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anonymous

China's Geopolitical Fallout - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...chinas-geopolitical-fallout

shared by anonymous on 24 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • China's leaders will likely survive this trial. But what if they don't? What if China faces a severe socio-economic crisis and attendant political one of an unforeseen magnitude? What would be the second-order geopolitical effects? If Syria explodes, it does so regionally. If China explodes, it does so globally.
  • Such a crisis could lead to an upsurge in nationalism, an emotion that can be easily dialed upwards by Communist party leaders as a means of clinging to power.
  • China's defense budget has already increased eight-fold since 2001, and might continue to do so under a more nationalist-style regime (even amid slowing growth), enabling China to further implement an anti-access area-denial strategy in the East and South China seas, emphasizing submarine, ballistic missile, and cyber warfare capabilities.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The aim would not be to go to war with the U.S. Navy and Air Force (quite the opposite, in fact), but to establish a force ratio more favorable to the continued, perceived growth of Chinese maritime power. But none of this would alter the current state of play in the Indian and Western Pacific oceans -- defined by a slowly diminishing unipolar American air and naval environment.
  • But what if the opposite occurred? What if an economic and political crisis ignited a downward trend in Chinese military procurements, or at least a less steep growth curve?
  • This is also quite possible: to assuage public anger at poverty and lack of jobs, China's leaders might, for political reasons, ask the military to make sacrifices of its own. After all, a Chinese Spring might be all about demanding more freedom and not about nationalism. Over time, this could affect the foundations of the Eurasian maritime order, albeit to a lesser extent than the collapse of the Berlin Wall shook the foundations of the European continental order.
  • Stalled Chinese defense budgets would reinvigorate a Pax Americana from the Sea of Japan to the Persian Gulf, despite the debacles of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and despite the U.S. military budget crunch.
  • Remember that Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945, and the hostility between Japan and Korea is thus much greater than the hostility between Korea and China.
  • With more than 1,500 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan from the mainland and 270 commercial flights per week between the two Chinas, U.S. military aid to Taipei is designed to defend Taiwan against a sudden Chinese attack, but not necessarily to postpone an inevitable unification of sorts.
  • India, like Vietnam and Taiwan, gains most from a profound economic and political crisis inside China. Suddenly China would be more vulnerable to ethnic unrest on the Tibetan plateau abutting the Indian subcontinent.
  • This would not necessarily alleviate the Chinese threat on India's northern borderlands (given the possibility of heightened ethnic unrest inside an economically weakened China), but it would give India greater diplomatic leverage in its bilateral relations with Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, all of which have been venues for the quiet great game India has been playing with China.
  • If India were among the biggest winners in the event of severe Chinese internal turmoil, Pakistan would be the biggest loser. China has been Pakistan's greatest and surest patron in recent decades, and has given Pakistan stores of infrastructure aid -- highways in the north and a port in the south -- without lectures about human rights and terrorism, or threats about withdrawing aid.
  • Such a bleak scenario for China overall would leave the United States and its allies -- both de facto like India and Vietnam, and de jure like Japan and Australia -- in a commanding position around Eurasia's navigable southern rimland.
  • But such a scenario is unlikely, even if the Chinese economy significantly slows and domestic unrest follows. More likely will be a tumultuous period of consolidation and readjustment within China, with China's strategic and military planners able to weather the storm with adjustments of their own for the long term.
  • But there is a larger point: geopolitics, while ostensibly about the geographically-constrained interactions of states, rests also on the internal conditions of states themselves, in which the actions of individuals are crucial and so much hangs on a thread.
  • While both the United States and China face epochal budgetary and economic crises -- which in both countries bleed over into the political realm -- the crisis in China is far more profound than in the United States. After all, the system of governance in Washington simply enjoys so much more legitimacy than the one in Beijing, with the American public institutionally better equipped to vent its frustrations than the Chinese one. Such internal realities will remain the overriding geopolitical facts in Asia.
  • anonymous on 24 Jul 13
     
    "The biggest question in international affairs has nothing to do with Syria or Iran going nuclear. It is has to do with the state of the Chinese economy, and the ability of China's one-party system to navigate through an economic slowdown to a different growth model."
anonymous

Huntington on Upheaval - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...huntington-upheaval

shared by anonymous on 31 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • The very first sentences of Political Order have elicited anger from Washington policy elites for decades now -- precisely because they are so undeniable. "The most important political distinction among countries," Huntington writes, "concerns not their form of government but their degree of government." In other words, strong democracies and strong dictatorships have more in common than strong democracies and weak democracies.
  • hus, the United States always had more in common with the Soviet Union than with any fragile, tottering democracy in the Third World. This, in turn, is because order usually comes before freedom -- for without a reasonable degree of administrative order, freedom can have little value.
  • Huntington quotes the mid-20th century American journalist, Walter Lippmann: "There is no greater necessity for men who live in communities than that they be governed, self-governed if possible, well-governed if they are fortunate, but in any event, governed."
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  • Huntington, who died in 2008, asserts that America has little to teach a tumultuous world in transition because Americans are compromised by their own "happy history."
  • Americans assume a "unity of goodness": that all good things like democracy, economic development, social justice and so on go together. But for many places with different historical experiences based on different geographies and circumstances that isn't always the case.
  • many countries in the developing world are saddled either with few institutions or illegitimate ones at that: so that they have to build an administrative order from scratch. Quite a few of the countries affected by the Arab Spring are in this category. So American advice is more dubious than supposed, because America's experience is the opposite of the rest of the world.
  • For the more complex a society is, the more that institutions are required. The so-called public interest is really the interest in institutions. In modern states, loyalty is to institutions. To wit, Americans voluntarily pay taxes to the Internal Revenue Service and lose respect for those who are exposed as tax cheaters.
  • For without institutions like a judiciary, what and who is there to determine what exactly is right and wrong, and to enforce such distinctions?
  • What individual Arabs and Chinese really want is justice. And justice is ultimately the fruit of enlightened administration.
  • How do you know if a society has effective institutions? Huntington writes that one way is to see how good their militaries are. Because societies that have made war well -- Sparta, Rome, Great Britain, America -- have also been well-governed. For effective war-making requires deep organizations, which, in turn, requires trust and predictability.
  • The ability to fight in large numbers is by itself a sign of civilization. Arab states whose regimes have fallen -- Egypt, Libya, Syria -- never had very good state armies. But sub-state armies in the Middle East -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Mehdi Army in Iraq, the various rebel groups in Syria and militias in Libya -- have often fought impressively. Huntington might postulate that this is an indication of new political formations that will eventually replace post-colonial states.
  • Huntington implies that today's instability -- the riotous formation of new institutional orders -- is caused by urbanization and enlightenment. As societies become more urbanized, people come into close contact with strangers beyond their family groups, requiring the intense organization of police forces, sewage, street lighting, traffic and so forth.
  • The main drama of the Middle East and China over the past half-century, remember, has been urbanization, which has affected religion, morals and much else. State autocrats have simply been unable to keep up with dynamic social change.
  • He writes that large numbers of illiterate people in a democracy such as India's can actually be stabilizing, since illiterates have relatively few demands; but as literacy increase, voters become more demanding, and their participation in democratic groupings like labor unions goes up, leading to instability. An India of more and more literate voters may experience more unrest.
  • As for corruption, rather than something to be reviled, it can be a sign of modernization, in which new sources of wealth and power are being created even as institutions cannot keep up. Corruption can also be a replacement for revolution. "He who corrupts a system's police officers is more likely to identify with the system than he who storms the system's police stations."
  • In Huntington's minds, monarchies, rather than reactionary, can often be more dedicated to real reform than modernizing dictatorships. For the monarch has historical legitimacy, even as he feels the need to prove himself through good works; while the secular dictator sees himself as the vanquisher of colonialism, and thus entitled to the spoils of power.
  • Huntington thus helps a little to explain why monarchs such as those in Morocco, Jordan and Oman have been more humane than dictators such as those in Libya, Syria and Iraq.
  • As for military dictatorships, Huntington adds several twists.
  • He writes, "In the world of oligarchy, the soldier is a radical; in the middle-class world he is a participant and arbiter; as the mass society looms on the horizon he becomes the conservative guardian of the existing order.
  • Thus, paradoxically but understandably," he goes on, "the more backward a society is, the more progressive the role of its military..." And so he explains why Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa underwent a plethora of military coups during the middle decades of the Cold War: The officer corps often represented the most enlightened branch of society at the time.
  • Americans see the military as conservative only because of our own particular stage of development as a mass society.
  • The logic behind much of Huntington's narrative is that the creation of order -- not the mere holding of elections -- is progressive.
  • Only once order is established can popular pressure be constructively asserted to make such order less coercive and more institutionally subtle.
  • Precisely because we inhabit an era of immense social change, there will be continual political upheaval, as human populations seek to live under more receptive institutional orders. To better navigate the ensuing crises, American leaders would do well to read Huntington, so as to nuance their often stuffy lectures to foreigners about how to reform.
  • anonymous on 31 Jul 13
     
    "In 1968, Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington published Political Order in Changing Societies. Forty-five years later, the book remains without question the greatest guide to today's current events. Forget the libraries of books on globalization, Political Order reigns supreme: arguably the most incisive, albeit impolite, work produced by a political scientist in the 20th century. If you want to understand the Arab Spring, the economic and social transition in China, or much else, ignore newspaper opinion pages and read Huntington."
anonymous

