Diplomacy & Crisis News

(Own report) - Berlin is watching with apprehension as the conflict between Kiev and Moscow escalates again following Ukraine's shutting down electrical power to Crimea. Last week, Crimean Tatars and members of the fascist Right Sector are suspected to have blown up several electric pylons, cutting off the supply of power to Crimea. Crimea receives nearly 80 percent of its electricity from Ukraine. The Berlin-sponsored Ukrainian government sees itself as incapable of repairing the power lines. It has imposed - in accordance with the embargo policies of the EU and the USA - its own trade embargo on the peninsula. In the summer 2014, the EU and the USA began imposing economic sanctions on Crimea, which was aggravated by Kiev's embargo of water and blockade of traffic for over a year. Ukraine will squander its remaining sympathy on the peninsula, warn observers. A similar development had been observed in the Georgian secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the 2008 Georgian-Russian war. Early this week, the German government applied pressure on Kiev to restore electricity to Crimea, to avoid another escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which Germany considers detrimental. To no avail - the escalation began yesterday.

Burundi is back in the spotlight of the world’s media and the agenda of the United Nations Security Council. As recently as two years ago, the country was considered a success story in peacebuilding circles, but now the news is firmly of a negative variety. The UN is trying to prevent a new civil war in a region still haunted by the Rwandan genocide. How did success so quickly turn to failure?

Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images

 

In the wake of the Paris attacks, American politicians of all stripes are rushing to burnish their security credentials. In their proposals they are undermining the one measure that might exhibit America’s basic motives in Syria, while adding nothing to U.S. security. House bill 4038, imposing extra screenings on Syrian refugees, and calls by governors, including at least one Democrat, to deny them entry, ignore what refugees are.

Of course we must be vigilant against terrorism. Many measures aimed at border security, some very uncomfortable, may well prove necessary. But the politicians are aiming at exactly the wrong target. They need to recall certain facts.

First, a widely overlooked point: “refugee” has a very specific meaning in law and administrative practice, distinct from other types of migrant. The UN formally defines refugees as persons fleeing persecution, which is the necessary condition even to consider anyone for U..S refugee status. The Paris attackers were not refugees; they already lived in Europe. Several travelled to and from the Middle East, but only one attacker seems even to have moved along current refugee routes.

Second, fear that terrorists could infiltrate the refugee system is understandable for anyone unfamiliar with the U.S. process. But our existing system has multiple layers of monitoring and support, in effective, long-established practices. As noted by Ambassador Ryan Crocker in the Wall Street Journal, multiple agencies, including Homeland Security and the FBI, vet all refugee candidates under consideration. A U.S. diplomat, with experience processing Middle Eastern refugees, corroborates to me that every case undergoes a multi-phased examination before gaining refugee status.

Third, even before embarking for the U.S., refugees are connected to a resettlement organization, from one of several, long-established networks. These organizations, including my friends at the International Institute of Connecticut, work closely with incoming families and individuals. Agency staff implements the rigorous State Department-funded refugee resettlement program. Volunteers mentor each family, visiting regularly to aid in their settlement. It is a service rather than security monitoring, but the relationship keeps citizens of the local community in touch with resettling refugees.

Fourth, America does not have the communities of disaffected Middle Eastern immigrants that a terrorist needs, to build networks to plan, equip, stage, and launch attacks. Europe’s large populations of alienated Muslims are not present here, and our resettlement agencies do not dump new arrivals in any shadow-lands.

The terrorism risk posed by refugees, even specifically from Syria and Iraq, is effectively zero. Yes, rapid expansion could strain a network geared to earlier levels of activity; this would explain in part the small number of Syrian refugees—10,000—that the administration proposed to accept this fall. Large increases should be carefully planned and rigorously monitored. But to worry about radicals posing as Syrian refugees is to ignore the meaning of “refugee.”

