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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"
Xinhua - English
The EU's executive Commission will release the new policy paper today.
In it China-EU relations are described as positive but there are also calls for a closer partnership, to deal with global challenges such as energy supply and sustainable development as well as smoother economic and trade cooperation.
"We both have a huge stake in effective multilateralism, and in international peace and stability across the globe," said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Walder in a joint article for the International Herald Tribune newspaper.
Dutch Multiculturalism in Question
A draft report of proceedings in New York, by Jessica Serraris and Philip Sen.
Those who managed to get in – people were literally lining up around Washington Square to attend the debate at NYU’s Tischman Auditorium – were warned that they’d hear some views that would be “a little more direct than Americans are used to”. They were not to be disappointed.
Integration and its Discontents
Students, professors, journalists and VIPs alike gathered to see arguably one of the most celebrated Dutch women in recent history. The notoriously outspoken Ayaan Hirsi Ali had been invited to discuss the dark side of Islam and Dutch multiculturalism, and along with former EU commissioner FFrits Bolkestein and writer Bas Heijne she certainly managed to captivate the audience.
But the debate was deeply one-sided. If Heijne was supposed to counter the rightist views of the other two, he did not live up to the task. Perhaps the debate would have benefited had a prominent and outspoken Muslim been invited to the stage too. Still, what ensued was otherwise a representative discussion on Holland’s controversial and divisive integration issues. After Professor Tony Judt's introduction, in which he set recent upheavals (including two political assassinations) into context, it was time to hear the speakers make their cases. It soon became clear that there would be more than one star of the show.
Read on below.
Continue reading "Religion and the Limits of Tolerance" »
Liberalisation is great, until it bites back. Such is probably the underlying message of the latest trade dispute between the EU and China. The latter, of course, can hardly be said to be a squeaky-clean example to the rest of us either; but when it begins calling on the WTO to fix Europe you know that things aren't working out.
Hopefully, the EU will figure out a clear and coherent China policy by the end of the year - it needs to.
BBC NEWS | Business | China threatens shoe retaliation
The EU is placing a tariff of 16.5% on leather shoes imported from China over the next two years.
Under pressure from manufacturers, the EU has accused China of "dumping" shoes in Europe at less than market prices.
Beijing said the tarrif, approved by one vote, was legally "defective" and not in accord with global trade rules.
 Today's what, in the business, they call "a fast news day". Stuff happened. Lots of it.
We awoke to images of anti-government protests in Hungary, sparked by the Prime Minister's admission of misconduct. Though rain stopped play today, the storming of the TV station (always the fist thing to go down in a revolution) was eerily reminiscent of the end of the Cold War back in 1989.
Then, though perhaps we should have seen it coming, a military coup in Thailand. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had been on shaky ground ever since calling a snap election to prove his credibility, and tacitly admitting defeat and withdrawal from politics yet never really letting go of the reins (Tony Blair - something to ponder there. But the sight of tanks in Bangkok is still quite a shocker.
All this distracted attention from the backdrop of UN headquarters in New York, where world leaders are gathering for Kofi Annan's final session in charge. It's not been a day of minced words, with prominent personalities calling for moves to end the Israel-Palestine conflict and even the sight of Bush - commendably - demanding action on Darfur:
Mr Bush said that if the Khartoum authorities did not do so quickly, the UN had to act. "Your lives and the United Nation's credibility are at stake," he added, addressing the people of Darfur.
The US president also announced the appointment of a special US envoy to the region.
Fine words then, but not much action for now. But Bush was also struggling to justify his increasingly isolated position on the Middle East, the bigger fish being fried at the expense of Sudan.
All this and also a shake-up in Saddam's trial: continued protests in Taiwan; and bombs in Somalia. Anchors across the rolling news channels were looking somewhat out of breath.
