China's grand Indo-Pacific strategy

The genesis of China’s grand Indo-Pacific strategy could be seen in what has been called as its four successive grand strategies since the modern country was formed in 1949: the ‘Revolution’ (1949-77); recovery (1978-89); building comprehensive national power (1990-2003); and rejuvenation (2004 to the present). All through these phases of strategies, three core interests can be discerned security, sovereignty and development. The current being “National Rejuvenation” is the grand strategy of President Xi Jinping is designed to advance China to glory via his “China Dream”. Xi has the desire for a Communist-controlled China that is well-governed, socially stable, economically prosperous, technologically advanced and militarily powerful by 2050 even though it is based on “socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.” 

In recent years, Beijing has been more overtly ambitious and bolder in pursuing its grand strategy with greater attention to the global context. Nevertheless the Chinese Communist Party’s primary goal remains focused in the domestic arena, on China’s periphery and in the Indo-Pacific. In other words, the regime’s priorities continue to be largely regional. It is within the Indo-Pacific that Beijing looks to establish spheres of influence and create what amount to “no-go” areas where the military forces of other great powers – notably US Armed Forces – are unable to deploy or employ without exposing themselves to grave risk.

Read more at: China's grand Indo-Pacific strategy | European Times

Global Politics - China’s Dangerous Double Game in North Korea

A new administration in Washington faces a familiar problem: North Korea is once again testing missiles, including ballistic missiles, in contravention of a UN Security Council resolution. Rather than retread dead-end paths, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to think anew on North Korea, and it has already distinguished itself from its predecessor by signaling that it will consult with U.S. allies and partners to formulate a strong response to Pyongyang that does not rule out diplomacy.

Such a reorientation is welcome. But if the new administration really wants to move the needle on North Korea, it will need to rethink the assumptions it has inherited about China’s role there. So far, the Biden team has cleaved to the long-held view that the United States and China share a common interest in the nuclear disarmament of North Korea and that U.S. policy there must make use of Beijing’s tremendous influence over the government in Pyongyang. During his visit to Seoul last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted that “Beijing has an interest, a clear self-interest, in helping to pursue the denuclearization of [North Korea] because it is a source of instability.” Blinken further paid tribute to China’s “critical role" and “unique relationship" with North Korea.

Read more at: FSI - China’s Dangerous Double Game in North Korea

Global Politics: You Can Have Peace Or The US Empire. You Can’t Have Both - by Caitlin Johnstone

 Just in the last few days Israel has reportedly dropped cluster munitions and white phosphorus on southern Lebanon, bombed Gaza, and fired missiles on Damascus, because Israel is a nation whose existence depends on unceasing military violence.

In order for Israel to continue existing as the imperialist apartheid state that it is, it needs to wage war in all directions at all times, both against its neighbors and against the increasingly brutalized Palestinian population. If the bombings end, so too does Israel as we know it, because the regional population will never stand for its oppression, tyranny, and multiple illegal occupations.

Peace and Israel are therefore two mutually exclusive concepts. You can have peace or you can have today's Israel; you can't have both.

A nation that cannot exist without ceaseless war is not actually a nation at all: it's an ongoing military operation with some suburbs and schools mixed in. A nation that cannot exist without constant war is like a house that can't exist without constant construction: if your house needed 24/7/365 construction work in order to remain standing, you'd either completely redesign the way it's built or you would move.

This is true of Israel, and on a larger scale it is true of the globe-spanning, empire-like oligarchic world order that is loosely centralized around the United States.

This US-centralized empire, of which Israel is a part, is entirely dependent upon endless war for survival. If military violence ceased to be a tool which power structures could use to enact their agendas, this empire would necessarily cease to exist, because there'd be nothing to stop nations from exercising their sovereignty on the world stage. Currencies, resources and commerce would begin moving along completely different channels.

This would bring an end not just to the US empire, but to the United States as we know it. Without the ability to bully and punish the world into alignment with its agendas, the US, if it continued to exist at all to any extent, would be completely unrecognizable. Whatever remained would be forced to develop a completely different kind of economy, because the US attained its economic supremacy not by means of the "free market" as some capitalism cultists like to imagine, but by rivers of human blood.

The US "economy", if you can even call it that, is upheld not just by an incomprehensible web of debt and bureaucratic fiat, but by a petrodollar agreement on arms manufacturing and military alliances, by endless acts of mass-scale brutality, and by the most sophisticated propaganda machine ever to exist. The United States of America is built on war, is made of war, and is sustained by war. If the wars end, America as we know it ends.