The Virtue of Subtlety: A U.S. Strategy Against the Islamic State - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...strategy-against-islamic-state

shared by anonymous on 09 Sep 14 - Cached
  • It is important for a president to know when he has no strategy. It is not necessarily wise to announce it, as friends will be frightened and enemies delighted.
  • A president must know what it is he does not know, and he should remain calm in pursuit of it, but there is no obligation to be honest about it.
  • Strategy is something that emerges from reality, while tactics might be chosen.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • Given the situation, the United States has an unavoidable strategy.
  • The United States has been concerned about the status of Russia ever since U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. The United States has been concerned about the Middle East since U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower forced the British to retreat from Suez in 1956. As a result, the United States inherited -- or seized -- the British position.
  • A national strategy emerges over the decades and centuries. It becomes a set of national interests into which a great deal has been invested, upon which a great deal depends and upon which many are counting. Presidents inherit national strategies, and they can modify them to some extent. But the idea that a president has the power to craft a new national strategy both overstates his power and understates the power of realities crafted by all those who came before him.
  • The American strategy is fixed: Allow powers in the region to compete and balance against each other. When that fails, intervene with as little force and risk as possible.
  • For example, the conflict between Iran and Iraq canceled out two rising powers until the war ended. Then Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened to overturn the balance of power in the region. The result was Desert Storm.
  • This strategy provides a model. In the Syria-Iraq region, the initial strategy is to allow the regional powers to balance each other, while providing as little support as possible to maintain the balance of power.
  • For the United States, there is no threat to sovereignty, but that makes the process harder: Great powers can tend to be casual because the situation is not existential. This increases the cost of doing what is necessary.
  • The American experience in Iraq highlighted the problems with counterinsurgency or being caught in a local civil war. The idea of major intervention assumes that this time it will be different. This fits one famous definition of insanity.
  • There is then the special case of the Islamic State. It is special because its emergence triggered the current crisis. It is special because the brutal murder of two prisoners on video showed a particular cruelty. And it is different because its ideology is similar to that of al Qaeda, which attacked the United States. It has excited particular American passions.
  • the fragmentation of Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions was well underway before the Islamic State, and jihadism was deeply embedded in the Sunni community a long time ago.
  • Finally, the Islamic State -- engaged in war with everyone around it -- is much less dangerous to the United States than a small group with time on its hands, planning an attack.
  • In any event, if the Islamic State did not exist, the threat to the United States from jihadist groups in Yemen or Libya or somewhere inside the United States would remain.
  • Because the Islamic State operates to some extent as a conventional military force, it is vulnerable to U.S. air power.
  • There is no reason not to bomb the Islamic State's forces and leaders. They certainly deserve it. But there should be no illusion that bombing them will force them to capitulate or mend their ways.
  • In the first place, is it really a problem for the United States? The American interest is not stability but the existence of a dynamic balance of power in which all players are effectively paralyzed so that no one who would threaten the United States emerges.
  • The United States does not have the force needed to occupy Iraq and Syria at the same time. The demographic imbalance between available forces and the local population makes that impossible.
  • The Turks are emerging as a regional power. Their economy has grown dramatically in the past decade, their military is the largest in the region, and they are part of the Islamic world. Their government is Islamist but in no way similar to the Islamic State, which concerns Ankara.
  • The United States must turn this from a balance of power between Syria and Iraq to a balance of power among this trio of regional powers. They have far more at stake and, absent the United States, they have no choice but to involve themselves. They cannot stand by and watch a chaos that could spread to them.
  • It is impossible to forecast how the game is played out. What is important is that the game begins.
  • The Turks do not trust the Iranians, and neither is comfortable with the Saudis. They will cooperate, compete, manipulate and betray, just as the United States or any country might do in such a circumstance.
  • The point is that there is a tactic that will fail: American re-involvement. There is a tactic that will succeed: the United States making it clear that while it might aid the pacification in some way, the responsibility is on regional powers. The inevitable outcome will be a regional competition that the United States can manage far better than the current chaos.
  • It is not clear why he thinks those NATO countries -- with the exception of Turkey -- will spend their national treasures and lives to contain the Islamic State, or why the Islamic State alone is the issue.
  • U.S. strategy is sound. It is to allow the balance of power to play out, to come in only when it absolutely must -- with overwhelming force, as in Kuwait -- and to avoid intervention where it cannot succeed.
  • In this case the tactic is not direct intervention by the United States, save as a satisfying gesture to avenge murdered Americans. But the solution rests in doing as little as possible and forcing regional powers into the fray, then in maintaining the balance of power in this coalition.
  • anonymous on 09 Sep 14
     
    "U.S. President Barack Obama said recently that he had no strategy as yet toward the Islamic State but that he would present a plan on Wednesday. It is important for a president to know when he has no strategy. It is not necessarily wise to announce it, as friends will be frightened and enemies delighted. A president must know what it is he does not know, and he should remain calm in pursuit of it, but there is no obligation to be honest about it."
anonymous

Turkey's Geographical Ambition - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...turkeys-geographical-ambition

geopolitics turkey

shared by anonymous on 01 May 13 - Cached
  • Erdogan and Putin are ambitious because they are men who unrepentantly grasp geopolitics.
  • Putin knows that any responsible Russian leader ensures that Russia has buffer zones of some sort in places like Eastern Europe and the Caucasus
  • Erdogan knows that Turkey must become a substantial power in the Near East in order to give him leverage in Europe.
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • Erdogan's problem is that Turkey's geography between East and West contains as many vulnerabilities as it does benefits. This makes Erdogan at times overreach. But there is a historical and geographical logic to his excesses.
  • The story begins after World War I.
  • Because Ottoman Turkey was on the losing side of that war (along with Wilhelmine Germany and Hapsburg Austria), the victorious allies in the Treaty of Sevres of 1920 carved up Turkey and its environs, giving territory and zones of influence to Greece, Armenia, Italy, Britain and France.
  • Kemalism willingly ceded away the non-Anatolian parts of the Ottoman Empire but compensated by demanding a uniethnic Turkish state within Anatolia itself. Gone were the "Kurds," for example. They would henceforth be known as "Mountain Turks." Gone, in fact, was the entire multicultural edifice of the Ottoman Empire.
  • Kemalism not only rejected minorities, it rejected the Arabic script of the Turkish language. Ataturk risked higher illiteracy rates to give the language a Latin script. He abolished the Muslim religious courts and discouraged women from wearing the veil and men from wearing fezzes.
  • Ataturk further recast Turks as Europeans
  • Kemalism was a call to arms: the martial Turkish reaction to the Treaty of Sevres, to the same degree that Putin's neo-czarism was the authoritarian reaction to Boris Yeltsin's anarchy of 1990s' Russia.
  • The problem was that Ataturk's vision of orienting Turkey so firmly to the West clashed with Turkey's geographic situation, one that straddled both West and East.
  • An adjustment was in order. Turgut Ozal, a religious Turk with Sufi tendencies who was elected prime minister in 1983, provided it.
  • Ozal spoke of a Turkey whose influence stretched from the Aegean to the Great Wall of China. In Ozal's mind, Turkey did not have to choose between East and West. It was geographically enshrined in both and should thus politically embody both worlds.
  • Ozal, two decades before Erdogan, saw Turkey as a champion of moderate Islam throughout the Muslim world, defying Ataturk's warning that such a pan-Islamic policy would sap Turkey's strength and expose the Turks to voracious foreign powers.
  • Ozal died abruptly in 1993, ushering in a desultory decade of Turkish politics marked by increasing corruption and ineffectuality on the part of Turkey's sleepy secular elite. The stage was set for Erdogan's Islamic followers to win an outright parliamentary majority in 2002.
  • one thing stands clear: Both Ozal and Erdogan were like two bookends of the period.
  • Rather than Ataturk's emphasis on the military, Erdogan, like Ozal, has stressed the soft power of cultural and economic connections to recreate in a benign and subtle fashion a version of the Ottoman Empire from North Africa to the Iranian plateau and Central Asia.
  • Remember that in the interpretation of one of the West's greatest scholars of Islam, the late Marshall G. S. Hodgson of the University of Chicago, the Islamic faith was originally a merchants' religion, which united followers from oasis to oasis, allowing for ethical dealing.
  • In Islamic history, authentic religious connections across the Middle East and the Indian Ocean world could -- and did -- lead to wholesome business connections and political patronage. Thus is medievalism altogether relevant to the post-modern world.
  • it is unclear that Turkey even has the political and military capacity to actualize such a vision.
  • Putin's Russia continues to exert significant influence in the Central Asian states and, through its invasion and subsequent political maneuverings in Georgia, has put Azerbaijan in an extremely uncomfortable position.
  • In Mesopotamia, Turkey's influence is simply unequal to that of far more proximate Iran. In Syria, Erdogan and his foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, thought -- incorrectly, it turns out -- that they could effectively mold a moderate Islamist Sunni opposition to replace President Bashar al Assad's Alawite regime.
  • The root of the problem is partly geographic.
  • Turkey constitutes a bastion of mountains and plateau, inhabiting the half-island of the Anatolian land bridge between the Balkans and the Middle East. It is plainly not integral to a place like Iraq, for example, in the way that Iran is; and its Turkic language no longer enjoys the benefit of the Arabic script, which might give it more cultural leverage elsewhere in the Levant. But most important, Turkey is itself bedeviled by its own Kurdish population, complicating its attempts to exert leverage in neighboring Middle Eastern states.
  • Turkey's southeast is demographically dominated by ethnic Kurds
  • The ongoing breakup of Syria potentially liberates Kurds there to join with radical Kurds in Anatolia in order to undermine Turkey.
  • Erdogan knows that he must partially solve the Kurdish problem at home in order to gain further leverage in the region.
  • He has even mentioned aloud the Arabic word, vilayet, associated with the Ottoman Empire. This word denotes a semi-autonomous province -- a concept that might hold the key for an accommodation with local Kurds but could well reignite his own nationalist rivals within Turkey.
  • Thus, his is a big symbolic step that seeks to fundamentally neutralize the very foundation of Kemalism
  • But given how he has already emasculated the Turkish military -- something few thought possible a decade ago -- one should be careful about underestimating Erdogan. His sheer ambition is something to behold. While Western elites ineffectually sneer at Putin, Erdogan enthusiastically takes notes when the two of them meet.
  • anonymous on 01 May 13
     
    "At a time when Europe and other parts of the world are governed by forgettable mediocrities, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister for a decade now, seethes with ambition. Perhaps the only other leader of a major world nation who emanates such a dynamic force field around him is Russia's Vladimir Putin, with whom the West is also supremely uncomfortable."
anonymous

