Diplomacy & Crisis News

Intercommunal violence in south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, a top United Nations aid official in the country has said, warning that the current response is being outstripped by the needs.

Presenting an oral update on the rights situation in Sri Lanka, the top United Nations human rights official today said that a general lack of trust in the impartiality of the justice system in the country regarding past violations and continuing &#8220unwillingness or inability&#8221 to address impunity reinforces the need for international participation in a judicial mechanism.

Cancer can be a death warrant in some developing countries, spurring the United Nations atomic agency and the international community today to hold a high-level discussion on how to get more funding and support for treatment to parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

In a world where the demand for water continues to grow and the resource is finite, a new United Nations report argues that wastewater, discarded into the environment every day, once treated, can help meet the needs for freshwater as well as for raw materials for energy and agriculture.

The United Nations-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) today sentenced the former Congolese Vice-President, Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, to another year in prison and about $325,000 in fines for interfering with his trial.

Global temperatures set yet another record last year and the world witnessed exceptionally low sea ice, and unabated sea level rise and ocean heat, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said today, warning that the extreme weather and climate conditions have continued into 2017.

The security situation in South Sudan is “very worrisome,” the head of United Nations peacekeeping operations today said, warning that the number of people fleeing the country showing no signs of slowing, and calling for a political solution to the hostilities.

Today, the call that people with Down Syndrome be included to fully and equally participate in all aspects of society echoed widely throughout United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Cautioning the impact of human activity such as practices use of woodfuel on world’s forests, the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today called for better wood-energy conversions technologies and more sustainable management of forests so that everyone benefits.

Over two-thirds of the population in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) suffers from food insecurity, malnutrition, and a lack of access to basic health and sanitation services, according to a latest humanitarian report, which also appeals for $114 million to meet the urgent need of the most vulnerable.

A flagship United Nations report launched today finds that although the average human development improved significantly since 1990, progress is uneven, with systemic discrimination against women, indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities.

Against the backdrop of rising discrimination and violence against those perceived as different, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today urged the world to stand up against intolerance and build communities that recognize diversity not as a source of weakness, but a source of strength and richness.

The United Nations refugee agency today expressed concern that forced returns of refugees from Cameroon’s far north region to crisis-gripped north-eastern Nigeria are continuing despite the recent signing of a tripartite agreement aimed at ensuring the voluntary nature of returns.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro de printemps de Politique étrangère (n°1/2017). Hans Stark, secrétaire général du Comité d’études des relations franco-allemandes à l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage dirigé par Alexander Häusler, Die Alternative für Deutschland. Programmatik, Entwicklung und politische Verortung (Springer Verlag, 2016, 256 pages).

La naissance, en 2013, du parti Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, Alternative pour l’Allemagne), sa montée en puissance dans les sondages et son entrée aux parlements de 10 des 16 Länder allemands (au 1er février 2017) ont provoqué un intérêt très vif pour cette formation, d’autant que sa progression s’inscrivait évidemment dans le contexte des succès électoraux de partis dits « populistes de droite » en Europe, le Brexit et la victoire de Trump. Sans parler de l’ombre omniprésente du IIIe Reich. C’est donc à point nommé qu’un collectif de chercheurs allemands, spécialistes de l’extrême droite d’outre-Rhin, a réalisé une première étude d’ensemble, sous le titre : L’Alternative pour l’Allemagne. Programme, évolution et positionnement politique.

L’ouvrage retrace les origines de ce parti de 2013 jusqu’à l’éviction de son président-fondateur Bernd Lucke, en juillet 2015. Il ne prend donc pas en compte l’évolution des 18 derniers mois qui ont vu une poussée incontestable vers l’extrême droite de l’AfD ; mais les auteurs l’avaient prédite, comme en témoigne la conclusion du directeur de l’ouvrage Alexander Häusler.

