Europe
I wrote a commentary piece for Radio Free Europe on the future of Russia.
The central points, briefly, are these:
- “Diminished democratic decision making reduces the feedback Russian society can give to the government, increasing the likelihood that popular and elite interests will diverge.”
- “A state that relies on resource extraction can easily lose the inclination to attend to other aspects of economic strength that are more stable and promising over the long term.”
- “Russia seems fixated on threats from the West. But this sense of danger is misplaced,” as “Russia faces much more plausible security threats from the south and east.”
- “No foreign power is likely to do Russia as much harm as its dire demographic decline.”
A commenter had this to say about the piece: the “author conveniently forgets about the fact that throughout the 90s Russia already tried to align with the broadly defined “West”, only to see its interests completely ignored and enemies encouraged through a very short-sighted policies of US, EU, and NATO.”
One might ask: which enemies where encouraged? Russia’s only real enemies in the 1990s were separatists in Caucasian Russia, and the West had little to do with that. Unless Russia has military designs on the former countries of the Warsaw Pact, Russia’s interests are not harmed by their joining NATO, and in any case Russia does not get to choose their fates any longer. After centuries of abuse at Russian hands, the Poles (for instance) have every right to look for protection westward. (Though continued rapid NATO expansion is not a great idea: at this point, inclusion of divided Ukraine and irresponsible Georgia would probably harm NATO more than it would hurt Russian interests.)
And Serbia was a terrible place to place one’s sympathies: Russia ignored the fact that the Serbians were engaging in savage policies in both Bosnia and Kosovo — and neither situation was triggered by the West.
Internally, Russians were in fact harmed by the so-called oligarchs, but they were Russian, and they acquired wealth and power due to choices Russians made.
My ultimate point is this: it should act on its real interests, not a emotion-driven parody of those interests.
The Somali pirates have managed to invoke the multipolar 21st century:
- The European Union is sending a force of 20 warships to patrol around the Horn of Africa, including countries such as Spain and Sweden, an unusual display of military power by the organization.
- China is also sending three warships, a striking extension of its global reach. This is likely the first time a Chinese flotilla has operated in these waters since the great fleets of Admiral Zheng He, in the early 15th century.
Image: Ben Walther (Flickr)
The Washington Post reports that the credit crisis is being used as an argument against independence for Scotland, with suggestions that Scotland would not have been able to weather the crisis on its own.
Practical factors come into play as well: with the bank bailout by the central government, “it has not been lost on Scots that the largest shareholder in Scotland’s two largest banks is now the British government.”
The pro-independence Scottish National Party, which currently governs Scotland, contents that Scottish membership in the EU would provide the kind of assistance now provided by the central government of the UK.
The article notes that only about 25-30% of Scots favor independence.
Parag Khanna, author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New World Order, offers some tips for a new US president in the October issue of Wired, in an article by Daniel Pink.
- The United States can avoid decline by “tightening trade and energy ties to the rest of the hemisphere, pursuing economic innovation at home, and establishing a ‘diplomatic-industrial complex.’”
- The US should create “an energy partnership with Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil,” reducing dependence on oil from the Middle East.
- The US should treat Mexico as the EU does Turkey, “integrating, elevating, and partnering with it.”
- Egypt is “ripe for revolt. We should make friends quickly with other power centers in the country, including the Muslim Brotherhood.”
- The US should offer Iranians a deal: oust President Ahmadinejad, and they will get “everything they want in terms of of Western investment in energy, freer trade, diplomatic recognition, and increased cultural and student exchanges.”
- Uzbekistan merits attention, as the most populous and industrialized country in Central Asia, and the only state that shares borders with all the other “stans.”
- “India will never rival China . . . It’s not a superpower.”
- China’s rise will not be hindered by “demands for such niceties as transparency or free expression,” as “the Chinese people have a preference for stability over another revolution.”
- Russia has more problems than potential: it is “in demographic free fall” and “Chinese immigration is blurring the border.”
The gathering conflict between Georgia and Russia suggests a couple of larger issues:
- Self-determination: South Ossetia illustrates the fact that there simply are no rules for self-determination–when and how one place is allowed to separate from another. And no country consistently advocates a particular set of rules: as is the case with Abkhazia, South Ossetia would appear to have as much right as Kosovo to leave its parent state, and has been separate for years longer than Kosovo, but countries take opposite approaches to the two issues.
- NATO: The US wishes to extend NATO membership to Georgia. That Georgia could end up at war with Russia over a strategically trivial and morally muddy issue suggests some of the potential problems with that course. It would potentially subject the alliance to a clash with Russia without any key interests at stake (at least for NATO). Alternately, and more likely, it would extend NATO promises that would not ultimately be kept, as members would likely (and sensibly) balk at aiding Georgia in many scenarios, risking turning NATO into another hollow CENTO or SEATO.
A compromise has, for now, kept Belgium from moving toward dissolution, with a deal between parties representing Flanders and Wallonia.
However, says the New York Times, “polls indicated that confidence in the new coalition was extremely low even before it took office,” so it may only be a stopgap measure.
Kosovo declared independence today.
As the International Crisis Group explains, Serbian rejection of the move will create ongoing complications:
Serbia plans to respond with legal challenges, by cold-shouldering Kosovo’s institutions on the ground and entrenching its own parallel local administrations, schools and healthcare in Serb areas, both in the north and in the scattered patchwork of enclaves south of the Ibar where the majority of the remaining Serbs live. Belgrade expects international security forces to shield them from Kosovo Albanian interference. . . . The stage will then be set for a multi-year contest for influence over Kosovo’s Serb areas, with the EU missions liaising and playing referee.
This raises two possibilities:
- future instability, either in the form of active opposition by Serbia or secessionist moves by the 10% Serbian minority in Kosovo
- gradual defusing of the issue by post-historical Europe; if the EU absorbs both places in time, the borders hardly matter
National Geographic suggests a discontinuity for Italy: there is a significant chance of a giant eruption by Vesuvius, the volcano in southern Italy that destroyed Roman Pompeii.
The volcano could destroy much of Naples and the surrounding area, endangering the lives of over a million people. Evacuation plans are rudimentary, according to the magazine.
Recent bellicose remarks by French officials underline that one of the more likely future wars for France (and most other Western military powers) is war with Iran.
It remains to be seen, however, whether there are any viable military options for those attempting to block a nuclear path by Iran.
The Washington Post reported last week on the possible breakup of Belgium into Flanders and Wallonia.
The Flemings and Walloons have diverging outlooks on many issues, and are already substantially separated; the articles notes that “each side has its own autonomous parliament, political parties, schools, newspapers, television stations, celebrities, Boy Scouts and pigeon-racing clubs.”
In recent poll, 40% of Belgians said that Belgium will not exist in a decade.
In some respects, Europe now provides the ideal environment in which to pursue this kind of self-determination: the two parties could separate peacefully, and both new countries would then exist within the larger European Union. That is the most likely course if a division of Belgium proceeded.
The larger European project might not be well-served by such a path, however: every Flanders, Scotland, and Catalonia that appears within its borders adds to the drag on decision-making, and reduces the chance of Europe being a vigorous, decisive actor in the larger world. At some point, it might come to resemble the Holy Roman Empire more than the United States of Europe.