We cannot continue as we have. Our species will either drastically transform its behavior or it will go extinct. Time to take a leap into the unknown, and take a chance on peace. Be among the first to take the plunge.

 Read more at:
You Can Have Peace Or The US Empire. You Can’t Have Both. | Scoop News

Global politics: A pandemic of power grabs - Autocrats see opportunity in disaster

The world is distracted and the public need saving. It is a strongman’s dream

Read more at:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/04/23/autocrats-see-opportunity-in-disaster?fsrc=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-economist-today&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2020-04-24&utm_content=article-link-1

Global Politics: The United States’ global power is slipping away as its contempt for others fuels the decline of the West

The annual Munich Security Conference that took place February 14-16 this year turned out to be an iconic event, drawing comparison with the one held in the same Bavarian city on February 10, 2007, where in a prophetic speech Russian President Vladimir Putin had criticized the world order characterized by the United States’ global hegemony and its “almost uncontained hyper use of force—military force—in international relations.”

If Putin’s 2007 Munich speech was prescient about an incoming new Cold War and the surge of tensions in Russia’s relations with the West, 13 years later, at the event this year, we witnessed that the transatlantic ties that evolved through the two world wars in the last century and blossomed into a full-fledged alliance system have reached a crossroads.

Deep cracks have appeared in the transatlantic relationship. In an extraordinary opening address, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, an éminence grise in European diplomacy, accused Washington of rejecting “the very concept of an international community.”

Steinmeier acknowledged that there is no return to the halcyon days of close transatlantic partnership, as Europe and the U.S. are drifting away from each other. He warned, “If the European project fails, the lessons of German history, but perhaps also European history, will be called into question.”

Having said that, Steinmeier did not advocate that Europe could go it alone, either. Rather, “only a Europe that can and wants to protect itself credibly will be able to keep the U.S. in the alliance.”

But he regretted that “Europe is no longer as vital to the U.S. as it used to be. We must guard against the illusion that the United States’ dwindling interest in Europe is solely down to the current administration… For we know that this shift began a while ago, and it will continue even after this administration.”

The theme of European independence—Europe becoming a sovereign, strategic and political power—was also the leitmotif of a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron who brought a rare dynamism into the European debate, fighting spiritedly for a common European foreign and security policy. The German policymakers have signaled broad agreement with Macron’s idea that Europe must take charge of its own destiny.

In contrast, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had earlier insisted that the talk about the demise of the West is “grossly exaggerated,” and, in fact, “the West is winning. We are collectively winning. We are doing it together.”

Meanwhile, two subplots that kept appearing in the discussions were, one, the continued relevance of multilateralism in the international system and, two, deep anxiety over the current global security environment.

Read more at: The United States’ global power is slipping away as its contempt for others fuels the decline of the West – Alternet.org

Global Politics: China and Russia Are Getting Along Better Than Ever, the U.S. Has Only Made It Easier for Them - by Tom O'Connor

 China and Russia have forged a strategic partnership that has only grown tighter as the United States tried to curb their geopolitical rise — it's far from a perfect relationship, but experts say they appear determined at improving it as they seek to expedite a global economic shift to the East.

Moscow and Beijing's history lends itself to complex ties between two geopolitical powerhouses that have both worked with and against one another in the modern era. Today, they find themselves at the dawn of what many analysts are calling a multipolar world in which Washington feels its post-Cold War dominance is threatened, and that may just be the case, but only if working together remained in its two top challengers' best interests.

Velina Tchakarova, head of the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy, coined the term "Dragonbear" back in 2015 to describe what at the time was still an emerging trend. She told Newsweek that this "is neither an alliance nor a marriage of convenience, but rather a temporary asymmetric relationship, in which China is predominantly the agenda-maker while Russia is mostly the agenda-taker."

In this dynamic, "China provides the liquidity and Russia provides the natural resources and the necessary know-how in key fields such as diplomacy, defense, space, etc.," Tchakrova said, adding that "a new connectivity is being explored and expanded such as in the Arctic, Central Asia and beyond to balance the U.S.-dominated global supply chains."

"The Dragonbear is about counterbalancing arising centrifugal forces in all fields — from global economy, finance and trade, to diplomacy and political links, to military, defense and strategic alliances," she added. "But it also has a lot to do with the countries' overlapping understanding that the world is in a system transformation, whose results are unpredictable and whose implications might be very dangerous for them."