Letter from Kurdistan | Stratfor - 3 views

www.stratfor.com/...letter-kurdistan

shared by anonymous on 11 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The armies fought to the limits of their empires and, after a series of wars culminating in the Treaty of Zuhab of 1639, the Zagros Mountains came to define the borderland between the Ottomans and Persians, with the Kurds stuck in the middle.
  • The Turkic-Persian competition is again being fought in Kurdistan, only this time, energy pipelines have taken the place of gilded cavalry.
  • Roughly 25 million Kurds occupy a region that stretches from the eastern Taurus Mountains in Turkey through the Jazira Plateau of northeastern Syria across the mountains and plateaus of southeastern Anatolia before dead-ending into the northern spine of the Zagros Mountains, which divide Iran and Iraq.
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • This is a territory spread across four nations with bitter histories and a shared commitment to prevent Kurdish aspirations for independence from eroding their territorial integrity.
  • the Kurds remained too divided and weak to become masters of their own fate able to establish a sovereign Kurdish homeland.
  • But unique circumstances over the past decade enabled a politically coherent Iraqi Kurdistan to temporarily defy its own history and inch toward quasi-independence.
  • The chain of events began with the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein.
  • His attempts to eradicate Iraq's Kurdish population through chemical attacks in the Anfal campaign of the late 1980s and other aggressions in the region eventually led to the creation of a U.S.-imposed no-fly zone in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.
  • Iraq's Kurdish leadership put aside their differences to form the Kurdistan Regional Government
  • When U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, a nervous Kurdistan looked to energy firms as their next-best insurance policy.
  • as tensions with Baghdad grew over the distribution of energy revenues, the Iraqi Kurds unexpectedly found a sponsor in Ankara.
  • a new strategy toward its Kurdish population. Instead of suppressing Kurdish autonomy with an iron fist, Ankara went from regarding Kurds as confused "mountain Turks" to recognizing Kurdish language and cultural rights and launching its most ambitious peace negotiation to date with the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
  • The Iranian regime was busy defending its allies in Syria and Lebanon while trying to manage a highly antagonistic relationship with the United States.
  • A cooperative Ankara, a weak Damascus, a preoccupied Tehran, an overwhelmed Baghdad and a host of anxious investors formed the ingredients for an audacious pipeline project.
  • When the pipeline quietly skirted past the power plant it was supposed to feed, underwent a conversion to transport oil and began heading northward to Turkey, the secret was out: Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government were working to circumvent Baghdad and independently export Kurdish energy.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 11 Dec 13
       
      This gets my vote for a future 'proximal cause' of a regional dispute that has yet to flourish.
  • As the pipeline construction progressed, Kurdish peshmerga forces continued spreading beyond formal Kurdistan Regional Government boundaries in disputed areas and held their ground against demoralized Iraqi army forces.
  • And in the name of guarding against a real and persistent jihadist threat, Kurdish forces built deep, wide ditches around the city of Arbil and are now building one around the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk, marking the outer bounds of a slowly expanding Kurdish sphere of influence.
  • We have now arrived at the question of when, and not if, Kurdish oil will flow to Turkey without Baghdad's consent.
  • Turkey has put itself in a position where it can receive 250,000 to 300,000 barrels per day of crude from Iraqi Kurdistan
  • Plans are quietly being discussed to build another parallel line on the Turkish side to Ceyhan to completely divorce the pipeline infrastructure from any claims by Baghdad.
  • The speed and cunning with which the pipeline was completed demand respect, even -- however reluctantly -- from an outraged Baghdad.
  • Iran and the United States are both serious about reaching a strategic rapprochement in their long-hostile relationship. Though there will be obstacles along the way, the foundation for a U.S.-Iranian detente has been laid.
  • For now, the United States is trying to avoid becoming entangled in this political morass, prioritizing its negotiation with Iran while publicly maintaining a "one Baghdad, one Iraq" policy.
  • the sharpest tools Iran and its allies in Baghdad have to undermine Turkey's alliance with the Kurdistan Regional Government are the Kurds themselves.
  • The past decade of Kurdish unity between Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is highly anomalous and arguably temporary.
  • On the surface, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan have united their peshmerga forces into a single, unified ministry. In reality, the political lines dividing Peshmerga forces remain sharper than ever.
  • One does not even have to reach far back in history to get a sense of just how deep Kurdish rivalries can run. The Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan were engaged in an all-out civil war from 1994 to 1996 that arose from a property dispute.
  • the Kurdistan Democratic Party reached out to Ankara for assistance, while the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan took help from Iran and even Saddam Hussein.
  • But matters of territorial integrity, financial sovereignty and nationalism are not easily trifled with at the intersection of empires.
  • "you know … we have a saying here. Kurdistan is a tree. After a long time, we grow tall, we become full of green leaves and then the tree shrivels and becomes bare. Right now, our leaves are green. Give it enough time. This tree won't die, but our leaves will fall to the ground again."
  • anonymous on 11 Dec 13
     
    "At the edge of empires lies Kurdistan, the land of the Kurds. The jagged landscape has long been the scene of imperial aggression. For centuries, Turks, Persians, Arabs, Russians and Europeans looked to the mountains to buffer their territorial prizes farther afield, depriving the local mountain dwellers a say in whose throne they would ultimately bow to."
anonymous

The Limits of Public Opinion: Arabs, Israelis and the Strategic Balance - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...israelis_and_strategic_balance

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 08 Jun 10 - Cached
  • The question has now become whether substantial consequences will follow from the incident. Put differently, the question is whether and how it will be exploited beyond the arena of public opinion.
  • the probability of an effective, as opposed to rhetorical, shift in the behavior of powers outside the region is unlikely. At every level, Israel’s Arab neighbors are incapable of forming even a partial coalition against Israel. Israel is not forced to calibrate its actions with an eye toward regional consequences, explaining Israel’s willingness to accept broad international condemnation.
  • On one side is Fatah, which dominates the West Bank. On the other side is Hamas, which dominates the Gaza Strip. Aside from the geographic division of the Palestinian territories — which causes the Palestinians to behave almost as if they comprised two separate and hostile countries — the two groups have profoundly different ideologies.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • Fatah arose from the secular, socialist, Arab-nationalist and militarist movement
  • Hamas arose from the Islamist movement.
  • at some point, Fatah will try to undermine the political gains the flotilla has offered Hamas.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 08 Jun 10
       
      This clearly qualifies as a prediction. Will await confirmation.
  • divergent opinions among what used to be called the confrontation states surrounding Israel — Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
  • Egypt, for example, is directly hostile to Hamas, a religious movement amid a sea of essentially secular Arab states.
  • Jordan views Fatah with deep distrust.
  • Syria is far more interested in Lebanon than it is in the Palestinians.
  • the Saudis and other Arabian Peninsula regimes remember the threat that Nasser and the PLO posed to their regimes.
  • Fatah doesn’t trust the Iranians, and Hamas, though a religious movement, is Sunni while Iran is Shiite.
  • Under these circumstances, the Israelis see the consequences of actions that excite hostility toward Israel from the Arabs and the rest of the world as less dangerous than losing control of Gaza.
  • A single point sums up the story of Israel and the Gaza blockade-runners: Not one Egyptian aircraft threatened the Israeli naval vessels, nor did any Syrian warship approach the intercept point. The Israelis could be certain of complete command of the sea and air without challenge. And this underscores how the Arab countries no longer have a military force that can challenge the Israelis, nor the will nor interest to acquire one. Where Egyptian and Syrian forces posed a profound threat to Israeli forces in 1973, no such threat exists now. Israel has a completely free hand in the region militarily; it does not have to take into account military counteraction.
  • And while the break between Turkey and Israel is real, Turkey alone cannot bring significant pressure to bear on Israel beyond the sphere of public opinion and diplomacy because of the profound divisions in the region.
  • The most significant threat to Israel is not world opinion; though not trivial, world opinion is not decisive. The threat to Israel is that its actions will generate forces in the Arab world that eventually change the balance of power. The politico-military consequences of public opinion is the key question, and it is in this context that Israel must evaluate its split with Turkey.
  • Egypt is the center of gravity of the Arab world, the largest country and formerly the driving force behind Arab unity. It was the power Israel feared above all others. But Egypt under Mubarak has shifted its stance versus the Palestinians, and far more important, allowed Egypt’s military capability to atrophy.
  • Turkey’s emerging power combined with a political shift in the Arab world could represent a profound danger to Israel.
  • The Israelis are calculating that these actions will not generate a long-term shift in the strategic posture of the Arab world.
  • If they are wrong about this, recent actions will have been a significant strategic error.
  • If they are right, then this is simply another passing incident.
anonymous

Iran's Nuclear 'Red Line' - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0100818_irans_nuclear_red_line

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 19 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Should Iran break International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards at Bushehr, it could conceivably divert and begin to reprocess spent nuclear fuel for use in a nuclear device.
  • While the fueling of Bushehr may be an important milestone, it is not a recent or surprising development. The project dates back more than 35 years to a deal between the German company Siemens and the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
  • Israel and the United States obviously are opposed to Bushehr coming on line, but the idea that Iran is about to cross a red line misunderstands the issue.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The problem is that such thresholds only apply when an entity is willing and capable of enforcing them — regardless of the consequences.
  • North Korea, though far from a robust nuclear power, was not stopped from crossing the nuclear red line.
  • No one was willing to risk Seoul in exchange for a risky and uncertain attempt to prevent the emergence of a few crude North Korean atomic devices.
  • Thus far, Iran has fallen on the same side of the cost-benefit equation.
  • it would require an extensive air campaign to even attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and there is considerable uncertainty about whether such a campaign would even be successful in that regard, rather than simply setting the program back a few years.
  • If Bushehr was Osirak in Iraq in 1981 or a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007, Israel would have destroyed it long ago. But Bushehr is not in Iraq or Syria, and it is not the heart of Iran’s nuclear efforts.
  • So far, Washington has declined to attack Iran — for reasons that have nothing at all to do with the timetable for Bushehr becoming operational.
  • anonymous on 19 Aug 10
     
    "If media reports are to be believed, the clock is ticking for Israel or the United States to destroy Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, Iran's first atomic power generation facility, because fueling of the reactor begins on Saturday." At StratFor on August 19, 2010
anonymous

The Regional Implications of Ahmadinejad's Trip to Lebanon - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ions_ahmadinejads_trip_lebanon

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 13 Oct 10 - Cached
  • Israel does not have much to worry about with respect to Iran’s efforts to consolidate its influence on Israel’s northern border. The same, however, cannot be said of the region’s Sunni Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. These states have more to fear from Iran than does Israel.
  • Since the fall of the Baathist regime in Iraq and the subsequent rise of an Iranian-leaning Shia-dominated state, however, the Arab states have been terrified of Iranian power. King Abdullah II of Jordan in 2004 articulated this view when he spoke of the emergence of a “Shia crescent” stretching from Iran to Lebanon in the Middle East.
  • anonymous on 13 Oct 10
     