What does all this mean? Well, for now it is of course too early to tell. But I think that today has dealt quite a blow to the institutionalising agenda of neo-liberalism. Hungary's problems stem from economic failure that has, if anything, been exacerbated rather than assuaged by EU membership:
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the biggest problems facing governments in former Eastern Bloc countries has been how to marry the expectations of the electorate with the harsh realities of running free-market economies that aspire to join the single European currency.
 Even worse in Thailand, one of the leading lights of ASEAN but also the source of the 1997 financial crisis. I expect that investors will be watching events with dismay: the image of Asia as a stable region for trade has been shattered once again.
China, on the other hand, will probably be laughing all the way to the bank as foreign companies get the jitters and pull out.
And finally, the UN as an institution is once again under the microscope. It came out of the Lebanon fiasco somewhat bruised, and the mainly European contingent of peacekeepers have yet to prove their worth under any major test. Now there is a growing onus for it to engage with the fractious Israel-Palestine conflict, an issue at the very root of much of the tension in the world today.
What happens with Sudan and Darfur is an even graver immediate issue: can this embattled institution stand back yet again and allow genocide in our own time? We shall see.
Asia Times Online :: China News - Commerce greases EU-China 'partnership'
The EU presents a complex challenge for China. On the one hand, the EU itself, which conducts the European relationship with China in many areas, is undoubtedly an important body. But the individual member states play a crucial role in determining its policy, and also pursue their own interests, including on many issues concerning China. China therefore needs to cultivate its relations at both the supranational and national levels in Europe.
BBC NEWS | Europe | China and EU to hold treaty talks
China and the EU are doing more business together than ever before.
Now they have agreed to start talks on updating the framework which governs their relations.
Political and economic negotiations will be partially split but not entirely.
China says it disapproves of linking human rights questions to trade talks.
As usual, nothing gets in the way of business.
 Faith and the State
Remarque Institute (NYU) and ISHSS (UvA) US-Europe Public Forum 2006
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
Edmund Burke, 1729-1797
Be afraid. If recent press reports are to be believed, Europe – and Britain in particular – is positively crawling with Islamic terrorists, bent on death and destruction in the name of Jihad.
The media tends to exaggerate, of course, but after the uncovering of plans to destroy 10 aircraft in mid-air, the discovery of terror training camps and the arrests of Al-Qaeda commanders, no-one can deny that something is going on. What lies at the roots of this militancy among Europe’s Muslims, and what, if anything, can be done to assuage it?
Download Word file or read main text below. (See Word file for bibliography and footnotes).
This essay is the joint winner of the US-Europe Public Forum 'Faith and the State' competition 2006. You can also read the original blog entry from which the paper was extended.
Continue reading "A Taste of Reality and the State of Things to Come" »
 It's not in my usual remit, but the Economist article reprinted below strikes a timely chord.
I used to believe that the Netherlands, and Amsterdam in particular, were havens of peace and harmony in a seething sea of troubles. Safe, if sordid, Holland was 'fluffy'. No longer. After Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, things won't be the same again.
The apartment complex I've just moved into - in fact the whole area I now live in - is populated predominantly by Turkish-origin and other Muslims. The guy who cut my hair was Moroccan. The woman in the launderette is Kashmiri. And there's a definite tension between the austerity of the hijabs I see among my neighbours and the swinging sexuality of the city centre's red-light district.
The contrast couldn't be greater: it's a tale not just of two cities but of two worlds.
The Economist draws our attention to two books upon this subject - one by Ian Buruma (co-author of Occidentalism) on the death of Theo van Gogh; the other by celebrity politico Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who effectively brought down the Dutch government this year.
Murder in Amsterdam, will deal with the murder; the other is a collection of essays primarily on the plight of Muslim women.
I'd better get hold of a copy; in October I'll have the chance to meet Ayaan Hirsi Ali at a debate at NYU's Remarque Institute having won an essay competition on 'Faith and the State'. That'll be going up soon on a dedicated documents page.