Read more: China and Russia Are Getting Along Better Than Ever, the U.S. Has Only Made It Easier for Them

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Global politics: Nine elections around the globe to watch in 2019

Continuity or change? 9 elections around the globe to watch in 2019

Read more at : 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/world-elections-2019-1.4968234

Global Politics: America’s Anxiety of Influence – by Stephen Walt

David Ignatius at the Washington Post recently published an interesting column ruing the decline of U.S. “influence” in the Middle East. His central theme is that U.S. “disengagement” from the region is allowing local actors to chart their own courses, and that many of them are now making bad decisions.

In his view, the prospects for positive change in the region are receding and that we will all be worse off as a result.

It’s a thoughtful column and worth reading. It’s also a revealing one, because it rests on one of those unspoken assumptions that are articles of faith in the U.S. foreign-policy community. Specifically, it suggests that U.S. influence is always a good thing and that its diminution (whether by accident or by design) is something to mourn.

But if you’ve been paying attention to the results of U.S. policy over the past quarter-century—especially in the Middle East but also in some other places—that position may not be the hill you want to die defending.

Look, it’s easy to understand why American foreign-policy elites like having lots of “influence.” To some degree it’s unavoidable. The United States is still the 800-pound gorilla in the international system and other global actors will inevitably pay close attention to whatever Uncle Sam is doing. For foreign-policy practitioners, having lots of influence and being fully engaged is also a heady experience; it means foreign governments will take your calls, treat you with deference and respect when you visit, and sometimes they follow your advice (or at least pretend to). If you’re in the foreign-policy business, it’s a helluva a lot more gratifying to represent the United States than to be out there pitching on behalf of a small or weak country whose voice does not carry.

To be clear: I understand why our foreign-policy elites worry (constantly!) about declining U.S. influence, and I can even see how that might be a bad thing in some circumstances. But we ought to recognize that “influence” is insufficient by itself and in some cases is counterproductive. Excessive U.S. influence leaves us performing missions we don’t know how to do (such as creating workable political institutions in radically different societies), allows local actors to blame us for their own failings, fuels conspiracy theories at home and abroad, and distracts U.S. officials from other problems that they might actually know how to solve. In some regions—and the Middle East would be high on my list—less U.S. influence might be more. Given all the success we’ve had trying to manage that region, maybe we’d be better off letting somebody else try. They could hardly do worse.

Moving in that direction will require a major change in the mindset of the U.S. foreign-policy elite. For too long, its members believed the United States was in fact the “indispensable nation,” and that the solution to all (or at least most) global problems had to be made in Washington. Students of management are often taught that effective leadership also requires learning how to delegate responsibility, because no single person has the power, knowledge, and wisdom to do everything. What is true for individual leaders is true for leading nations: learning how to offload problems onto others is in fact a consummate strategic skill. As long as Americans view influence as an inherent end, and as a resource to be hoarded like gold, we’re going to find ourselves overcommitted and be much less effective than we could be. As President Harry Truman supposedly said, “it’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets credit.”

Henceforth, Americans should worry rather less about the level of influence their country enjoys—and, relax, it will continue to dwarf that of most other countries—and worry a lot more about how that influence is being used. And guess what? If U.S. officials did a better job of selecting the right goals and actually achieving them, they would quickly find their influence growing; then, the number of problems they would then have deal with might shrink, instead of growing like kudzu or crabgrass in the warm summer sun.

Read the full report: America’s Anxiety of Influence – Foreign Policy

Global Politics: Europe must break the shackles and show off its power - by Professor Zaki Laidi

EU: Only in unity can progress be achieved

Zaki Laidi professor of international relations at L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), who also was an adviser to former French prime minister Manuel Valls. recently wrote in an opinion piece, which is not only worth reading, but also implementing as part of the EU's  Parliament and Commissions long range strategy.

 "US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker may have averted a trade war last month, but the challenges confronting the EU are far from resolved. In today’s increasingly Hobbesian global environment, the EU can survive only by increasing its capacity to project power — no easy feat for an entity that was formed precisely as a repudiation of power politics.

With the 1957 Treaty of Rome, Europe shed what remained of its militaristic impulses and focused on building a sprawling and peaceful single market. From then on, Europe’s only means of projecting power would be its trade policy. Yet that policy has never been guided by strategic thinking, leaving the EU with only limited global influence, despite its tremendous success in world markets. The time has come for Europe to reestablish itself as a true global player, not by attempting to emulate a classic superpower, but rather by consolidating and deploying different types of power.

