a rogue state by the U.S. now enjoys a diplomatic, economic or strategic lifeline from China, Iran being the most prominent example." That's a Warsaw Pact in-the-making if ever I saw one.
Note also the logical follow-on from my 2012 scenario and big picture theory of simultaneous bipolar-multipolarity, plus the importance of Gwadar.
United States - International Diplomacy - Economic Trends - World Economy - Politics - New York Times
It is 2016, and the Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Barack Obama administration is nearing the end of its second term. America has pulled out of Iraq but has about 20,000 troops in the independent state of Kurdistan, as well as warships anchored at Bahrain and an Air Force presence in Qatar. Afghanistan is stable; Iran is nuclear. China has absorbed Taiwan and is steadily increasing its naval presence around the Pacific Rim and, from the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea. The European Union has expanded to well over 30 members and has secure oil and gas flows from North Africa, Russia and the Caspian Sea, as well as substantial nuclear energy. America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.
The author Parag Khanna is a senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation (sounds disturbingly like PNAC to me, but will let that one go. The essay is adapted from his book, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, to be published by Random House in March. Gonna add it to my Amazon wish list, I think.
Well, it's that time again - as the year 2007 draws to a close, we look to the future. And one thing is for sure: the primary foci of this weblog, Pakistan and China, were hardly out of the news this year and won't be in 2008 either.
 For China especially, 2008 is the crunch year. The Olympics have acquired a kind of existential significance, and their success or failure have become intertwined with China's contemporary sense of its national identity.
Unfortunately, I can't see the games being the resounding success that the CCP hopes for. Chinese athletes will probably haul in the most medals, but with the enormous pressures upon them there will inevitably be doping scandals. Other athletes will scorn the terrible pollution; tourists will be messed about, pushed, shoved and spat around (most Beijingers will behave admirably, but it'll still be the negatives that get remembered); and journalists will lament the restrictions on free reporting. Few Chinese yet realise how things will be perceived, and it will come as a shock.
Most of all, this most political of sporting events will inevitably be deeply politicised. There will be incidents: medal-winners standing up for Tibet, Taiwanese declarations, perhaps even Uyghur violence. Expect 888 to be a very interesting moment in the definition of the new China.
Turning to Russia, there Putin will remain in control, despite the appointment of a new president in Medvedev - little more than a deputy, really, But I have confidence in Putin: he is not stupid, and will not wish relations with the EU and NATO to deteriorate further. Things were getting silly, what with all this missile defence rubbish, not to mention Litvinenko and Lugovoi, and in 2008 Russia will attempt to repair some of the damage - though not with Britain, who will be the main losers.
Meanwhile, it will be a period of reflection for the EU itself, as the member states attempt to digest the implications of the Lisbon Treaty. Expect at least one ratification to fail.
 There is at least reason to positive about the Middle East. Iraq has calmed in 2007, though of course it's not the end by any stretch of the imagination. We are also thankfully unlikely to see action against Iran either. Bush desperately needs a positive legacy to speak of, so with elections in full swing at home he and his cronies may attempt at least to broker a compromise solution. Does he have what it takes? We shall see.
But there are clearly going to be fireworks in Pakistan. Far too early to tell how things will pan out, but it probably won't be good. This writer is already predicting a Balkanisation of the country: that may be going too far, but with the conflicts in NWFP and Balochistan likely to gain pace as society fractures after the elections then the prospects for stability are low. Great map too - worth examining to see what it suggests about Iran and Iraq and all
It is almost certainly the end of the road for Musharraf, and with Bhutto gone there will be a power vacuum. Power vacuums mean conflict, as we have seen in Iraq. But the West and India have meddled enough in Pakistan - it is up to them.
There's been much talk in recent weeks on the Treaty of Lisbon, or the EU constitution that wasn't - but not much talk on these pages. The fact is that in the sum of all things, the EU is simply not yet that significant.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, however, yesterday set out a bold agenda for the future of Europe that hopefully will be heeded in the corridors of power in Brussels and beyond. You couldn't imagine his predecessor, Margaret Beckett, making such a speech:
My argument is this: The prospects and potential for human progress have never been greater. But our prosperity and security are under threat. Protectionism seeks to stave off globalisation rather than manage it. Religious extremists peddle hatred and division. Energy insecurity and climate change threaten to create a scramble for resources. And rogue states and failing states risk sparking conflicts, the damage of which will spill over into Europe.'