The Economist, however, summarises the basic idea pretty well. It's got to be give and take - it's got to be a bit of both:
Ms Hirsi Ali is a fierce opponent of multiculturalism. She believes it is wrong and even dangerous for the tolerant and liberal to accept the intolerant and illiberal. And she thinks the West should not be afraid to proclaim the superiority of its system.
Yet attempts to coerce Muslims into adopting Western values risk a backlash. Europe needs to come to terms with Islam as a European religion. It is also striking, as Mr Buruma notes, that the most radical Muslims are not immigrants, but the second generation: those born in Europe who grow up disaffected, rootless and (all too often) jobless. These are the people who must be persuaded that they have a stake in a modern, liberal democracy. For the Netherlands, as for all of Europe, that requires better education, better housing, lower crime—and more job opportunities.
Maybe so. There has to be a carrot - but there has to be a stick too.
Continue reading "Dutch Courage, Dutch Fears" »
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The Economist's choice of title (from a poem by Dylan Thomas) for its analysis of the collapse of the WTO talks is apposite indeed. Think of what you might, for better or for worse the WTO is now the light that failed.
The historic chance to truly liberalize the world economy looks like it has eluded us, and at the end of the day those who will suffer most will be the poor and the deprived. Europe's ludicrous and insane Common Agricultural Policy will continue to screw people in Africa and elsewhere:
This is a tragedy, especially for the developing world. Last year, the World Bank estimated that global gains from trade liberalisation would equal roughly $287 billion, of which $86 billion would accrue to developing nations, lifting at least 66m people out of poverty. Activist groups including Greenpeace and Oxfam were quick to condemn both Washington and Brussels for intransigence over agricultural subsidies, saying that rich-world self interest is leaving the poor to suffer.
For the benefit of a few French farmers, cheap subsidised grain will continue to flood the world market putting local producers out of business and ultimately creating the conditions for famine. As Amartya Sen correctly says, it's not just drought that triggers starvation - it's economics.
It's not often that I spring to Bush's defence, and this is not one of those times, but The Economist has a point:
The collapse will probably be blamed on America, which has been pushing for bold action on agricultural tariffs, and resisting a modest compromise deal that includes caps on its own agricultural subsidies. This is ironic, because America has been one of the grave men pushing hard to revive Doha after the round’s first collapse at Cancún in 2003. Despite high-profile deviations, such as slapping tariffs on imported steel, Mr Bush has largely been a committed free trader.
The truth is that while there have been grave men and wise men, the good men have had no real voice. And I too think that the blame lies squarely with our very own beloved EU.
What has not been said, so far, is who else will gain from this. I think there's going to be one big beneficiary... it's coming... China. Without demands to relax trade tariffs on manufactured imports etc. China may well continue to resist becoming the 'world's largest market', as so many expect it to be.
On the other hand, if the West begin slapping tariffs and quotas on imports from China, the whole edifice of the PRC could swiftly begin to crumble. I don't think it'll come to that, but it could be one of a cocktail of factors that lead us further down that dark road, burning and raving at the close of day.
Continue reading "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night..." »
 Oxford Professor and all-round commentator Timothy Garton-Ash takes a timely look at the state of the world in mid-2006.
His analysis is bleak. Of course, no writer on current affairs has the benefit of hindsight and it'll be a long time before we know how history will view this little episode. But Garton-Ash takes the essentially neo-realist view that a multipolar order is a recipe for disaster.
The neo-liberalist argument that the US will create stability through institutions and 'enlightened self-interest' no longer washes, and the hegemon is clearly on the decline as other powers rise. The kernel of the argument is quite succinct:
This new multipolarity is the result of at least three trends. The first, and most familiar, is the rise or revival of other states - China, India, Brazil, Russia as comeback kid - whose power resources compete with those of the established powers of the west. The second is the growing power of non-state actors. These are of widely differing kinds. They range from movements like Hamas, Hizbullah and al-Qaida, to non-governmental organisations like Greenpeace, from big energy corporations and drug companies to regions and religions.