Europe already has considerable normative power — that is, the capacity to create global standards through the so-called Brussels effect, which can be seen in its efforts to rein in technology companies.

The recently enacted General Data Protection Regulation, for example, set guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information of individuals within the EU. Now, digital platforms, including powerful American companies, are scrambling to adjust. The “big four” US tech firms — Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Apple, Facebook, and Amazon — are also facing pressure from the EU stemming from their dominant market position.

Yet the EU has often failed to recognize its normative power, let alone take full advantage of it. This both reflects and reinforces weakness in three areas: Self-esteem, risk awareness, and the capacity for action.

Self-esteem includes the belief that the EU is a worthy undertaking, the confidence to express that publicly, and recognition of the EU’s true potential for power projection. Such a dispensation is severely lacking in many parts of the EU, beginning with Germany, which, despite having regained confidence in its own future, jealously guards its resources.

As Trump berates Germany for accumulating surpluses without contributing sufficiently to transatlantic defense, the country should be all the more motivated to use its capabilities to strengthen Europe. But, while the discourse in Germany on resource-sharing has begun to shift, concrete changes will take time.

Europe’s unwillingness to nurture and deploy its clout contrasts sharply with America’s assertive use of its market power to advance its interests and preferences. For example, since Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — better known as the Iran nuclear deal — and reinstate sanctions on Iran, many European companies, fearing loss of access to the US market, have decided to withdraw from the country.

To convince European companies to remain in Iran, the European Commission updated the 1996 Blocking Statute, which forbids actors under EU jurisdiction from complying with extraterritorial sanctions, allows companies to recover damages from such sanctions, and nullifies the effect in the EU of any foreign court’s judgment based on them. But the update has proved ineffective, as exemplified by the situation faced by SWIFT, the secure messaging system used for global cross-border financial transactions.

As Iran learned in 2012, losing access to the SWIFT network essentially means losing access to the international financial system. Yet that is exactly what the US is pushing for: If SWIFT fails to cut off Iran by early November, it will face countermeasures. SWIFT’s compliance with that demand, however, would all but destroy any remaining incentive for Iran to remain in the JCPOA. This would amount to a major political failure for Europe, because SWIFT is under EU jurisdiction.

Europe has also shown a self-defeating lack of confidence in the euro. Although the euro is the world’s second most important currency, it lags behind the dollar on almost all metrics, increasing the EU’s vulnerability to US trade sanctions.

The second weakness the EU needs to address is risk awareness. For example, China needs access to Europe’s industrial technology to realize its economic ambitions, and it needs access to European ports to complete its Belt and Road Initiative. Yet Europe is allowing itself to be effectively plundered, not least by China’s takeover of ports and airport facilities. The EU-China relationship must be made more reciprocal, with the EU — and, in particular, the Southern and Eastern European countries that have welcomed Chinese investment with open arms — recognizing the security risks posed by Beijing’s activities.

For that to happen, however, Europe will need a more united approach to Russia, which, despite posing less of a threat to the EU than China does, is keen to highlight — and exacerbate — internal division. How can one blame Greece for selling ports to the Chinese while Germany pursues the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which will increase Europe’s energy dependency on Russia?

All of this is complicated by escalating tensions between Europe and the US, which, among other things, is spoiling cooperation to contain China. This is where the capacity for action comes in. Rather than waiting for someone else to push back against the Trump administration’s demolition of multilateral structures, Europe must take the initiative, imagining a system without the US.

This means not only ensuring that the international trade regime can survive without the US, but also developing a military capability that can increase the EU’s geopolitical credibility and shift the global balance of power. Here, French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative to create a European military force beyond NATO is essential. Its success will hinge on a united, cooperative approach that potentially even includes the UK. The challenge is obvious. But the payoff — for the EU and the world — would be well worth the effort ". 

Note EU-Digest: Hopefully European political leaders at all levels of the European political spectrum will take note of this report by Professor Zaki Laidi. Europe must show far more courage to quickly undo itself from the US directed policy shackles and choose it's own independent course. If not, it will be devoured country by country in today’s increasingly Hobbesian global environment.

EU-Digest

GLOBAL POLITICS: The Western Crack Up is happening right before our eyes: by Javier Solana

Read more  at:

https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-western-crack-up

Global Politics: Editorial The world needs more Europe and less Donald Trump - by Max Hofmann.

Can someone please find a distraction for the American president? Dangle a shiny object in front of him? Maybe show him a funny YouTube video, or get him to give a rally speech in some small American town.