Sa première partie est consacrée à la place de l’AfD dans le paysage politique allemand, et aux contradictions internes d’un parti qui prône à la fois un néolibéralisme souverainiste eurosceptique et un « populisme de droite » qui se dit « proche du peuple », et donc aussi de gauche… La deuxième partie propose une comparaison entre l’idéologie de l’AfD et celle des autres partis dits populistes en Europe, puis analyse les liens entre l’AfD et les partis d’extrême droite issus des pays membres de l’UE. La troisième partie de l’ouvrage analyse les idéaux fondamentaux de l’AfD au plan sociétal, tant en ce qui concerne le rôle de la femme dans la société allemande, que la position adoptée face aux minorités sexuelles, ou quant à certaines valeurs traditionnelles (famille, IVG). Dans une quatrième partie, les auteurs s’intéressent au phénomène PEGIDA (Patriotes européens contre l’islamisation de l’Occident), et aux liens multiples entre ce mouvement et l’AfD, avant d’aborder les questions, devenues centrales depuis 2015, de l’islam, de l’immigration et des réfugiés. La cinquième partie s’ouvre au champ plus vaste de la nébuleuse d’extrême droite en Allemagne, et étudie les rapports entre l’AfD et la « Nouvelle Droite », avant d’analyser l’évolution interne du mouvement de jeunesse de l’AfD, la Junge Alternative, dont les acteurs, qui prendront des responsabilités au sein de l’AfD dans les années à venir, se positionnent d’ores et déjà à l’extrême droite du paysage politique allemand. Enfin, l’ouvrage accorde aussi une importance particulière à la place que l’AfD a à l’est de l’Allemagne, avec un chapitre consacré à l’AfD du Land de Brandebourg.

Voici donc un ouvrage, informatif et analytique, qui nous en apprend beaucoup sur ce nouveau parti. Et ce que l’on apprend n’est pas très rassurant.

Hans Stark

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Trump’s erratic style and confrontational policies are often condemned as dangerous. Here’s how they could actually lead to conflict—with Iran, China, and North Korea.

(Own report) - Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe opened the CeBIT digital trade fair in Hanover on Sunday, emphasizing their commitment to expand German-Japanese cooperation. Japan is "a friend," Merkel declared, with whom one can advance in promoting digitalization. Japan had once been the Federal Republic of Germany's most important East Asian business partner, but, in terms of German foreign investments and trade, it has fallen far behind China over the past few years. Even though strategically highly significant, from a German point of view, economic relations have been stagnating. A counterweight to Beijing in East Asia would be advantageous for Berlin's foreign policy. Germany has therefore begun to expand military cooperation with the Japanese armed forces. During his visit in Tokyo last November, Germany's President, at the time, Joachim Gauck, explicitly encouraged Japan's rearmament, which is pointed directly at China. Having taken a sharp nationalist course, the Japanese government will send a new helicopter carrier to train with the US Navy in the South China Sea in May.

Ever since Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) rose to power in November 2015 on a conservative ticket, the country’s institutions have been mercilessly assaulted. From gagging state media to gridlocking the constitutional court, the PiS government has managed to turn one of the EU’s success stories into a backwater.

That reckless behavior was on full display last week when Donald Tusk was re-elected as President of the European Council in spite of raving opposition from Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo who tried to oust her political opponent.

While Poland is still nominally obliged to respect democratic principles regarding the rule of law as a member state, and the European Commission has been “forcefully” expressing its displeasure with the country’s course of action, PiS has so far been unstoppable.

Brussels’ muted response stems mostly from the toothlessness of Europe’s options for sanctioning misbehaving members. Article 7, for example, was added to the Treaty of the European Union in the late 1990s as a way of holding members accountable for rights violations, enabling the Council to issue a formal warning before revoking the voting rights of the violating country. Even after the Commission triggered the pre-Article 7 process last year, Warsaw’s response was little more than a shrug.

By failing to coerce Warsaw into changing its way, the move instead exposed the EU’s practical inability to enforce the rule of law in member states. As is the case with many of Europe’s rules and procedures, the systemic rule of law mechanism presupposes a willingness to cooperate from the affected national governments. Warsaw has considered the dispute closed since submitting a detailed response regarding its views to the European Commission, allowing Poland to stonewall the Commission from taking repercussive measures for almost a year now.

Making matters worse, actually going through with invoking Article 7—the “nuclear option”—is nearly impossible because this would require a unanimous vote from EU member states. Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who is himself busy upending Hungarian democracy, has already expressed his opposition to employing Article 7 against Poland and has no interest in seeing Law and Justice reprimanded for following his lead. Between them, Budapest and Warsaw have exposed the ineffective enforcement of the EC’s mechanisms. Absent the “spirit of cooperation,” national governments can stall Europe’s legislative process to their own ends.