These threats provide a new raison d'etre for the European Union. New because the unfinished business of internal reform to update our economic and social model is on its own not enough to engage with the big issues, nor the hopes and fears, of European citizens.
For the EU because nation-states, for all their continuing strengths, are too small to deal on their own with these big problems, but global governance is too weak.
So the EU can be a pioneer and a leader. Our single market and the standards we set for it, the attractions of membership, and the legitimacy, diversity and political clout of 27 member states are big advantages. The EU will never be a superpower, but could be a model power of regional cooperation.
For success, the EU must be open to ideas, trade and people. It must build shared institutions and shared activities with its neighbours. It must be an Environmental Union as well as a European Union. And it must be able to deploy soft and hard power to promote democracy and tackle conflict beyond its borders.
Granted, Miliband doesn't tackle the EU's key problem, the Common Agricultural Policy, in anything more than veiled terms of anti-protectionism: "Environmental security not food security is the challenge of the future." But he hits every other nail on the head.
Expansion of the EU, perhaps in a series of concentric rings, could help bind the international community into a sphere of peace and prosperity that the UN has never been able to achieve. But for this to happen requires massive investment in European military capability and the will to use it, a shortcoming which Miliband rightly laments.
He also correctly connects the key threats of environmental degradation, energy insecurity and terrorism too. But the focus is on the EU as a "model power" rather than a "superpower", recognising the continued leadership of the US.
In the coming weeks there will be two major tests of the EU. French president Nicolas Sarkozy is already facing his "Thatcher moment" as he attempts to face down the socialist old guard on the streets. And Kosovo is about to come back to haunt us too, with elections currently being contested.
If Europe can ride these through, then the prospects are bright. But, as Miliband reminds us, there is a choice:
Focus on internal not external challenges, institutions rather than ideals. Fail to combine hard and soft power, the disciplines and benefits of membership with the ability to make a difference beyond our borders. The result - the return of protectionism, energy insecurity, division with the Islamic world, and unmanaged migration from conflict.
Or Europe can look global and become a model regional power.
We can use the power of the EU - the size of our single market, our ability to set global standards, the negotiating clout of 27 members, the attractions of membership, the hard power of sanctions and troops, the power of Europe as an idea and a model - not to substitute for nation states but to do those things to provide security and prosperity for the next generation.
I hope someone is listening.
BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Miliband EU speech in full
See also the video.
 Michael Klare, author of Blood and Oil, was in Amsterdam today to talk on his conception of the impending energy crisis. While he was a good speaker, seeing him in person did begin to reveal some of the flaws in his arguments.
The lecture opened with a bold set of statements: "No government is willing to solve the energy problem by seeking alternative energies... and I have zero confidence that any will try to increase production." Having tantalised us with this and promises of an apocalyptic vision of the future, Klare then utterly failed to expand.
Fortunately, the organisers allowed one student in the audience to ask a question (the other debating time was reserved for the usual blathering incoherence of rival academics failing to make their points or even ask questions) and he did ask what I would have done. The question was "why?"; Klare's answer was that "dysfunctional governments" were at fault, "governments that piss away billions on Iraq yet invest little on finding solutions".
That seems far too easy a way to excuse the actions of the Bush regime, though he did have a good point on China's failure to deal with the crisis. Though the CCP itself is aware of the trouble we're in, grass roots-level corruption means that any efficiency measures are swept under the carpet in favour of improving growth figures.
Yet Klare's overall take on the US-China contest over energy was as simplistic as the rest. It was, he said, a situation analogous to the Cold War, in which both powers supply arms to their energy-supplying clients in a competition for influence.
He did later remark that Beijing's Africa policy also involves economic and infrastructural aid - something that Africans were rightly suspicious of - but did not elaborate further. But his aim was to reinforce his point that the recent creation of America's Africa Command (Africom) was the latest stage in a continuing Kennedy doctrine, building on previous policy in the Persian Gulf. The SCO, moreover, was a front for China to extend its military supply network to Central Asia.
All of that may be true, but overlooks the nuances of an evolving bipolar US-China situation that is far more than a simple military confrontation.