Do anything to keep him busy in the US because when it comes to foreign policy and dealing with countries like North Korea or Iran, Donald Trump horrifies his partners, especially those in Europe.

After years of laying down the groundwork, the negotiating partners struggled for yet another 20 months over the Iran nuclear deal. The European Union had a seat at the negotiation table and ended up scoring a success for the bloc. Ultimately, Europeans were able to use their favorite crisis-resolution skill: classic diplomacy.

Ever since the Iran nuclear deal was concluded, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has checked eight times to see whether Iran has met the requirements. Every time, the answer was "Yes!"

The results have been so convincing that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has proposed to use the agreement as a blueprint for further action in North Korea.

Now along comes Donald Trump, who threatens to destroy the greatest international diplomatic feat of recent years. For what? Merely to fulfill a crazy election promise. He mentions North Korea and Iran in the same breath and makes it sound as though both nations must be treated with equal severity. Europeans would never lump these two countries together. Those in Europe know the devastating effects the termination of the Iran deal would have at their own doorstep: the destabilization of the Middle East, Iran's move towards China and Russia, and the strengthening of radical anti-Western forces.

What can the European Union do? It will probably — as already announced by the EU's top diplomat Federica Mogherini – adhere to the agreement, regardless of whether the US pulls out or not. In practice, this could mean that Americans would impose sanctions on Iran again while the Europeans would not, putting the transatlantic entities on a confrontational course with each other. Everyone knows how the US president will react to this. At the same time, the West would lose all credibility as a moral and political entity and would be permanently weakened. If the US and the EU can no longer act together, no one will take them seriously.

The EU has no choice but to continue using whatever influence it still wields over Trump's government. The Europeans must try to keep the US in the agreement. Its success in the past few years should speak for itself, but facts no longer count in the White House. Merkel and company have tried prievously to make Trump come to his senses, as was seen with the Paris climate agreement, but to no avail. In the case of Iran, however, it is a matter of a new cold war — or even a hot war in a highly volatile region. The situation could escalate very quickly.

The prospect for North Korea is even gloomier than for Iran. Europeans have very little influence there. The EU cannot — and does not want to — keep up with Donald Trump's and Kim Jong Un's nuclear swagger. The bloc's demand to focus strictly on politics and diplomacy may seem like it's failing to handle the situation with the seriousness it deserves. However, it is the right way to move ahead and the only way forward for the EU. Here, too, one can see the gapping gulf between Europe and the US in sensitive diplomatic issues.

But Donald Trump will have to follow the European example, at least a little bit, if he really wants to maintain world peace, as he declared to the UN General Assembly. His threats, both to Iran and North Korea, have the potential to lead the world to destruction. Europe's diplomatic approach may at times seem somewhat feeble, but it is the only method that has really worked in recent years. The Americans have tried to use military force in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes with disastrous results. That is why Trump's saber rattling and his demand to renegotiate the Iran deal strike Europeans as threatening and hollow. Everyone believes that the president is capable of a blind military attack. The angry man in the White House lacks the experts, the patience, and the competence required to conduct well-balanced and complex negotiations. Europe has all this

Read more: Opinion: The world needs more Europe and less Donald Trump | Opinion | DW | 22.09.2017

China - USA: The Unstoppable Force vs. the Immovable Object - by Noah Feldman

 Are we on the brink of a new Cold War? The question isn't as outlandish as it seemed only a few years ago. The United States is still the sole reigning superpower, but it is being challenged by the rising power of China, just as ancient Rome was challenged by Carthage, and Britain was challenged by Germany in the years before World War I. Should we therefore think of the United States and China as we once did about the United States and the Soviet Union, two gladiators doomed to an increasingly globalized combat until one side fades?

Or are we entering a new period of diversified global economic cooperation in which the very idea of old-fashioned imperial power politics has become obsolete? Should we see the United States and China as more like France and Germany after World War II, adversaries wise enough to draw together in an increasingly close circle of cooperation that subsumes neighbors and substitutes economic exchange for geopolitical confrontation?

This is the central global question of our as-yet-unnamed historical moment. What will happen now that America's post-Cold War engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan have run their courses and U.S. attention has pivoted to Asia? Can the United States continue to engage China while somehow hedging against the strategic threat it poses? Can China go on seeing the United States as both an object of emulation and a barrier to its rightful place on the world stage?

Read more: The Unstoppable Force vs. the Immovable Object - by Noah Feldman | Foreign Policy