A third trend involves changes in the very currency of power. Developments in technologies with violent potential mean that very small groups of people can challenge powerful established states, whether by piloting an aeroplane into the World Trade Centre in New York, targeting a missile at Haifa, taking on the US military in Iraq, bombing the London underground, or squirting sarin gas into the Tokyo subway.
Not to mention the US's loss of EH Carr's third kind of power, 'power over opinion' (the others being military and economic power). Since the war America has been much better at provoking than winning hearts and minds. It just can't let go of those balls, and unfortunately Israel tends to follow suit.
Most of all, Garton-Ash displays his disillusionment with the tenets of liberalism (which encompasses a convenient jibe at the commander-in-chief of misplaced liberal values, the French President):
When Jacques Chirac spoke fondly of multipolarity, back in 2003, he conflated two claims: the world is multipolar, and that's a good thing. Claim 1 is being proved right. Claim 2 has yet to be confirmed. For a start, it matters a lot whether this is multipolar order or multipolar disorder. Order is a high value in international relations. It stops a lot of people being killed. At the moment, we have multipolar disorder, and it's not clear what the shape of a new multipolar order might be. Historically, the emergence of new powers, elbowing for position, has increased the chances of violence. So has contested authority within the frontiers of states.
I disagree with the author's fears that nuclear conflict is impending; no state (apart from North Korea, perhaps) would be willing to act in such self-disinterest, and I can't see any terrorist organisations gaining the capability or the will to use the bomb.
But the essence of his fears is spot-on:
We liberal internationalists dream of a world of democratic, peace-loving, human-rights-respecting states... Some of the growing powers fit that vision... to a large extent, India and Brazil. China and Russia definitely do not, nor do many of the non-state actors that are currently making the running in world politics. Henry Kissinger has suggested that the geopolitics of Asia in the 21st century could resemble those of Europe in the 19th century, with great powers jockeying for position, using war as the continuation of politics by other means. But it could be worse. It could be that kind of great-power rivalry on a world scale, plus terrorists. And corporations. And transnational religious communities. And international NGOs. No moral equivalence is suggested between these very different kinds of actor, but what they all have in common is that they don't fit neatly into a world order of states.
By other means, indeed.
Continue reading "New World Disorder 2.0" »
 An opportunity may already have been lost. With Bush and Putin 'failing to agree' on Russia's entry to the WTO, inevitably there will be comebacks. After all, the G8 summit is being hosted in St Petersburg, and the onus is on Russia to assert its rising status.
And the issue is that old chesnut, energy security. With the WTO membership carpet pulled from beneath its feet, Russia today refused to sign the energy charter which would guarantee the reliable supply of energy to Europe. As the Ukraine discovered, Russia knows that it has a powerful economic and political weapon in its grasp, and there's no reason for it to let go.
Anyone who still thinks - or says - that oil is not a major issue on the global political agenda will, however, be corrected by this year's G8, notable for its straight talking:
"Energy is essential to improving the quality of life and opportunities in developed and developing nations," the leaders' statement said.
"Ensuring sufficient, reliable and environmentally responsible supplies of energy at prices reflecting market fundamentals is a challenge for our countries and for mankind as a whole," it added.
The statement comes after months of rising oil prices - including a new spike following the Israeli action in Lebanon.
That's the sharp end of it - you can't have energy security without political security, and last week it just got a whole lot worse. Thus the G8 summit is inextricably intertwined with events in the Middle East, from Israel and Lebanon to Iraq and Iran. It's not just an additional point of discussion, as is being reported - it's the main item on the menu.
Continue reading "Tit for Tat" »
 The G8 finance ministers got together today for a preliminary meeting ahead of July's summit. At the top of the agenda, naturally, is energy security.
But that's boring. And something far more important got going on Friday. It's even bringing colour to the usually grey cheeks of The Economist.