Faced with this dilemma, European Commissioner for Justice Vera Jourová has drawn inspiration from the US Congress and its “power of the purse” by proposing to make the distribution of EU funding dependent on whether states uphold fundamental EU principles like the rule of law.

In the U.S., the federal government uses funding it provides to the states as leverage when the two sides find themselves at odds. Washington has, for example, used federal highway funding to force states into adopting laws on speed limits and drinking age. Seeing how countless projects within the EU member states and the surrounding European neighborhood rely on money from Brussels, the funds Europe provides (and recipients take for granted) could very well be turned into an effective enforcement tool.

Countries like Poland and Hungary, where derogations from EU standards are the most egregious, also happen to be most susceptible to any kind of budget pressure. The Polish government heavily relies on EU funding, to the tune of €104.8 billion between 2014 and 2020. Losing that support would drastically impact the Polish economy and the functioning of the national government, offering a powerful incentive for Poland to comply with the EU’s rule of law principles.

This approach can also be easily applied to aspiring EU members, which enjoy billions of euros in funding under the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA), which falls under the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). In the Western Balkans, the EU is the largest investor committed to improving governance and rule of law—areas that are notoriously lacking. Montenegro, for example, is one of the leading candidates for EU ascension and yet it faces rising concerns over corruption and insufficient judicial independence. Freedom House noted a declining trend in Montenegro’s governance, especially since the 2016 election.

That election’s troubling aftermath saw opposition figures arrested, with parties opposed to the continued rule of long-time leader Milo Dukanovic boycotting parliament in a political crisis that exposed the fragility of Montenegro’s rule of law. These developments make the EU’s €270.5 million in funding, €99.2 million of which are supposed to be used for improving the judiciary and fighting corruption and organized crime, appear like wasted money.

Dukanovic, who has placed an ally in the premiership but is still leader of the ruling party, is notorious for his links to mafia organizations and cigarette smuggling. Of course, that IPA funding can be seen in a very different light: combined with the carrot of eventual EU membership, it gives Brussels an important tool for pushing Montenegro towards real reform.

The stakes are even higher in Serbia. Despite being an EU candidate country, Serbia has begun to fuel tensions between neighboring Balkan states by taking an aggressive nationalist stance on a variety of issues. Relations have notably declined between Serbia and Bosnia over a genocide appeal, leading to significant delays in the reform efforts. Even so, the Serbs depend on €1.5 billion worth of ENP allocations for infrastructure improvements and economic transition. Thus far, the worst they have seen from the EU are verbal reprimands which are clearly not doing the job.

With the rise of the far-right and nationalist sentiments across the continent, it is more important than ever to enforce the fundamental principles of the European Union and make the EU a coherent, consistent voice for democratic values and good governance. The EC’s existing mechanisms to enforce compliance have been exposed as paper tigers, but Europe still needs to be able to bring unruly member and prospective states to heel. By leveraging the billions of Euros it sends to these countries, the Union can make sure its rules and principles are no longer trampled underfoot.

The post EU Funds Allocation: Is Brussels Flexing Its Muscles? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Robert Lighthizer said President Donald Trump had picked him for the job “in part because of my enforcement background.” (Associated Press)

The new pick for U.S. trade representative (USTR), Robert Lighthizer, recently signaled the new administration’s get-tough approach to China over trade issues. Lighthizer is currently a trade lawyer for the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and has represented U.S. industries, such as steel, who lobby for higher tariffs on Chinese imports. He previously served as deputy U.S. trade representative under president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

At a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Lighthizer did not stray far from the views of his president, vowing to crack down on unfair trade practices by China and suggesting the U.S. needs “imaginative” solutions and a “multi-faceted approach” on trade litigation. The USTR, was mandated in 1962 to “negotiate directly with foreign governments to create trade agreements, to resolve disputes, and to participate in global trade policy organizations.”

Lighthizer has suggested the World Trade Organization (WTO) is poorly-equipped to deal with “troubling” Chinese overproduction of steel and other exports, arguing, “I don’t believe that the WTO was set up to deal effectively for a country like China and their industrial policy.” 