    "The extent to which Iran is able to project power into the Levant depends upon Hezbollah maintaining the upper hand in Lebanon. Even though it wields far more power than Lebanon's military, the radical Shia Islamist movement faces a number of challenges to its aim of dominating the Lebanese state. First, Lebanese demographic reality provides for sufficient arrestors in terms of rival sectarian, religious, ideological and political factions. Second, and more important, is the unique role of overseer enjoyed by Syria in the multi-confessional state. " At StratFor on October 13, 2010.
anonymous

Arab Leaders Fear Coup Contagion - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ab-leaders-fear-coup-contagion

geopolitics arab

shared by anonymous on 18 Jan 11 - Cached
  • In less than a month, the act of self-immolation, which is the technical term for lighting oneself on fire, has gone from something virtually unheard of in the Arab world to a regularly occurring event. It was the spark for the Tunisian protests last December, and since a copycat in the same country on Jan. 5, there have been at least seven additional cases of self-immolation recorded in Algeria, Mauritania and Egypt.
  • Arab countries that don’t have the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf states are constrained economically from being able to spend much on social development, but they will seek ways to do so nonetheless, in efforts to garner good faith among those they see as most likely to revolt.
  • anonymous on 18 Jan 11
     
    "Individuals in three North African countries committed self-immolation on Monday, as Arab governments across the wider region sought to stem the potential for contagion generated by the recent popular uprising in Tunisia, which itself began with an act of self-immolation on Dec. 17. From Syria to Kuwait to Egypt and beyond, ruling regimes are looking inward and trying to pre-empt their discontented masses from coalescing into a threat to their rule."
anonymous

The Israeli Periphery - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...israeli-periphery

shared by anonymous on 11 Dec 12 - Cached
  • Security, in the Israeli sense, is thus often characterized in terms of survival. And for Israel to survive, it needs just the right blend of geopolitical circumstance, complex diplomatic arrangements and military preparedness to respond to potential threats nearby. Over the past 33 years, a sense of complacency settled over Israel and gave rise to various theories that it could finally overcome its dependency on outside powers. But a familiar sense of unease crept back into the Israeli psyche before any of those arguments could take root. A survey of the Israeli periphery in Egypt, Syria and Jordan explains why.
  • To Israel's southwest lies the Sinai Desert. This land is economically useless; only hardened Bedouins who sparsely populate the desert expanse consider the terrain suitable for living. This makes the Sinai an ideal buffer.
  • Its economic lifelessness gives it extraordinary strategic importance in keeping the largest Arab army -- Egypt's -- at a safe distance from Israeli population centers. It is the maintenance of this buffer that forms the foundation of the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Over the past month, the military's role in this new Muslim Brotherhood-run Egypt quietly revealed itself.
  • There will be plenty of noise and confusion in the lead-up to the Dec. 15 referendum as the secular, anti-Muslim Brotherhood civilian opposition continues its protests against Morsi. But filter through that noise, and one can see that the military and the Muslim Brotherhood appear to be adjusting slowly to a new order of Nasserite-Islamist rule.
  • Unlike the 1979 peace treaty, this working arrangement between the military and the Islamists is alive and temperamental. Israel can find some comfort in seeing that the military remains central to the stability of the Egyptian state and will thus likely play a major role in protecting the Sinai buffer. However, merely observing this dance between the military and the Islamists from across the desert is enough to unnerve Israel and justify a more pre-emptive military posture on the border.
  • Israel lacks a good buffer to its north. The most natural, albeit imperfect, line of defense is the Litani River in modern-day Lebanon, with a second line of defense between Mount Hermon and the Sea of Galilee. Modern-day Israel encompasses this second barrier, a hilly area that has been the target of sporadic mortar shelling from Syrian government forces in pursuit of Sunni rebels.
  • Israel does not face a conventional military threat to its north, nor will it for some time.
  • It is only a matter of time before Alawite forces will have to retreat from Damascus and defend themselves against a Sunni majority from their coastal enclave. The conflict will necessarily subsume Lebanon, and the framework that Israel has relied on for decades to manage more sizable, unconventional threats like Hezbollah will come undone.
  • Somewhere along the way, there will be an internationally endorsed attempt to prop up a provisional government and maintain as much of the state machinery as possible to avoid the scenario of a post-U.S. invasion Iraq. But when decades-old, sectarian-driven vendettas are concerned, there is cause for pessimism in judging the viability of those plans. Israel cannot avoid thinking in terms of worst-case scenarios, so it will continue to reinforce its northern defenses ahead of more instability.
  • The vulnerability that the Hashemites felt as a foreign entity in charge of economically lackluster terrain created ideal conditions for Israel to protect its eastern approach.
  • In short, the Hashemites were vulnerable enough for Israel to be considered a useful security partner but not so vulnerable that Israel couldn't rely on the regime to protect its eastern approach.
  • That arrangement is now under considerable stress. The Hashemites are facing outright calls for deposition from the same tribal East Bankers, Palestinians and Islamists that for decades formed the foundation of the state.
  • the state itself is weakening under the pressure of high oil prices
  • In this fluctuating strategic environment, Israel cannot afford to be isolated politically. Its need for a power patron will grow alongside its insecurities in its periphery. Israel's current patron, the United States, is also grappling with the emerging Islamist order in the region. But in this new regional dynamic, the United States will eventually look past ideology in search of partners to help manage the region.
  • As U.S.-Turkish relations in recent years and the United States' recent interactions with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood reveal, it will be an awkward and bumpy experience while Washington tries to figure out who holds the reins of power and which brand of Islamists it can negotiate with amid messy power transitions. This is much harder for Israel to do independently by virtue of ideology, size and location.
  • The irony is that while Israel is a western-style democracy, it was most secure in an age of Arab dictatorships. As those dictatorships give way to weak and in some cases crumbling states, Israeli survival instincts will again be put to the test.
  • anonymous on 11 Dec 12
     
    "The state of Israel has a basic, inescapable geopolitical dilemma: Its national security requirements outstrip its military capabilities, making it dependent on an outside power. Not only must that power have significant military capabilities but it also must have enough common ground with Israel to align its foreign policy toward the Arab world with that of Israel's. These are rather heavy requirements for such a small nation."
anonymous

U.S.: What the Sequester Will Do to the Military - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...hat-sequester-will-do-military

shared by anonymous on 01 Mar 13 - Cached
  • The current continuing resolution that Congress is using to fund the entire government until March 27 has already affected U.S. forces.
  • Although Stratfor typically does not examine domestic U.S. issues, this one is geopolitically significant.
  • The U.S. military, and particularly the Navy, is the most powerful force projection instrument in the world. When the sequester takes effect, it will immediately reduce military spending by 8 percent, with more than $500 billion in cuts to defense spending over 10 years divided equally among the military branches.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • It is not the overall amount of the reductions that is damaging, necessarily; it is the way in which the cuts will be implemented. The across-the-board cuts required by the sequestration coupled with the limits set by the continuing resolution are constraining budget planners' options in how to absorb the spending reductions and thus are damaging all the military branches, programs, training, deployments and procurement.
  • Just the threat of continued budget reductions has had an immediate effect on the military's readiness. The Navy decided not to deploy a second carrier to the Persian Gulf, backing down from its standard of two carriers in the region. Instead, the second carrier will serve in a surge capacity for the immediate future. The other branches have extended the deployments of units already in theaters and delayed others from rotating in as replacements since it is relatively less expensive to have units stay in place than move them and their equipment intercontinentally.
  • Maintenance budgets across the forces have been reduced or suspended in anticipation of cuts. Training of all non-deploying forces who are not critical to the national strategic forces is also being heavily curtailed.
  • These options were chosen because they are immediate cost-saving measures that can be reversed quickly as opposed to the big-budget procurement programs, in which changes can cause delays for years.
  • Any given military platform, from a Stryker armored vehicle to an aircraft carrier, requires a lot of money in order to be ready for use at any time at its intended level of performance. These platforms require consistent use to maintain a certain readiness level because machines cannot sit idle for months to years and then operate effectively, if at all, especially if called on for immediate action.
  • Moreover, the people that operate this equipment need to maintain their working knowledge and operational skill through continued use. This use causes wear and tear on the platform and requires consistent maintenance. All of this is necessary just to maintain the status quo. In the end, there must be a balance between a platform's readiness level and the amount of funding required for operations and maintenance, but if the money is no longer available there is no choice but to reduce readiness.
  • For example, the Navy has said it is considering suspending operations of four of its nine carrier air wings while shutting down four of its carriers in various stages of the operations and maintenance process. This would essentially give the United States one carrier deployed with one on call for years. This will be sufficient if the world remains relatively quiet, but one large emergency or multiple small ones would leave the United States able to project limited force compared to previous levels.
  • Procurement cycles are very slow and take decades to implement; for instance, the Navy that the United States wants to have in 20 years is being planned now.
  • The U.S. military has a global presence, and sequestration would have appreciable effects on this in certain areas. Potentially, the hardest hit region will be the Pacific, which has been the focus of the United States' new strategy.
  • The single biggest capability gap that will develop will be the U.S. military's surge capacity. If the Syria-Iraq-Lebanon corridor were to become more unstable, the United States will not be able to respond with the same force structure it had in the past. The U.S. military can still shift its assets to different regions to attain its strategic goals, but those assets will come from a smaller resource pool, and shifting them will lessen the presence in some other region. The military's ability to use one of its softer political tools -- joint military exercises -- will also be at risk.
  • This is not to say that the U.S. military will be wrecked immediately or that its condition is anywhere near that of the Russian military in the 1990s. A military's effectiveness is measured against its potential opponents, and the United States has enjoyed a large gap for decades.
  • Funding cuts are not necessarily abnormal for the United States while winding down into a postwar stance. Historically, the pattern has been a reduction in spending and retrenchment of a large volume of forces from abroad. However, Pentagon planners typically go into a postwar period with the stated goal of not damaging the force through these cuts and reductions. 
  • anonymous on 01 Mar 13
     
    "Sequestration, the automatic spending reductions scheduled to take effect March 1, will affect the U.S. military's ability to project force around the world. The current continuing resolution that Congress is using to fund the entire government until March 27 has already affected U.S. forces. The longer these funding cuts continue, the more degradation the U.S. military will incur, with longer-lasting effects. "
anonymous

Impacts of Missile Defense Cuts on U.S.-Russian Relations | Stratfor - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ense-cuts-us-russian-relations