...the comparison with the Olympics is striking. Think of all those robotic East German sprinters, Romanian gymnasts and Chinese swimmers churned out by state-backed programmes. By contrast, a winning football team needs not just athleticism but also a spark of creativity and style that cannot be manufactured by sport's central planners. Even taking drugs does not appear to be much help for footballers.
The World Cup is apolitical. The USA will probably be crap again. China and Russia aren't even in it. The superpowers are Brazil and a clutch of developing and declining countries.
Who will be this year's heroes? We shall see...
Continue reading "The Beautiful Games Begin!" »
A few select cuttings from this year's Internet report by media freedom organisation Reporters sans Frontiers.
I've actually exercised some self-censorship in cutting the name of a dissident currently under arrest in China from the copy. This is not because I am trying to conceal his identity - it's easy to find out, if you have access to the RSF website - but because search engines, spiders, robots and censorship technology within the Chinese mainland may well find his name and add me to the blocked list. Yes, a little overcautious perhaps, but remember that RSF itself is very very blocked in the PRC.
Read on below - don't say I'm not even-handed.
Continue reading "Annual Internet Report" »
 So, if we already know that a UN resolution is going to be vetoed, why bother even drafting it?
The basic point of today's news is that a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter is being prepared to try to manage the Iran nuclear crisis. This follows the IAEA's report to the UN Security Council that Iran is breaking its obligations on the enrichment of uranium - confirmed by Iran itself.
The relevant part of the chapter is Article 41:
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.
However, as we read in The Guardian (also below), China and Russia will both veto any decision on actual sanctions. So what's the point?
There basically is none, other than as a face-saving measure for the US (and most likely its special friend, the UK). As long as the appearance of going the UN is kept up, then the US can later say "well, the UN was ineffective, so we had to go it alone".
There is zero chance that military action will be authorised under Article 42, but we all know it's going to happen eventually. This is the beginning of the diplomatic process of preparing the ground for the recriminations that will come later.
Continue reading "So the Point Is, Exactly?" »
You can't seperate them.
George Monbiot writes an eloquent article on this in Comment is Free. He doesn't really come up with any viable solutions, but his logic in arguing his point is sound.
Firstly, most countries are reliant on other regions - namely the Middle East, the Former Soviet Union and Central Asia - for their oil and gas supplies. There's lots of demand and less and less supply. So there's high competition, and it's a seller's market.
This gives them power over us. Russia, for example, had no qualms about cutting off the Ukraine's gas to make a political point (whether it would have the guts to do this to China, who knows).
So, we have to come up with alternatives. Hydrogen is the best answer at the moment, but currently hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels too and not from electrolysis.
There's the economic issue too:
But a hydrogen network will be viable only if it is cheap. According to a report by the US National Academy of Engineering, the wholesale price of hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture will, in "the future", be $1.72 (96p) per kilogramme; from coal, $1.45; and from electrolysis $3.93. In other words, if a hydrogen economy is to be taken seriously, the fuel has to be made from gas or coal, rather than by either wind turbines or nuclear generators.
Now, here is when his argument goes a bit wrong. It's too short term:
So it seems to me that a key environmental challenge, odd as this seems, is to ensure that gas has a future in the UK by making its supplies more secure. I don't mean invading Iran or sucking up to Saparmurat Niyazov. I mean increasing our storage capacity so that we cannot be held to ransom - in the short term at least - either by Gazprom or by the companies that control the flow through the interconnector.
Think long term and put the massive investment into creating realistic alternative energy - sorry, this means nuclear as well as wind farms. This will be economically painful in the short term, but in 2050 we'll be able to sit back and watch the rest of the west collapse.
Assuming China hasn't wiped our economies and the environment out by then already.
Continue reading "Energy Security and the Environment" »
 Where does Britain stand - by the US or beside the EU? An answer to that today in the sale of BAE Systems' share of Airbus.
This is big business - big, big, big business. And the fact that BAE has sold in order to concentrate on the US defence market indicates a trend towards a general European pullout. Airbus is a flagship company if ever there was one.