To be fair, Klare did have some good ideas about 'the resource curse' whereby the wealth in countries like Nigeria falls into the hands of those who control the state, thus negating democratic urges in the governing classes. (One could say the same for Burma). And his analogy with the Balkans of 1914 was apt - violent internal social forces could intersect with external geopolitical motives to produce an explosive mixture.
Also, an interesting theory from an otherwise egomaniacal second speaker came to light, in that $100 oil punished the PRC as much as anyone else, and could be a ploy in order to bring down the RMB or lessen China's export deficit. She also highlighted that fact that Klare didn't even mention Europe, though that merely proved his point that Europe's influence is next to negligible.
But overall, Klare was a little disappointing. He was right to note that control of chokepoints such as Hormuz give militarily powerful states great leverage, but his frame of reference was still bound by conventional military thinking.
The reality is that inducing energy scarcity, just like terrorism and WMD, is an asymmetric method of power projection that doesn't necessarily involve military firepower. Having a big technologically-advanced navy isn't the be-all and end-all any more. That's what makes the problems so complicated and so intertwined.
Finding a resolution to the crisis on the Turkish-Iraqi border has deep implications for many of the parties involved.
Turkey in particular, with its ambitions to be viewed as a leading state in the Islamic world as well as its aspirations to join the European Union, is under scrutiny as never before. Its actions over the next weeks will define whether its neighbors and allies will continue to regard Ankara as a reliable partner or a potentially destabilizing force within the region.
The United States of America must also impose its will but faces a tricky balancing act between its commitment to Turkey and the need to maintain regional stability. And Iraq, already engulfed in violence, cannot afford more conflict and the flows of arms and refugees that will ensue.
Continue reading "Turkey and Iraq: The Implications" »
If the first casualty of war is the truth, then its first omen is also linguistic. The French foreign minister's remarks on Iran and the IAEA's subsequent riposte are eerily reminiscent of the war of words that took place in 2002 between the UN's inspectors led by Hans Blix and the hawks in the Pentagon.
What is very unusual is that it's the French that are the hawks this time. That's quite a major shift in international relations. Up until this year, Blair and his predecessors would have been the swiftest to cosy up to Washington, while Chirac and his forebears would bang the drum of protest. Perhaps, with Gordon Brown visibly shying away from Bush, the French are seizing the opportunity to regain a world voice in the absence of a coherent EU foreign policy.
Whatever the case, with a UNSC meeting scheduled for Friday, the path of no return may already be opening up.
UN nuclear boss warns warmongers over Iran | Iran | Guardian Unlimited
"We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," Bernard Kouchner told French TV and radio.
While talks over Iran's nuclear programme should continue "right to the end", Mr Kouchner said, an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose "a real danger for the whole world". France has taken a much harsher line towards Iran since the election of Nicolas Sarkozy to success Jacques Chirac as president.
Well, Canada is doing a good job too but the Yanks are basically making things worse for ISAF. Below the BBC's Paul Wood summarises the commons defence committee's report on operations in Afghanistan. They can be summarised even further into one point - lack of resources.
Basically, in an age when deaths overseas have a direct impact on the ballot box, Afghanistan is proving the inefficacy of our NATO allies. Every military death is tragic, but the unwillingness of the other European nations to allow their troops to do the jobs they are supposed to do simply makes life more difficult and dangerous for the Brits and Canucks. There is no point deploying the military if you are not going to put them in harm's way with all the kit they need to support them.
Secondly, the reason ISAF is there is to establish security so as to create the conditions for development - and thus general happiness and well-being in Afghanistan. That's the greatest obstacle to Talibanisation, not armed action. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude seems to be that development should be left to the NGOs. In fact there are few worse people to do the job. NGOs exist simply to fulfil narrow and often irrelevant single issues eg. introducing women's theatre groups to towns where there's no running water. What Afghanistan really needs is big money and big business with the backing of Western governments.
Do the job properly or not at all. Put the cash in, put the kit in and put the people in. And this is a defining moment for Europe. Does it really have a role in the wider world, or is it content to let the 'Stan slip back into total anarchy? It would probably take Pakistan with it, and now that the GWOT has kicked off, the existence of a revived black hole full of terror training camps would have grave consequences for Europe's own domestic security.