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 19 Mar 13 - Cached
  • There are several possible reasons for the move, most notably U.S. hopes for a thaw in tensions with Russia, which fiercely opposes the entire missile defense plan. Washington needs Moscow to cooperate on a range of issues, and talks between the two countries have stalled in recent months. But while the decision to scrap the fourth phase of the plan could lead to progress in negotiations, the move will not assuage all of Russia's concerns about the U.S. missile shield in Europe. Various disputes will remain unresolved between Washington and Moscow and continue to preclude a long-elusive comprehensive reset in U.S.-Russian relations.
  • The original plan called for deployment of shorter- and medium-range interceptors in the first three phases and longer-range interceptors in the fourth phase.
  • The first phase, which involved radar stations in Turkey and ship-based missile defense systems in the Mediterranean, has already been implemented.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • During the second and third phases, more-advanced interceptors capable of targeting short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles would be deployed to Romania by 2015 and Poland by 2018.
  • In the fourth phase, the longer-range SM-3 Block IIB missiles would be deployed in Romania and Poland around 2022.
  • Compared to its predecessors in the Standard Missile-3 line, the SM-3 Block IIB would have enhanced seeking capabilities and a more powerful booster
  • This is why the SM-3 Block IIB faced fierce opposition from Russia, which sees the interceptor as a possible threat to its own strategic nuclear missile arsenal.
  • U.S. defense officials insist that the cancellation of the missile defense plan's final phase had nothing to do with Russia but was rather motivated by technological and budgetary factors.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 19 Mar 13
       
      "nothing to do with Russia" should be in quotes. :Clears throat:
  •  In an era of defense budget cuts, funding for the risky program became harder to justify. But regardless of Washington's exact reasons for the changes, they address at least some of Russia's concerns over the U.S. missile defense plans.
  • The White House would like to continue to reduce the stockpiles of nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States beyond the limits imposed by the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which places a ceiling on the number of deployed delivery systems and strategic warheads possessed by each country. To achieve this, the White House needs Russian participation in order to withstand opposition to the treaty from national security hawks in Congress.
  • Washington also wants Russian cooperation in a number of other issues, including the Iranian nuclear program and the conflict in Syria. The United States also needs to secure access to the Northern Distribution Network, the primary logistical route into Afghanistan, which will be critical to the U.S. withdrawal over the next two years.
  • Initial Russian reactions to the U.S. announcement have been less than optimistic. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, for example, said the move was not a concession, and Russia still objects to the parts of the overall plan that remain.
  • Moreover, the United States may decide to focus on a different intercontinental ballistic missile defense system that would still provoke objections from the Russians. On March 15, for example, Hagel also announced plans to deploy 14 additional ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, -- missiles theoretically capable of defending against intercontinental ballistic missiles, although the program's development and deployment have been marred by numerous failed tests. The apparent demise of the SM-3 Block IIB could also lead to the deployment of additional missile defense systems along the U.S. East Coast.
  • Hagel said that the U.S. commitment to defending Europe remains ironclad, and other U.S. officials have been quick to emphasize that the first three phases of the European Phased Adaptive Approach remain in place and on track to cover all European NATO members by 2018.
  • The U.S. military presence in Poland and Romania will continue to be an obstacle in U.S.-Russian relations.
  • So while the changes to the U.S. missile defense plan address a key issue for Russia, they do not resolve all of Moscow's concerns -- especially those related to developments in missile defense technology or the continued stationing of U.S. forces in Russia's near abroad.
  • anonymous on 19 Mar 13
     
    "The United States appears to be scaling back its ballistic missile shield efforts in Central Europe. On March 15, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that the United States would cancel the fourth phase of its European Phased Adaptive Approach missile defense plan and "restructure" the Standard Missile-3 Block IIB program -- a highly advanced interceptor expected to shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Essentially, Hagel was announcing that development of the interceptor, a central component part of the fourth phase, would be scrapped."
anonymous

The World Through Putin's Eyes - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...world-through-putins-eyes

shared by anonymous on 05 Jun 13 - Cached
  • Russia's flat topography affords little natural protection and is therefore bereft of natural borders. Land powers, as they have no seas to protect them, are more insecure than island nations and continents like the United States and Great Britain.
  • But Russia is particularly insecure.
  • Putin knows, therefore, that Russia cannot rule Eastern Europe. But he does require a degree of diplomatic and economic acquiescence in order to keep countries like Poland and Romania hobbled.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Putin is happy that Russia's geography grants him access to massive natural gas deposits, as well as the pathways to export that natural gas to Europe, particularly to Eastern Europe. This provides him with economic and, thus, political leverage over former Warsaw Pact states. But he is nervous.
  • Countries by the Baltic Sea are building or planning to build regasification plants that will allow them to import natural gas in liquid form from other parts of the world, thereby undermining Russia's energy monopoly in Eastern Europe. Then there are the shale gas deposits in Poland and Ukraine that might further increase the energy options of those geopolitical bellwether countries. Putin needs to be a worrier.
  • Are they aware that when I took power there was political chaos and criminal anarchy, with ordinary Russians robbed of their dignity? In Putin's mind, he restored a large measure of order -- without which no progress is possible in the first place. And whatever his numerous faults, he is painfully aware that he is not in total control.
  • American journalists, politicians and government officials must drive Putin to distraction. They assault him on moral grounds. After all, "He is a dictator!" they say. "He tolerates and even encourages corruption and rampant thuggery!" But do they know I am dealing with Russia -- not with the United States? Putin must think.
  • Putin wants a discussion with the Americans based on geopolitical interests, not values.
  • The Communists required totalitarianism to exercise real control. But he is no mass murderer like Stalin; he is not relocating whole populations to Siberia. He is just a ruler with strong autocratic tendencies, something common to Russia. What do the Americans want of me! Why do they interfere with my domestic affairs through the support of these human rights organizations? And, by the way, don't the Americans realize that toppling Bashar al Assad in Syria might mean a worse human rights situation there; not a better one?
  • President Richard Nixon went to China to negotiate with Mao Zedong because it was in America's interest to do so; the fact that Mao had just killed millions in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was not an over riding detail. So where is my Nixon? Putin must think.
  • The Russian Far East, an area roughly twice the size of Europe, has a paltry population of fewer than 7 million that may fall to fewer than 5 million in coming decades.
  • But geography dictates that Russia's alliance with China is mainly tactical. While Russia is delivering increasing amounts of oil (and probably natural gas soon, too) to China, something for which Beijing is grateful, the two giant nations share long borders in the Far East and in Central Asia that through the centuries have been volatile.
  • on the other side of the border Russia faces a population of 100 million people in Chinese Manchuria. Resource acquisition is the principal goal of Chinese foreign policy, and the Russian Far East is rich in reserves of natural gas, oil, timber, diamonds and gold.
  • Unless China itself implodes -- a possibility but not a probability -- China must be seen as a long-range threat to Russia.
  • Nixon would understand Russia's geopolitical insecurities and partially assuage them, in order to gain some leverage over China, just as four decades ago he had moved closer to China in order to gain some leverage over Russia.
  • Were the United States to give Russia more leeway in the Caucasus and Central Asia -- rather than trying to compete with Russia in those regions -- Russia might find ingenious ways to make China more nervous along its land borders. And that, in turn, would make China somewhat less able to devote so much of its energy to projecting power in the Pacific Basin, where it threatens American allies.
  • None of this would remotely fall into the category of aggressive or irresponsible international behavior, mind you. Trying to adjust the global balance of power in one's favor is a perennial goal of statesmanship.
  • In 1972, the American media praised Nixon for going to China and negotiating with a mass murderer. Now the same media would not let President Barack Obama go to Moscow to negotiate with a normal autocrat unless he delivers scolding lectures on human rights.
  • But even if Obama intellectually realizes such truths and opportunities, the public policy climate in the United States is not that of the Cold War, which would have allowed for a broader dynamic between Washington and Moscow to each side's mutual benefit. The result is that China profits, to the endless frustration of Putin. As for the United States, it gains little advantage in the outcome.
  • anonymous on 05 Jun 13
     
    "Few people comprehend Russia's vulnerabilities like its leader, Vladimir Putin. He must try to govern a country that extends through nearly half the longitudes of the earth but that has fewer people than Bangladesh. What's more, Russia's population is declining, not increasing. All the Arctic seas to Russia's north are ice-blocked many months of the year, so with the exception of its Far East, Russia is essentially a landlocked nation. "
anonymous

Anarchy and Hegemony - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...anarchy-and-hegemony

shared by anonymous on 17 Apr 13 - Cached
  • Everyone loves equality: equality of races, of ethnic groups, of sexual orientations, and so on. The problem is, however, that in geopolitics equality usually does not work very well. For centuries Europe had a rough equality between major states that is often referred to as the balance-of-power system. And that led to frequent wars
  • East Asia, by contrast, from the 14th to the early 19th centuries, had its relations ordered by a tribute system in which China was roughly dominant. The result, according to political scientist David C. Kang of the University of Southern California, was a generally more peaceful climate in Asia than in Europe.
  • The fact is that domination of one sort or another, tyrannical or not, has a better chance of preventing the outbreak of war than a system in which no one is really in charge
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 17 Apr 13
       
      That is quite the statement. On the surface, it *feels* true. Let's see the follow-through.
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • Columbia University's Kenneth Waltz, arguably America's pre-eminent realist, says that the opposite of "anarchy" is not stability, but "hierarchy."
  • Hierarchy eviscerates equality; hierarchy implies that some are frankly "more equal" than others, and it is this formal inequality -- where someone, or some state or group, has more authority and power than others -- that prevents chaos. For it is inequality itself that often creates the conditions for peace.
  • Government is the most common form of hierarchy.
  • It is a government that monopolizes the use of violence in a given geographical space, thereby preventing anarchy. To quote Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher, only where it is possible to punish the wicked can right and wrong have any practical meaning, and that requires "some coercive power."
  • The best sort of inequality is hegemony.
  • Whereas primacy, as Kang explains, is about preponderance purely through military or economic power, hegemony "involves legitimation and consensus."
  • That is to say, hegemony is some form of agreed-upon inequality, where the dominant power is expected by others to lead.
  • When a hegemon does not lead, it is acting irresponsibly.
  • hegemony has a bad reputation in media discourse.
  • But that is only because journalists are confused about the terminology, even as they sanctimoniously judge previous historical eras by the strict standards of their own. In fact, for most of human history, periods of relative peace have been the product of hegemony of one sort or another. And for many periods, the reigning hegemonic or imperial power was the most liberal, according to the standards of the age.
  • Rome, Venice and Britain were usually more liberal than the forces arranged against them.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 17 Apr 13
       