As far as I know, BAE Systems no longer has any stakes in EADS, the pan-European company that will now fully own Airbus. With the French protesting against economic systems that might actually help them compete in the globalized economy, no wonder the Brits are getting cold feet. Having bought United Defence last year, BAE Systems now has its sights firmly set on the US.
But what does it mean for the EU? After last year's failed presidency, now that the glue of heavy industry has dried out it seems that the UK is drifting further and further away.
Continue reading "Bye Bye BAE-bus" »
 A comment piece on the two worlds we live in - the Eurocentric western perception and the Asian century.
Is the West lost? Not yet. There's enough other people who realise that increasingly we are going to have to look at the east not as potential resources for exploitation but at best as partners and at worst as dangerous rivals.
The author Martin Jacques correctly identifies the key problem with this relationship: put very simply, we don't understand them:
It is difficult living in two worlds - especially when it is the world called home that is becoming more and more parochial and less and less able to understand the wider world. It is becalmed, bemused, defensive, increasingly introverted and fearful. But there aren't many people I can talk to about it - you see, not surprisingly they are part of the problem.
And he also realises that the Middle East is simply a distraction:
How are Americans going to react to their country's decline and the rise of China and India? At the moment they don't believe it could possibly happen. Despite the disgraceful mess they have made of Iraq, they are still gung-ho. They are still convinced it is the right of God's chosen people to boss the world. And 9/11, unilateralism, and the invasion of Iraq have hugely encouraged that.
I suspect, though, that it was all a huge historical miscalculation. Always beware your moment of triumphalism: such emotions are a poor steer on the future. And that future is not primarily about the Middle East, but east Asia...
Also take a look at the comments, this one for example:
I don't kid myself that China is free from virulent racism and nationalism. Racial epithets are commonly used (Westerners are "Big noses", KOreans are "pancake faces" and Japanese are "Little noses") and the language used about Africans is sometimes appalling. They can be very parochial and extremely nationalistic.
We shouldn't be surprised by this- we are all human beings and we share the same failings. In fact our common humanity means that we are prone to the same stereotyping and beliefs in our own superiority.
Jacques' big mistake is to assume that these are unique to Westerners or are uniquely bad in the West. Factually this is simply not true.
My own comment is below.
Continue reading "Worlds Apart" »
 The French are not the types to mince their words, and foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy is no exception:
"No civil nuclear programme can explain the Iranian nuclear programme. It is a clandestine military nuclear programme," he said.
But is he right? Probably. The only chance Iran has of proving its benign intentions is to accept the Russian offer to assist with uranium enrichment on Russian soil. Otherwise, it's a pretty certain thing.
Then again, why shouldn't Iran develop nuclear power? Sure, it has massive oil reserves. But it realises that in a way it is just as reliant on oil exports as other countries are on imports. Anything goes wrong, and it's down the sink. It's just as well to have an alternative, just in case. Besides, one day the oil will run out too.
Perhaps the greatest significance of this story is the apparent unity of the UNSC, plus Germany as the 'three' of the EU3 of Britain and France. As Mr Douste-Blazy points out, it's not often that the US, UK, France, Russia and China are agreed on something.
Perhaps, however, this goes beyond the Iran nuclear issue. France and Russia are both keen to assert their presence on the international stage, and this is a PR-friendly way to do it.
Most interesting is China, in the past a serial abstainer from these kind of debates. And China has a lot to lose - it is a big importer of oil from Iran. Could it be that the dragon has awoken and wants to play the UN game at last?
Article form the BBC reprinted below.
Continue reading "United Against Iran?" »
 The sheer absurdity of the issue burning up the papers at the moment is what bowls me over.
In some ways, the Danish cartoon issue is a very effective red rag to two camps which, in a better world, would be desperately seeking to build relations with each other rather than tear them down.
It has to be said that in the light of the Salman Rushdie fatwah and the Theo Van Gogh murder, to name but two incidents in recent memory, any newspaper editor who knowingly sets out to confront Islam really should know what to expect.