He also penned an op-ed in the Washington Times in 2011 defending Trump’s criticism of Chinese trade, “How does allowing China to constantly rig trade in its favor advance the core conservative goal of making markets more efficient? Markets do not run better when manufacturing shifts to China largely because of the actions of its government. Nor do they become more efficient when Chinese companies are given special privileges in global markets, while American companies must struggle to compete with unfairly traded goods.”

Lighthizer is also on record declaring the trade deficit with China as “widely recognized as a major threat to our economy.” He has also come out strong against Chinese attempts to keep its exchange rate competitive by keeping the yuan artificially weak, arguing “In the past, it is my judgment that China was a substantial currency manipulator,” Lighthizer said. “Whether China is manipulating the currency right now is another question. That’s up to the Treasury secretary.”

Lighthizer is the latest among several Trump appointees who have argued for a tougher approach to Chinese trade. Peter Navarro, an economist and author of “Death by China” was recently selected to head the newly-formed White House National Trade Council.

With such vocal critics of Chinese trade emerging in the new administration, senior government officials in China are no doubt worried over how trade policy will play out. But some U.S. economists argue that a trade war started by the U.S. may in fact lead to higher prices for consumer goods, such as Americans now enjoy at Walmart, as high tariffs are added to the price of goods. Analysts at the investment firm of Goldman Sachs, whose alumni feature prominently in the Trump administration, also predict a trade war will lead to falling GDP growth in both countries, as well as those countries such as South Korea and Taiwan which are in the supply chain. With so much heated rhetoric from both sides, finding a solution mutually acceptable to both Washington and Beijing is far from certain.

The post Robert Lighthizer on Trade with China appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

From front to back, Cold War era Soviet designed SA-6 Kub (with SA-11 Buk type missiles mounted) and SA-4 Krug Surface to Air Missile Systems.

The idea of using weapons to achieve equilibrium between powers and maintain peace is not novel, but its effectiveness depends on the technological balance between competing powers.

One of the accepted theories of the Cold War era was that if both sides had ballistic nuclear missiles, than neither side would risk a first strike. The theory was called Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD, and it meant that both sides would lose the war due to the virtually guaranteed destruction of all parties in a hypothetical nuclear conflict.

This theory may work when both actors in the scenario are rational and accept that death is a final and negative outcome. But it may not add any level of security if one or more of those actors are not rational, have have an apocalyptic view of the world that honors death before life.

The other limitation is when one side is able to neutralize the ballistic missiles to an effective degree of the other side, unbalancing the relationship between the powers and giving incentives for instigating increasingly aggressive actions.

Theories like MAD may be challenged by new anti-aircraft technologies able to successfully target and hit smaller and faster weapons like cruise missiles and even incoming ballistic missiles. The Reagan administration announced a program to develop laser weapons that could destroy Soviet missiles while in space. The Soviet response was to create missiles with multiple warheads so that there was a greater chance of some of the warheads reaching their targets after encountering countermeasures.

While this “Star Wars” technology was not likely to succeed in the 1980s, current anti-aircraft systems may be a solution to advanced ballistic missile threats coming from actors who have challenges being rational in their behavior.

While the early Patriot Missile systems had claimed success against SCUD missiles coming from Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, the reality was that few were successful. But the idea that they could protect their bases and allies tamped down the likelihood that the entire conflict would escalate.

The use of the Iron Dome missile system follows this line of rationale. The new technology reduces the need for a harsh response where innocent civilians are in danger as the effects of ballistic missiles are muted by Iron Dome, eliminating a full scale response to aggressive gestures from both rational and non-rational actors.

The recent deployment of THAAD missiles to protect the region from North Korean missile threats is an another example. However, in this scenario China perceives this deployment as an aggressive gesture itself close to their own territory.

Generally, anti-aircraft missiles do not perform the function of a surface-to-surface missile without major reformatting, and even in that case, the warhead on a surface-to-air missile would not cause any major damage due to its smaller size and the design of how SAM missiles combusts.

The THAAD system therefore is not a direct threat to China as a means to launch an assault on Chinese territory, but it could target and shoot down Chinese aircraft and maybe even their ballistic capabilities.