      I call BULLSHIT on the Rome thing. There is some strong evidence that they were quite lacking in human rights relative their northern Gaulish neighbors (which they smashed to claim their gold mines).
  • There are exceptions, of course, like Hapsburg Spain, with its combination of inquisition and conquest. But the point is that hegemony does not require tyrannical or absolutist rule.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 17 Apr 13
       
      I'll buy it. I remember how John Green noted that the Greek city states won a war against the Persians - who had abolished slavery and had greater rights of expression for the multiplicity of ethnicities within their borders.
  • there are few things messier in geopolitics than the demise of an empire.
  • The collapse of the Hapsburgs, of the Ottoman Turks, of the Soviet Empire and the British Empire in Asia and Africa led to chronic wars and upheavals. Some uncomprehending commentators remind us that all empires end badly. Of course they do, but that is only after they have provided decades and centuries of relative peace.
  • Obviously, not all empires are morally equivalent.
  • Therefore, I am saying only in a general sense is order preferable to disorder.
  • Though captivating subtleties abound: For example, Napoleon betrayed the ideals of the French Revolution by creating an empire, but he also granted rights to Jews and Protestants and created a system of merit over one of just birth and privilege.
  • In any case, such order must come from hierarchal domination.
  • Indeed, from the end of World War II until very recently, the United States has performed the role of a hegemon in world politics. America may be democratic at home, but abroad it has been hegemonic.
  • That is, by some rough measure of international consent, it is America that has the responsibility to lead. America formed NATO in Europe, even as its Navy and Air Force exercise preponderant power in the Pacific Basin. And whenever there is a humanitarian catastrophe somewhere in the developing world, it is the United States that has been expected to organize the response.
  • Periodically, America has failed. But in general, it would be a different, much more anarchic world without American hegemony.
  • But that hegemony, in some aspects, seems to be on the wane. That is what makes this juncture in history unique.
  • When it comes to the Greater Middle East, Americans seem to want protection on the cheap, and Obama is giving them that. 
  • We will kill a terrorist with a drone, but outside of limited numbers of special operations forces there will be no boots on the ground for Libya, Syria or any other place.
  • Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were noted for American leadership and an effective, sometimes ruthless foreign policy.
  • Since the Cold War ended and Bill Clinton became president, American leadership has often seemed to be either unserious, inexpertly and crudely applied or relatively absent.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 17 Apr 13
       
      Yeah, that pussy Clinton, who couldn't get UN support for the Balkans and then proceeded to move through Nato. Sure, it was airstrikes and logistics, but it was no equivocal. Whether you like the action or not. ::raspberry:: [citation needed]
  • Nevertheless, in the case of the Middle East, do not conflate chaos with democracy. Democracy itself implies an unequal, hierarchal order, albeit one determined by voters. What we have in the Middle East cannot be democracy because almost nowhere is there a new and sufficiently formalized hierarchy. No, what we have in many places in the Middle East is the weakening of central authority with no new hierarchy to adequately replace it.
  • Unless some force can, against considerable odds, reinstitute hierarchy -- be it an American hegemon acting globally, or an international organization acting regionally or, say, an Egyptian military acting internally -- we will have more fluidity, more equality and therefore more anarchy to look forward to.
  • anonymous on 17 Apr 13
     
    "Everyone loves equality: equality of races, of ethnic groups, of sexual orientations, and so on. The problem is, however, that in geopolitics equality usually does not work very well. For centuries Europe had a rough equality between major states that is often referred to as the balance-of-power system. And that led to frequent wars. "
anonymous

The Elections, Gridlock and Foreign Policy - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ns-gridlock-and-foreign-policy

shared by anonymous on 07 Nov 12 - Cached
  • The national political dynamic has resulted in an extended immobilization of the government. With the House -- a body where party discipline is the norm -- under Republican control, passing legislation will be difficult and require compromise. Since the Senate is in Democratic hands, the probability of it overriding any unilateral administrative actions is small. Nevertheless, Obama does not have enough congressional support for dramatic new initiatives, and getting appointments through the Senate that Republicans oppose will be difficult.
  • I am not sure that the current political climate is what was meant by the people disciplining themselves, but it is clear that the people have imposed profound limits on this government. Its ability to continue what is already being done has not been curbed, but its ability to do much that is new has been blocked.
  • The gridlock sets the stage for a shift in foreign policy that has been under way since the U.S.-led intervention in Libya in 2011. I have argued that presidents do not make strategies but that those strategies are imposed on them by reality. Nevertheless, it is always helpful that the subjective wishes of a president and necessity coincide, even if the intent is not the same.
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  • I have made the case that the United States emerged as the only global power in 1991, when the Soviet Union fell. It emerged unprepared for its role and uncertain about how to execute it.
  • The first phase consisted of a happy but illusory period in which it was believed that there were no serious threats to the United States.
  • This was replaced on 9/11 with a phase of urgent reaction, followed by the belief that the only interest the United States had was prosecuting a war against radical Islamists.
  • Both phases were part of a process of fantasy.
  • During the last half of the past decade, the inability to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with economic problems, convinced reasonable people that the United States had entered an age of permanent decline. The sort of power the United States has does not dissipate that fast.
  • The defeated challenger in the U.S. election, Mitt Romney, had a memorable and important turn of phrase when he said that you can't kill your way out of the problems of the Middle East. The point that neither Romney nor Obama articulated is what you do instead in the Middle East -- and elsewhere.
  • The American strategy of the past years of inserting insufficient force to defeat an enemy that could be managed by other means, and whose ability to harm the United States was limited, would not have been the policy of the British Empire. Nor is it a sustainable policy for the United States. When war comes, it must be conducted with overwhelming force that can defeat the enemy conclusively. And war therefore must be rare because overwhelming force is hard to come by and enemies are not always easy to beat. The constant warfare that has characterized the beginning of this century is strategically unsustainable.
  • The U.S. treatment of Syria is very different.
  • Having provided what limited aid was required to destabilize the Syrian government, the United States was content to let the local balance of power take its course.
  • It is not clear whether Obama saw the doctrine I am discussing -- he certainly didn't see it in Libya, and his Syrian policy might simply have been a reaction to his miscalculations in Libya. But the subjective intentions of a leader are not as important as the realities he is responding to, however thoughtfully or thoughtlessly. It was clear that the United States could not continue to intervene with insufficient forces to achieve unclear goals in countries it could not subdue.
  • Nor could the United States withdraw from the world. It produces almost one-quarter of the world's GDP; how could it?
  • One of the hardest things for a young empire to master is the principle that, for the most part, there is nothing to be done. That is the phase in which the United States finds itself at the moment.
  • It is coming to terms not so much with the limits of power as the nature of power. Great power derives from the understanding of the difference between those things that matter and those that don't, and a ruthless indifference to those that don't. It is a hard thing to learn, but history is teaching it to the United States.
  • The gridlock which this election has given the U.S. government is a suitable frame for this lesson. While Obama might want to launch major initiatives in domestic policy, he can't. At the same time, he seems not to have the appetite for foreign adventures. It is not clear whether this is simply a response to miscalculation or a genuine strategic understanding, but in either case, adopting a more cautious foreign policy will come naturally to him.
  • This will create a framework that begins to institutionalize two lessons: First, it is rarely necessary to go to war, and second, when you do go to war, go with everything you have. Obama will follow the first lesson, and there is time for the second to be learned by others. He will practice the studied indifference that most foreign problems pose to the United States.
  • Obama will disappoint, but it is not Obama. Just as the elections will paralyze him domestically, reality will limit his foreign policy. Immobilism is something the founders would have been comfortable with, both in domestic politics and in foreign policy. The voters have given the republic a government that will give them both.
  • anonymous on 07 Nov 12
     
    "The United States held elections last night, and nothing changed. Barack Obama remains president. The Democrats remain in control of the Senate with a non-filibuster-proof majority. The Republicans remain in control of the House of Representatives."
anonymous

Egypt: The Dangers and Limits of Intensifying Violence - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...d-limits-intensifying-violence

shared by anonymous on 08 Jul 13 - Cached
  • It is not entirely clear what led to the shooting, with the military reporting that pro-Morsi "terrorists" sought to climb the walls of the Republican Guards headquarters where Morsi is being held and the Brotherhood claiming that the attack was unprovoked. The Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, called for a general uprising in Egypt and called on the international community to intervene to prevent further "massacres." The military also closed the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters, claiming that stockpiled weapons were found inside.
  • The Brotherhood understands that it is unlikely to be able to restore the Morsi presidency and is thus trying to create a situation in which the military cannot impose a new political order.
  • Such a strategy involves weeks, if not months, of civil unrest, which entails considerable risks. Though the Brotherhood is a well-disciplined organization, some of its elements could be radicalized by the Morsi ouster and the clashes that have been taking place since.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Indeed, al Qaeda-style jihadists who have long condemned democracy as un-Islamic are seizing upon Morsi's ouster to reiterate that the Muslim Brotherhood's participation in mainstream politics cannot succeed, and change can only be brought about through armed struggle, as in Syria.
  • This is a problem for both the Brotherhood and its opponents, as neither wants jihadists to exploit their enmity.
  • it is unlikely that transnational jihadists will be able to steer Egypt toward a civil war like Algeria's during the 1990s or post-Arab Spring Syria's. That said, Egypt is likely to see its share of violence (in many cases in the form of militant attacks) as a result of many other factors.
  • With the Brotherhood's senior leadership in jail, the mainstream Islamist movement may not be able to control the unrest it is currently fomenting. Jihadist forces, realizing that the window of opportunity for them is narrow, would like to prevent any compromise between the military and the Brotherhood in the short term. Therefore, the duration and intensity of the crisis in Egypt will depend upon the Brotherhood and the military's ability (or lack thereof) to reach a political compromise.
  • anonymous on 08 Jul 13
     
    "The latest deadly clashes in Cairo are likely to undermine the Egyptian military's plans for the country and push it toward greater violence. The political unrest in Egypt sparked by the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi worsened when at least 42 supporters of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood were killed and another 300 were wounded in a confrontation with security forces outside the Republican Guards officers' club July 8."
anonymous