If the battle in Afghanistan is lost, the war will be fought in the streets of Londonistan instead.
BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Afghanistan warning decoded
1. There are too few troops on the ground to win.
If the mission is to succeed, says the committee, it will require a commitment of size and strength greater than the international community is "willing to acknowledge, let alone to make."
2. If we are not exactly losing, we are not winning either.
The committee said: "Violence is increasing and spreading to the relatively peaceful Kabul and the northern provinces."
3. Too many Afghan civilians are being killed.
The committee said: "Civilian casualties undermine support for (the Nato force) Isaf and the Afghan government and fuel the insurgency, further endangering our troops."
4. There are still not enough British helicopters to do the job.
"UK helicopter operations in Afghanistan are not sustainable at the present intensity."
5. Some of our Nato allies are leaving us in the lurch.
"The reluctance of some Nato countries to provide troops for the Isaf mission in Afghanistan is undermining Nato's credibility and also Isaf operations."
6. You can't fight the Taleban and opium at the same time.
The coalition's strategy lacks "clarity and coherence". "Uncertainty among Afghans about Isaf's role in poppy eradication puts UK forces at risk."
7. The Afghan security forces are a disappointment - some useless, some corrupt, some actually working against us.
"Police failure and corruption alienate support for the government of Afghanistan and add to grievances which fuel the insurgency." Even the Afghan army "are some way off operating independently".
8. So the exit strategy has problems, as in Iraq.
"We recommend that the government clarify its planning assumptions for the UK deployment to Afghanistan and state the likely length of the deployment beyond the summer of 2009."
9. The media war isn't going well, either.
"The Taleban is ahead in the information campaign. The government (must)...co-ordinate more effectively the presentation of Isaf's objectives and the way in which developments in Afghanistan are reported."
Someone had to do it. But poor old Shell, stuck between a rock and a hard place with neither the US nor Russia playing ball. They'll be OK.
Shell defies US pressure and signs GBP5bn Iranian gas deal | | Guardian Unlimited Business
Shell has signed an important deal to help Iran develop a major gas field, ignoring growing pressure from George Bush to isolate the country for being part of what he alleges is an "axis of evil".
The Anglo-Dutch group, which is struggling to bring more momentum to its business after being forced to hand over vital Russian reserves at Sakhalin island to the Kremlin, confirmed it had finally reached agreement on various aspects of its "Persian LNG" - liquefied natural gas - project centred on the South Pars gas field...
The move is a bold one by Shell because its arch-rival BP has declared itself unwilling to invest in Iran at a time when the international political climate surrounding the country is so forbidding.
Can Europe Help Tame China’s Environmental Nemesis?
 BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China admits to climate failings
"Compared with social and economic modernisation, China's ecological modernisation lags far behind," said the research group's director, He Chuanqi.
Damn right. The single most terrifying thing about China is its rampant and relentless self-destruction - a policy which one day could implode with apocalyptic consequences. But what can any of us do about it?
The European Union is China's biggest trading partner: in 2004, trade levels stood at €160 billion. And with financial flows this high, inevitably relations between the two economic giants transcend business alone.
According to liberal and constructivist theorists, the increasing interdependence brought by globalisation brings about a slow but steady ‘diffusion’ of norms and standards across national borders and even continents. The EU itself is a good example of the spread of ideas from country to country, both as a stimulus to and a result of the integration process.
With this in mind, it stands to reason that the EU should be able to ‘diffuse’ its ideas to countries like China. Actually doing so, however, is easier said than done. This paper below looks at how, rather than trying to directly introduce human rights and democracy, Europe can penetrate both China’s economy and its political sphere with ‘green’ values instead.
Download Word file or read main text below. (See Word file for bibliography and footnotes).
Continue reading "Greening the Smoking Dragon" »
You don't need a degree in development economics to see who the winners and losers will be. Despite China's economy relying on manufactured exports to the West, it still invests nearly twice as much in R&D as India; I dread to think what levels it spends on infrastructure.
In fact, according to the OECD, China will soon be the world's second-biggest R&D spender in dollar terms - $136bn this year as opposed to Japan's $130bn and America's impressive $330bn. You have to hand it to the PRC though - they are full of good sense on a lot of things (shame about the environment).