Instead, however, the media is perceiving this all as a debate on 'free speech'. Get real. The idea of 'free speech' is basically a Western sensibility which is not compatible with many elements of the religious right - whether in Islam, the Roman Catholic church or elsewhere.
As deliberate provocations go, it takes some beating. Yes, I agree that the media has an inalienable right to free speech, but this is a trivial and petty way to go about it.
The leader from this week's Economist is reprinted below. As is to be expected, it comes down heavily on the side of the newspapers.
But it ignores the other side of media freedom, which is responsibility. Freedom is not free, and it is the duty of the media in the west to use its freedom responsibly. There are many other ways in which the paper could have tackled the issues it wished to tackle without the blatent disregard for religious sensibilities.
The affair is also an illustration of how events in the globalised world are not necessarily under the control of conventional 'state-based' entities. The Muslim protests are disorganised and spontaneous. The European newspapers' declarations of solidarity were likewise spontaneous and uncontrolled. There is nothing that yet exists to temper either force - either the force of righteous indignation or the force of free will.
11.2.06 - Note - see also this entry by Dave...
Continue reading "Cartoon Violence" »
I won't be around for a couple of weeks now, so won't be able to write much about this year's Davos meetings. Suffice it to say - it'll be worth coming back to.
Bye for now, and see you in Amsterdam in early February.
 Things got a lot colder in Europe today.
As if the 'sabotage' of pipelines, not to mention the deliberate cutting off of energy supplies by Russia in order to look after its own populace during the cold snap weren't enough, there was this rock aswell. A real rock star, one might say.
The ludicrous nature of the story was not lost on the British media who pounced on it like a pack of dogs. Basically, British agents were accused of planting surveillance systems in Moscow, in the shape of this... rock.
But it all highlights something that had until now been pretty much under the surface. Despite the Cold War fizzling out some time during the 90's, there are still those in London and Moscow who retain a Cold War mentality. That's not progress.
Moreover, the ongoing shenanigans involving Gazprom and Russia's immediate neighbours, not to mention other European nations that use Russian oil and gas, reminds of the essential interdependence of the international system.
It's a fragile state of affairs where, if Russia decides to cut off the energy, we lose out. Simple. They still may not be a superpower any longer, but they still wield considerable clout when it comes to resources.
The Bear, it appears, is back on the scene.
BBC Articles reprinted below.
Continue reading "Rocks, Pipelines and a Cold War on a Cold Day" »
This is the way things are going:
Russia, though slowly shifting towards the west's position, is still holding out hope that Tehran may yet accept a compromise. China, which has close economic ties with Iran, is the most hardline in opposing tough action against Tehran.
One European diplomat said: "What is really crucial is support from Russia and China. China does not look too good. China is the major obstacle."
 At the moment, the subject is Iran's referal to the UN Security Council due to its nuclear ambitions. Arguably it's only a blip, due to shabby-taxi-driver-cum-zealous-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's combatative approach, but it's a microcosm of the times.
The UN Security council is certainly becoming more and more fractured. Previously a serial abstainer, China is now beginning to pull its weight. It has the veto, and that means it has the power.
Last year it was Sudan over Darfur. Again, China vetoed action to protect its oil interests. And there'll be more incidents like this in the future, no doubt.
Of course the other four nations more often than not will act purely in their own interests, and usually have done - most notably the US. So there is certainly an element of hypocrisy here.
But surely the purpose of the UNSC is to establish consensus between the world's premier military and economic powers in order to provide a safer and more secure planet for all 6 billion of us.
Article from The Guardian reprinted below.
Continue reading "Microcosm of the Future" »
 A really forced smile from WTO Director-General and erstwhile Nosferatu lookalike Pascal Lamy.
Having been on the road in Bhimtal for the past few days, I've not been able to deal with this one in much detail, but suffice it to say that major events have been afoot with the simultaneous EU budget talks and the WTO Hong Kong negotiations.