War and Bluff: Iran, Israel and the United States - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...-iran-israel-and-united-states

geopolitics iran israel united states

shared by anonymous on 12 Sep 12 - Cached
  • The Israeli and American positions are intimately connected, but the precise nature of the connection is less clear. Israel publicly casts itself as eager to strike Iran but restrained by the United States, though unable to guarantee it will respect American wishes if Israel sees an existential threat emanating from Iran. The United States publicly decries Iran as a threat to Israel and to other countries in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, but expresses reservations about military action out of fears that Iran would respond to a strike by destabilizing the region and because it does not believe the Iranian nuclear program is as advanced as the Israelis say it is.
  • The Israelis have less tolerance for risk than the Americans, who have less tolerance for the global consequences of an attack.
  • From the Iranian point of view, a nuclear program has been extremely valuable. Having one has brought Iran prestige in the Islamic world and has given it a level of useful global political credibility.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • Having countries like Russia and China unwilling to see Iran crushed has helped. Iran can survive sanctions.
  • A failed military action would benefit Iran, proving its power. By contrast, a successful attack that dramatically delayed or destroyed Iran's nuclear capability would be a serious reversal.
  • Although the United States hailed Stuxnet as a major success, it hardly stopped the Iranian program, if the Israelis are to be believed. In that sense, it was a failure.
  • The principle of mutual assured destruction, which stabilized the U.S.-Soviet balance in the Cold War, would govern Iran's use of nuclear weapons. If Iran struck Israel, the damage would be massive, forcing the Iranians to assume that the Israelis and their allies (specifically, the United States) would launch a massive counterattack on Iran, annihilating large parts of Iran's population.
  • It is here that we get to the heart of the issue. While from a rational perspective the Iranians would be fools to launch such an attack, the Israeli position is that the Iranians are not rational actors and that their religious fanaticism makes any attempt to predict their actions pointless. Thus, the Iranians might well accept the annihilation of their country in order to destroy Israel in a sort of megasuicide bombing. The Israelis point to the Iranians' rhetoric as evidence of their fanaticism. Yet, as we know, political rhetoric is not always politically predictive. In addition, rhetoric aside, Iran has pursued a cautious foreign policy, pursuing its ends with covert rather than overt means. It has rarely taken reckless action, engaging instead in reckless rhetoric.
  • Herein lies the root of the great Israeli debate that pits the Netanyahu government, which appears to regard Iran as irrational, against significant segments of the Israeli military and intelligence communities, which regard Iran as rational.
  • Assuming the Iranians are rational actors, their optimal strategy lies not in acquiring nuclear weapons and certainly not in using them, but instead in having a credible weapons development program that permits them to be seen as significant international actors.
  • Up to this point, the Iranians have not even fielded a device for testing, let alone a deliverable weapon.
  • For all their activity, either their technical limitations or a political decision has kept them from actually crossing the obvious redlines and left Israel trying to define some developmental redline.
  • Both want to appear more fearsome than either is actually willing to act.
  • The Iranian strategy has been to maintain ambiguity on the status of its program, while making it appear that the program is capable of sudden success -- without ever achieving that success. The Israeli strategy has been to appear constantly on the verge of attack without ever attacking and to use the United States as its reason for withholding attacks, along with the studied ambiguity of the Iranian program.
  • If a country can develop nuclear weapons, there is no reason it can't develop hardened and dispersed sites and create enough ambiguity to deprive Israeli and U.S. intelligence of confidence in their ability to determine what is where.
  • I am reminded of the raid on Son Tay during the Vietnam War. The United States mounted an effort to rescue U.S. prisoners of war in North Vietnam only to discover that its intelligence on where the POWs were located was completely wrong. Any politician deciding whether to attack Iran would have Son Tay and a hundred other intelligence failures chasing around their brains, especially since a failed attack on Iran would be far worse than no attack.
  • Dispersed sites reduce Israel's ability to strike hard at a target and to acquire a battle damage assessment that would tell Israel three things:
  • first, whether the target had been destroyed when it was buried under rock and concrete; second, whether the target contained what Israel thought it contained; and third, whether the strike had missed a backup site that replicated the one it destroyed.
  • if the Israelis had an ultrasecret miracle weapon, postponing its use might compromise its secrecy. I suspect that if they had such a weapon, they would have used it by now.
  • The Americans emphasize these points, but they are happy to use the Israeli threats to build pressure on the Iranians. The United States wants to undermine Iranian credibility in the region by making Iran seem vulnerable. The twin forces of Israeli rhetoric and sanctions help make Iran look embattled. The reversal in Syria enhances this sense. Naval maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz add to the sense that the United States is prepared to neutralize Iranian counters to an Israeli airstrike, making the threat Israel poses and the weakness of Iran appear larger.
  • When we step back and view the picture as a whole, we see Iran using its nuclear program for political reasons but being meticulous not to make itself appear unambiguously close to success.
  • We see the Israelis talking as if they were threatened but acting as if they were in no rush to address the supposed threat.
  • And we see the Americans acting as if they are restraining Israel, paradoxically appearing to be Iran's protector even though they are using the Israeli threat to increase Iranian insecurity.
  • It is the U.S.-Israeli byplay that is most fascinating. On the surface, Israel is driving U.S. policy. On closer examination, the reverse is true. Israel has bluffed an attack for years and never acted. Perhaps now it will act, but the risks of failure are substantial. If Israel really wants to act, this is not obvious.
  • Speeches by politicians do not constitute clear guidelines.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Sep 12
       
      No kidding.
  • Rather than seeing Netanyahu as trying to force the United States into an attack, it is more useful to see Netanyahu's rhetoric as valuable to U.S. strategy. Israel and the United States remain geopolitically aligned. Israel's bellicosity is not meant to signal an imminent attack, but to support the U.S. agenda of isolating and maintaining pressure on Iran. That would indicate more speeches from Netanyahu and greater fear of war. But speeches and emotions aside, intensifying psychological pressure on Iran is more likely than war.
  • anonymous on 12 Sep 12
     
    "For the past several months, the Israelis have been threatening to attack Iranian nuclear sites as the United States has pursued a complex policy of avoiding complete opposition to such strikes while making clear it doesn't feel such strikes are necessary. At the same time, the United States has carried out maneuvers meant to demonstrate its ability to prevent the Iranian counter to an attack -- namely blocking the Strait of Hormuz. While these maneuvers were under way, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said no "redline" exists that once crossed by Iran would compel an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The Israeli government has long contended that Tehran eventually will reach the point where it will be too costly for outsiders to stop the Iranian nuclear program."
anonymous

The American Public's Indifference to Foreign Affairs - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...s-indifference-foreign-affairs

shared by anonymous on 18 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • At different times, lesser events have transfixed Americans. This week, Americans seemed to be indifferent to all of them. This may be part of a cycle that shapes American interest in public affairs.
  • The United States was founded as a place where private affairs were intended to supersede public life.
  • Public service was intended less as a profession than as a burden to be assumed as a matter of duty -- hence the word "service."
  • ...32 more annotations...
  • In many European countries, the state is at the center of many of the activities that shape private life, but that is less true in the United States.
  • The American public is often most active in public affairs when resisting the state's attempts to increase its presence, as we saw with health care reform. When such matters appear settled, Americans tend to focus their energy on their private lives, pleasures and pains. 
  • Of course, there are times when Americans are aroused not only to public affairs but also to foreign affairs. That is shaped by the degree to which these events are seen as affecting Americans' own lives.
  • There is nothing particularly American in this. People everywhere care more about things that affect them than things that don't.
  • People in European or Middle Eastern countries, where another country is just a two-hour drive away, are going to be more aware of foreign affairs. Still, they will be most concerned about the things that affect them.
  • The United States' geography, obviously, shapes American thinking about the world. The European Peninsula is crowded with peoples and nation-states. In a matter of hours you can find yourself in a country with a different language and religion and a history of recent war with your own. Americans can travel thousands of miles using their own language, experiencing the same culture and rarely a memory of war. Northwestern Europe is packed with countries. The northeastern United States is packed with states.
  • Passing from the Netherlands to Germany is a linguistic, cultural change with historical memories. Traveling from Connecticut to New York is not.
  • American interest is cyclical, heavily influenced by whether they are affected by what goes on. After 9/11, what happened in the Islamic world mattered a great deal. But even then, it went in cycles.
  • It's not that Americans are disinterested in foreign affairs, it's that their interest is finely calibrated. The issues must matter to Americans, so most issues must carry with them a potential threat.
  • The outcome must be uncertain, and the issues must have a sufficient degree of clarity so that they can be understood and dealt with. Americans may turn out to have been wrong about these things in the long run, but at the time, an issue must fit these criteria
  • Context is everything. During times of oil shortage, events in Venezuela might well have interested Americans much more than they did last week. During the Cold War, the left-wing government in Venezuela might have concerned Americans. But advancements in technology have increased oil and natural gas production in the United States. A left-wing government in Venezuela is simply another odd Latin government, and the events of last week are not worth worrying about. The context renders Venezuela a Venezuelan problem.
  • It is not that Americans are disengaged from the world, but rather that the world appears disengaged from them. At the heart of the matter is geography.
  • The American reality is that most important issues, aside from Canada and Mexico, take place across the ocean, and the ocean reasonably is seen as a barrier that renders these events part of a faraway realm.
  • During the Cold War, Americans had a different mindset. They saw themselves in an existential struggle for survival with the communists.
  • One thing that the end of the Cold War and the subsequent 20 years taught the United States was that the world mattered -- a mindset that was as habitual as it was reflective of new realities.
  • Starting in the late 1980s, the United States sent troops to Panama, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Kuwait. The American public was engaged in all of these for a variety of reasons, some of them good, some bad. Whatever the reasoning, there was a sense of clarity that demanded that something be done.
  • After 9/11, the conviction that something be done turned into an obsession. But over the past 10 years, Americans' sense of clarity has become much more murky, and their appetite for involvement has declined accordingly.
  • More recently, the standards for justifying either type of intervention have become more exacting to policymakers. Syria was not a matter of indifference, but the situation lacked the clarity that justified intervention.
  • The United States seemed poised to intervene and then declined. The American public saw it as avoiding another overseas entanglement with an outcome that could not be shaped by American power.
  • We see the same thing in Ukraine. The United States cannot abide a single power like Russia dominating Eurasia. That would create a power that could challenge the United States. There were times that the Ukrainian crisis would have immediately piqued American interest. While some elements of the U.S. government, particularly in the State Department, did get deeply involved, the American public remained generally indifferent.
  • From a geopolitical point of view, the future of Ukraine as European or Russian helps shape the future of Eurasia. But from the standpoint of the American public, the future is far off and susceptible to interference.
  • (Americans have heard of many things that could have become a major threat -- a few did, most didn't.)
  • This is disconcerting from the standpoint of those who live outside the United States. They experienced the United States through the Cold War, the Clinton years and the post-9/11 era. The United States was deeply involved in everything. The world got used to that.
  • I spoke to a foreign diplomat who insisted the United States was weakening. I tried to explain that it is not weakness that dictates disengagement but indifference. He couldn't accept the idea that the United States has entered a period in which it really doesn't care what happens to his country.
  • The diplomat had lived in a time when everything mattered and all problems required an American position. American indifference is the most startling thing in the world for him.
  • This was the position of American isolationists of the early 20th century.
  • The isolationist period was followed, of course, by the war and the willingness of the United States to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty," in the words of John F. Kennedy. Until very recently, that sweeping statement was emblematic of U.S. foreign policy since 1941.
  • The current public indifference to foreign policy reflects that shift. But Washington's emerging foreign policy is not the systematic foreign policy of the pre-World War II period. It is an instrumental position, which can adapt to new circumstances and will likely be changed not over the course of decades but over the course of years or months.
  • The sense that private life matters more than public is intense, and that means that Americans are concerned with things that are deemed frivolous by foreigners, academics and others who make their living in public and foreign policy.
  • They care about some things, but are not prepared to care about all things.
  • Whether this sentiment is good or bad is debatable. To me, it is simply becoming a fact to be borne in mind. I would argue that it is a luxury, albeit a temporary one, conferred on Americans by geography.
  • Americans might not be interested in the world, but the world is interested in Americans. Until this luxury comes to an end, the United States has ample assistant secretaries to give the impression that it cares.
  • anonymous on 18 Feb 14
     