Anti-aircraft missiles on opposing sides of a conflict act as two shields, whereas ballistic missiles are only used as an offensive weapon a conflict. Thus, it could be argued that they are most effective as a political tool to diffuse a conflict, without making aggressive gestures like placing missiles in Cuba during the Cold War.

Conflicts could occur if both sides have equivalent missile shields, but one side has a large ballistic missile advantage over the other that might still cause a great deal of damage. In either case, rational actors would hopefully see Mutually Assured Defense as a valuable step back from Mutually Assured Destruction, and take steps to reduce the ability for non-rational actions to have a sword when selling or giving them a very capable shield.

The post Missiles as Part of the Peace Making Equation appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro de printemps de Politique étrangère (n°1/2017). Corentin Brustlein, responsable du Centre des études de sécurité à l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Jean Guisnel et Bruno Tertrais, Le Président et la Bombe. Jupiter à l’Élysée (Odile Jacob, 2016, 336 pages).

À bien des égards, la place de l’arme nucléaire dans la posture stratégique française est unique dans le monde. La possession de « la bombe » répond pour la France à des traumatismes nationaux (guerre de 1870, guerres mondiales, crise de Suez) qui, s’ils paraissent aujourd’hui éloignés, ont marqué dans la durée la culture stratégique nationale, par la place centrale accordée à des considérations telles que l’indépendance nationale et l’autonomie dans la conduite de l’action militaire. En retour, l’arme nucléaire a, elle aussi, façonné la France, à commencer par ses institutions, influence dont la traduction la plus notable est probablement l’élection du président de la République au suffrage universel. L’ouvrage de Jean Guisnel et Bruno Tertrais est une plongée dans cette exception nucléaire française. Faisant suite à un documentaire audiovisuel diffusé au printemps 2016 dont il approfondit le contenu, le livre est divisé en trois parties de volume inégal, permettant au lecteur de retracer l’émergence progressive de cette relation symbiotique et de comprendre les fondements de la posture nucléaire actuelle, ses évolutions récentes, sa pratique et son articulation avec l’ensemble de la politique de défense française.

Le titre du livre, Le Président et la Bombe, traduit parfaitement la relation privilégiée existant entre le pouvoir exécutif de la Ve République et cette arme qui, par sa capacité de destruction, a relativisé l’importance des rapports de force classiques. La première partie est ainsi dédiée à la façon dont chaque président de la République s’est approprié l’arme absolue, retraçant les orientations et arbitrages de chacun, et la constitution parallèle et progressive de la « force de frappe » dans ses différentes composantes. À grands renforts d’anecdotes allégeant utilement une lecture sur des problématiques souvent techniques, les auteurs dessinent une histoire de la stratégie française, laissant transparaître les spécificités de la posture nationale. Bâtie en cohérence avec le principe dit de « stricte suffisance », celle-ci a ainsi suivi une phase initiale d’expansion qualitative et quantitative, culminant en volume à la fin de la guerre froide, et connaissant depuis une contraction aboutissant aujourd’hui à un arsenal de moins de 300 armes.

La deuxième partie porte sur l’actuelle posture française de dissuasion : organisations, forces, moyens techniques, mais aussi mécanismes et dispositifs peu connus qui la rendent crédible aux yeux d’éventuels agresseurs potentiels tout en en assurant un contrôle politique fiable et permanent. Le ton demeure pédagogique ; pour autant le propos retranscrit de manière nuancée les ajustements, subtils mais souvent significatifs, de la posture française au cours des dernières années, ainsi que les trajectoires projetées pour l’avenir. Ce dernier fait l’objet de la troisième et dernière partie, qui éclaire les dilemmes techniques, politiques, et surtout budgétaires posés à la dissuasion française. Les auteurs ne minimisent pas les défis auxquels la posture est confrontée, qui appellent en réalité moins des réponses techniques que des arbitrages fondés sur un débat libre et argumenté. En adoptant un style qui le rend accessible au plus grand nombre, tout en s’appuyant sur les sources les plus sérieuses, l’ouvrage contribue ainsi de manière utile à ce débat crucial pour l’avenir de la défense française, voire pour la sécurité de l’Europe.

Corentin Brustlein

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