Europe, on the other hand, would do well to up its spending and encourage the things that it is good at - technology and services - rather than buckling to domestic pressures from trade unions and farmers. I know who the smart money is on.
India’s R&D spend lower than China’s
India’s expenditure on research and development is 0.7% of its gross domestic product (GDP) as compared with China’s 1.2%.
Minister of state for HRD D Purandeswari told the Upper House in a reply that North America spends 2.7%, Japan 3.1% and the European Union 1.8% of their GDP in R&D.
One to note for my forthcoming paper on the value of European pressure on China's environmental policy.
How charities can help China's social and economic development | Society | SocietyGuardian.co.uk
The last two decades of China's growth were based on quantity. Now this needs to switch to growth based on quality. Western expertise and solidarity has a big role to play. One government official I spoke to expressed it rather well. He said: "The Chinese government is shining a torch on its development needs but there are areas of darkness. Organisations like ActionAid can help us light up some of these dark places."
The last few weeks - which have seen China tighten its grip over Africa and Asia, and the Republicans lose their grip in the Capitol and rethink their whole strategy - has generated a slew of articles over at Asia Times Online.
One author speaks of a new East-West Cold War style conflict developing, though I'm not so sure how stable or even feasible a China-Russia-India alliance would be:
It isn't yet fashionable to speak openly of a world subdividing itself again into two camps - those aligned with the US and those aligned with the Russia-China axis at the core of a new rising, multifarious yet coherent pole of the East - with the dividing line between the two camps consisting of the contest for control over global strategic resources.
Despite all the relevant signs pointing precisely in that direction:
# The deepening accord in all key spheres between Russia, China, India, the other rising powers of the East and the key resource-rich regimes of the world.
# Steadily rising East-West tensions, the ever-more divergent interests between East and West.
# The increasingly incompatible approaches to global issues and problems resulting in an ever-widening chasm between East and West.
Far too long to analyse in full, but worth looking at at a later date.
Another writer re-examines the China-India relationship:
Professor Ma Jiali, a veteran South Asia expert at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), says India's recent economic performance combined with its growing importance in international affairs has led to a rethink in Beijing of India as zhong he guoli, a Mandarin term that translates roughly as a "comprehensive national power".
For Beijing, relations with India are now considered the highest priority, according to Professor Ma, given that India is what he calls a "four-in-one" country. "India falls into each of the four major categories of countries that China wants to focus its diplomatic energies on," he explained. The four categories are: Developing countries, neighboring countries, rising powers, and influential actors on the international stage.
Another still looks at China and Russia, and finally we have the four horsemen of America, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.
There's really far too much to read here, but the implication is clear - the world is shaking into what looks like being its new order for quite a while. I personally will suggest that the US will remain one major pole, with China its key rival and Europe, Russia, India and Iran as second-tier powers that either ally with the gig pair or stand their distance. Both a multipolar and a bipolar environment at the same time - twice as nasty, twice as unpredictable.
The lack of genuine discussion on the EU's new policy paper on China does expose its effective irrelevance. The PRC, for one, is not going to be unduly concerned by it. The Asia Times does have a crack at analysing the issue, but like the Commission itself it has no real conclusions. It's all very well to say that the EU must encourage China to accept international norms, and that its policy must be based on values, not just trade, but how it is meant to go about this is not stated.
Asia Times Online :: China News - EU, China expanding relationship
Brussels still feels the need to draw together the strands of its policy on China into a coherent whole that responds to the rapidly changing Chinese reality and its impact on the world. The need for a clear formulation of policy is also stimulated by the fact that the EU and China are embarking on the negotiation of a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which will provide the legal framework for their relationship and will replace their original Trade and Cooperation Agreement signed in 1985.
The change in title of the proposed new agreement, like the strategic partnership, indicates that both sides now see their relationship as being much broader than simply trading. This certainly reflects the reality that aside from trade and investment, official contacts and policy dialogues, educational exchanges and tourism are all growing rapidly.
The paper hasn't yet appeared online, but I'll certainly keep an eye out for it. I expect that it'll be notable for what it desn't say as much as for what it does. Xinhua is certainly keeping mum about anything the EU has to say on human rights and so on, but that may well be because Europe would rather keep its trade levels up than "interfere in China's internal affairs" |