And both ultimately appear to have failed.
Continue reading "The Battle of Brussels and the Siege of Wan Chai" »
 An interesting editorial in The Economist's 'Charlemagne' column which compares the treatment of minorities in the US and Europe.
It's pretty obvious that since WWII the structure of society in Europe has shifted fundamentally. Where once Europeans - French, Dutch, Belgians and most particularly the British - were formerly the colonial 'masters', sending their sons abroad for long periods to manage the unruly populations of empire, now the tables are turned.
Immigration is one of politics' big hot potatoes and the current riots - we could even call it civil unrest - in France are focussing world attention on the problems of immigrant populations. Arguably the problem in France is not ethnicity, nationality or religion but deprivation and unemployment, but the fact that the rioters are mainly second and third generation immigrants is key to the problem.
Continue reading "The Outsiders Inside" »
 Blood on the streets of Paris again tonight, as rioting spirals out of control and protestors open fire on police.
What's going on in the French capital, paralleled by events in Britain a few days ago, is a result of alienation between people of different races, religions and cultures forced into conflict.
Something that's particularly telling is the title of a French government minister asked to comment on the violence.
The minister of social cohesion, Jean-Louis Borloo, said the government had to react "firmly" but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to deal with anger simmering in poor suburbs for decades.
"We cannot hide the truth: that for 30 years we have not done enough," he told France-2 television.
Countries in a harmonious state of existence don't need 'ministers of social cohesion'. They have social cohesion.
Continue reading "Paris Match" »
Switch on the TV or open a newspaper or magazine and what you see or read are events and themes in isolation. Each exists by itself: you watch a programme or read an article and that's it. Nothing more. Over.
 Surf the Internet, on the other hand, and everything is interconnected, part of the overarching phenomenon known as the World Wide Web. And that is a lot more like real life. Things don't happen on their own. They happen for a reason, often a multitude of reasons and they are driven by a host of differing influences.
War, the nineteenth century strategist Karl von Clausewitz once wrote, is a continuation of politics by other means. It is a bold statement of the most simple but the most profound and important of connections. This blog is about war and politics, but more specifically about the inextricable links and parallels between the events we see unfold every day. The things that the papers don't always pick up on, or that the networks don't have time to run.
So, in the true pre-commercial spirit of the Internet, what I aim to write here is not conventional journalism: but maybe journalism by other means.
You can read more about the idea behind this blog on the about page. In summary, my interests are in the global politics that lead to the breakdown of diplomacy and the advent of war, plus the technology and operations of war itself.
And since the events that we know of occur only on this one planet, I also aim to examine the broader contexts of environmental issues - since the depletion of our natural resources and environment are perhaps the biggest single threat that 'the international community' - if such a thing exists - will have to face. If only they would see it.
My personal background is in defence and technology journalism, but in a larger sense I consider myself not a subject of the country I live in but a citizen of the world. In many ways, I am a product of globalisation - born to an Asian father in North America, yet raised in Britain as a European.
I have two passports, Canadian and British, I am entitled to a special 'Person of Indian Origin' permit and for the last couple of years I lived in a country and among a culture quite alien to my own, China. Other than my interests and my general journalistic skills, these are my only qualifications - but that's the beauty of blogging. You don't need to be an expert, just an observer.
My areas of interest are thus these three continents - North America, Europe and Asia - and the relations between them. South America and Africa are not specifically covered (other than under the 'Unrepresented' and perhaps the 'Travel and Miscellany' categories), not because they are unimportant, but in order to keep some kind of focus.
In brief then, I aim to examine the news and events of the day in context, viewing them not in isolation but paying attention to the wheels within wheels that turn to drive the world we live in. As the motto reads, I study war and peace that my sons may study mathematics and philosophy. As a private individual I acknowledge that I don't stand a chance of changing the world, but it's my generation that's got to at least start.
Many thanks for reading, and welcome again to the weblog.
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