Europe
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.
Volcano image copyright Tom Pfeiffer (www.VolcanoDiscovery.com), used with permission
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.
I was quoted in World Politics Review on the issue of the cultural gap between Turkey and the European Union:
- In terms of value systems, “Turkey and Western Europe exist in different eras.”
- “When it comes to values and general outlook on the world, Turkey and Western Europe are decades apart. This phenomenon, which might be called dyschronicity, is even more acute if you compare certain parts of Europe to Turkey’s Anatolian heartland: the time-gap between Sweden and some rural areas of Turkey is something like three or four centuries.”
As an example, author Handan Satiroglu points out that at least 12 people have gone on trial in 2007 for the crime of “insulting Turkishness.”
And Turkey’s arrival in the EU “would multiply the number of Muslims living in Europe more than five-fold, to an estimated 90 million,” a challenge for the most secular of continents.
Turkey may now be prepared to join the Europe of 1950, but Europe has moved on, and it will take enormous change for it to even begin to catch up.
The Washington Post reveals an example of dyschronicity in Europe: thousands of people in Albania are engaged in long-term blood feuds between families.
In most of the rest of Europe, this kind of vendetta was put aside as social practice decades or centuries ago — revealing something of the challenge Albania will have convincing the European Union that the poor Balkan state is ready for membership.
Foreign Policy offers the odds on six new states achieving independence:
1. Kosovo
Odds — “strong”: driven by US and EU support, it has a good shot at full independence from Serbia
2. South Sudan
Odds — “not great”: a 2011 “referendum will probably happen; and it will probably come out in favor of independence; and Khartoum will almost certainly find a way around the results.”
3. Somaliland
Odds — “very good”: effectively independent from Somalia since 1991, it already has its own government, army, and currency; international organizations will attend to the disastrous state of the rest of Somalia first, however
4. Iraqi Kurdistan
Odds — “fair”: Turkey’s strong opposition may be overruled by facts on the ground if Iraq disintegrates
5. Palestine
Odds — “good”: “details” in the way of a two-state solution will eventually overcome the objections of “the extreme radical wings” on both sides
6. Taiwan
Odds — “poor”: China is getting stronger and stronger, and Taiwan “will accept autonomous status” under China