    "Last week, several events took place that were important to their respective regions and potentially to the world. Russian government officials suggested turning Ukraine into a federation, following weeks of renewed demonstrations in Kiev. The Venezuelan government was confronted with violent and deadly protests. Kazakhstan experienced a financial crisis that could have destabilized the economies of Central Asia. Russia and Egypt inked a significant arms deal. Right-wing groups in Europe continued their political gains. "
anonymous

Exclusive Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State - 0 views

billmoyers.com/...anatomy-of-the-deep-state

shared by anonymous on 23 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The conventional wisdom has it that partisan gridlock and dysfunction have become the new normal.
  • But it is also imperative to acknowledge the limits of this critique as it applies to the American governmental system.
  • the present objective of congressional Republicans is to render the executive branch powerless, at least until a Republican president is elected
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Democrats controlling the Senate have responded by weakening the filibuster of nominations, but Republicans are sure to react with other parliamentary delaying tactics.
  • This strategy amounts to congressional nullification of executive branch powers by a party that controls a majority in only one house of Congress.
  • Despite this apparent impotence, President Obama can liquidate American citizens without due processes, detain prisoners indefinitely without charge, conduct dragnet surveillance on the American people without judicial warrant and engage in unprecedented — at least since the McCarthy era — witch hunts against federal employees (the so-called “Insider Threat Program”).
  • Despite the habitual cant of congressional Republicans about executive overreach by Obama, the would-be dictator, we have until recently heard very little from them about these actions
  • These are not isolated instances of a contradiction; they have been so pervasive that they tend to be disregarded as background noise.
  • During the time in 2011 when political warfare over the debt ceiling was beginning to paralyze the business of governance in Washington, the United States government somehow summoned the resources to overthrow Muammar Ghaddafi’s regime in Libya
  • At a time when there was heated debate about continuing meat inspections and civilian air traffic control because of the budget crisis, our government was somehow able to commit $115 million to keeping a civil war going in Syria and to pay at least £100m to the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters to buy influence over and access to that country’s intelligence.
  • Since 2007, two bridges carrying interstate highways have collapsed due to inadequate maintenance of infrastructure, one killing 13 people. During that same period of time, the government spent $1.7 billion constructing a building in Utah that is the size of 17 football fields. This mammoth structure is intended to allow the National Security Agency to store a yottabyte of information, the largest numerical designator computer scientists have coined.
  • My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.”
  • That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched.
  • Cultural assimilation is partly a matter of what psychologist Irving L. Janis called “groupthink,” the chameleon-like ability of people to adopt the views of their superiors and peers.
  • A more elusive aspect of cultural assimilation is the sheer dead weight of the ordinariness of it all once you have planted yourself in your office chair for the 10,000th time.
  • Government life is typically not some vignette from an Allen Drury novel about intrigue under the Capitol dome. Sitting and staring at the clock on the off-white office wall when it’s 11:00 in the evening and you are vowing never, ever to eat another piece of takeout pizza in your life is not an experience that summons the higher literary instincts of a would-be memoirist.
  • The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department.
  • I also include the Department of the Treasury because of its jurisdiction over financial flows, its enforcement of international sanctions and its organic symbiosis with Wall Street.
  • All these agencies are coordinated by the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council.
  • anonymous on 23 Feb 14
     
    Bill Moyers: "There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power."
anonymous

U.S. and Iranian Realities - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...us-and-iranian-realities

shared by anonymous on 01 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Though the Iranians are now in a weak strategic position, they had been on the offensive since 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq.
  • They welcomed the invasion; Saddam Hussein had been a mortal enemy of Iran ever since the 1980-1989 Iran-Iraq War. The destruction of his regime was satisfying in itself, but it also opened the door to a dramatic shift in Iran's national security situation.
  • Iraq was Iran's primary threat after the collapse of the Soviet Union because it was the only direction from which an attack might come.
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • The United States came to realize that it was threatened from two directions, and it found itself battling both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias. The purpose of the surge in 2007 was to extricate itself from the war with the Sunnis and to block the Shia.
  • It succeeded with the former to a great extent, but it was too late in the game for the latter.
  • Iran thus came to have nothing to fear from Iraq, and could even dominate it. This was a tremendous strategic victory for Iran, which had been defeated by Iraq in 1989.
  • With Iraq contained and the United States withdrawing from the region, Saudi Arabia emerged as Iran's major challenger. Tehran now had the pieces in place to challenge Riyadh.
  • Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had fairly realistic visions of Iranian power along Saudi Arabia's northern border, completely changing the balance of power in the region.
  • The Russians also liked the prospect of a strengthened Iran.
  • First, they were fighting Sunnis in the northern Caucasus.
  • Second, an Iranian sphere of influence not only would threaten Saudi Arabia, it also would compel the United States to re-engage in the region to protect Saudi Arabia and Israel.
  • Creating a strategic crisis for the United States thus suited Moscow's purposes.
  • In 2009, it had appeared extremely likely that an Iran loosely aligned with Russia would enjoy a sphere of influence north of Saudi Arabia.
  • By 2013, this vision was shattered, and with it the more grandiose strategic vision of Ahmadinejad and his allies in Iran.
  • It was Stratfor's view that Iran had less interest in actually acquiring a nuclear weapon than in having a program to achieve one.
  • Possessing a handful of nuclear weapons would be a worst-case scenario for Iran, as it might compel massive attacks from Israel or the United States that Iran could not counter.
  • But having a program to develop one, and making it credible, gave the Iranians a powerful bargaining chip and diverted U.S. and Israeli attention from the growing Iranian sphere of influence.
  • ernally, opposition to any accommodation with the United States was strong. But so was the sense that Ahmadinejad had brought disaster on Iran strategically and economically.
  • There is profound domestic opposition in the United States to dealing with the Iranian regime. Just as the Iranians still genuinely resent the 1953 coup that placed the shah on the throne, the Americans have never forgotten the seizure of the U.S. Embassy and the subsequent yearlong hostage crisis.
  • We must now wait and see what language Iran will craft regarding the hostage crisis to reciprocate the courtesy of Obama's acknowledging the 1953 coup.
  • It has interests in the region, however, and chief among those are avoiding the emergence of a regional hegemon that might destabilize the Middle East.
  • It needs a way to manage the Islamic world without being in a constant state of war.
  • A weakened Iran needs support in its fight with the Sunnis. The United States is interested in ensuring that neither the Sunni nor the Shia win -- in other words, in the status quo of centuries.
  • Having Iran crumble internally therefore is not in the American interest, since it would upset the internal balance.
  • While sanctions were of value in blocking Iranian ascendancy, in the current situation stabilizing Iran is of greater interest.
  • The United States cannot proceed unless the nuclear program is abandoned. Rouhani understands that, but he must have and end to sanctions and a return of Western investment to Iran in exchange.
  • There are two threats to a potential resolution.
  • The primary threat is domestic. In both countries, even talking to each other seems treasonous to some.
  • In Iran, economic problems and exhaustion with grandiosity opens a door. In the United States right now, war is out of the question. And that paves the way to deals unthinkable a few years ago.
  • A second threat is outside interference.
  • Israel comes to mind
  • Saudi Arabia meanwhile will be appalled at a U.S.-Iranian deal.
  • The Russian position will be more interesting.
  • Syria was a tactical victory for them; Iran would be a strategic defeat.
  • The Iranian and American realities argue for a settlement. The psyche of both countries is in the balance.
  • But given how the Iranians and Americans see their positions, the odds are, that something will happen. In my book, The Next Decade, I argued that in the long run Iran and the United States have aligning interests and that an informal alliance is likely in the long run. This isn't the long run yet, and the road will be bumpy, but the logic is there.
  • anonymous on 01 Oct 13
     
    "U.S. President Barack Obama called Iranian President Hassan Rouhani last week in the first such conversation in the 34 years since the establishment of the Islamic Republic. The phone call followed tweets and public statements on both sides indicating a willingness to talk. Though far from an accommodation between the two countries, there are reasons to take this opening seriously -- not only because it is occurring at such a high level, but also because there is now a geopolitical logic to these moves. Many things could go wrong, and given that this is the Middle East, the odds of failure are high. But Iran is weak and the United States is avoiding conflict, and there are worse bases for a deal."
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