Beyond the question of domestic security, Syria itself gives us very few pieces on which to build a palatable U.S. policy. The only real forces are ISIS and the Assad regime —which started a civil war in response to the Arab Spring. Two approaches are raised in our public discourse. The first is to establish a safe haven in Syria for Assad’s non-ISIS opponents. This keeps our hands unsullied, but requires collaboration with countries of many different stripes, and will have little direct effect on either ISIS or Assad. The second is to join pro-Assad Russia in an anti-ISIS coalition; aside from the difficulties highlighted by Turkey’s shoot-down of a Russian plane, the moral compromise here is clear.

If we must choose among such options, we will need somehow to assert a basic moral context around what will be a pragmatic choice. Islamist terrorists voice an anti-Liberal, anti-Western narrative calling us amoral and imperialistic. Choosing an evil that we calculate to be the lesser, without somehow exhibiting our overarching moral values, will help our enemies, “proving” their narrative for them.

Taking in refugees is a long standing sign of America’s best nature. The system is one of the functions in the U.S. government that has been managed, quietly and collaboratively between Congress and State, for years. Through long practice it meets the standard of responsible handling in all respects, including security.

Everyone is entitled to their concerns—fear is a response to danger. Some will still worry about refugees, even if they understand that our process already eliminates the risks. Exactly to the extent that we still carry this fear, taking in Syrians who cannot abide either ISIS or Assad becomes an act of courage, undertaken out of conviction in our values.

I am French and as such deeply saddened by what happened in Paris, especially after the bombs in Beirut and the destruction of a Russian airliner. Yet I am also a European citizen, deeply concerned by the damage a combination of the terrorist attacks and the refugee crisis may do to European values and to the European project itself.

The headquarters of the DGSE, one of France’s numerous intelligence agencies, is known as “the swimming pool.” Intelligence will play a central role in efforts to combat terrorism. (Photo: franceculture.fr)

Whenever something unexpected happens, the airwaves immediately fill with the sound of pundits calling for the President to scrap whatever it is the government has been doing that is tangentially related, and start over again with something else. Thus, the recent terrorist attacks in Paris were met with assertions that Obama’s strategy against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was not working and had to be changed. This, however, is not the right way to look at it. I think it is more accurate to say that the president’s strategy has been working in Iraq and Syria, but ISIS is now reacting to the setbacks in innovative ways.

In 2014 ISIS spread across eastern Syria and western Iraq in a rapid, sudden, and unexpected way. The advance left such a strong impression that some people seem to think that it is continuing. Yet, at this point, ISIS has largely been brought to a halt. Moreover, it has been losing territory.

According to the Pentagon, as of April 2015, ISIS “can no longer operate freely in roughly 25 to 30 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once could.” (This calculation, presumably, leaves out the extensive empty desert areas that fall within ISIS’s borders.) The road between Raqqa and Mosul has been cut. Thousands of fighters have been killed. The Iraqi army has not been vigorous in its attempts to retake the most recent ISIS acquisition, the city of Ramadi (and in some cases may actually be happy to see the Sunnis kept outside of Baghdad’s jurisdiction and elections), but even there ISIS is physically surrounded and isolated.

War, however, is a highly interactive enterprise. Rather than simply taking its hits on the ground, ISIS has responded by shifting part of the fight to a different theater—one that features a different balance of advantages and disadvantages. As I have noted before, ISIS does not have a tradition of terrorist attacks against distant targets. This was a point of dispute between al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and the founder of ISIS’ predecessor organizations, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Both sought ultimately to depose the (un-Islamic or insufficiently Islamic) regimes of the Middle East (the near enemy). Bin Laden, however, saw these regimes as sustained by the West (the far enemy) and therefore directed his attacks at the West to induce Western countries to drop their support. Al-Zarqawi attacked Middle Eastern regimes directly or sought to incite civil conflicts within these countries as a way to increase local support for his cause. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, by bringing the far enemy near, led to a temporary alignment between the two, and to Zarqawi’s founding of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

In recent weeks, however, ISIS and its affiliates have engaged in an unprecedented series of attacks at distant targets.* Although some of the details have yet to be confirmed, these acts include suicide bombings at a Kurdish peace rally in Ankara, Turkey; the destruction of a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula; suicide bombings in a Shiite neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon; and most recently, the  attacks against random civilians by three coordinated teams of gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris. Unable to prevail against technically advanced forces on the battlefield, ISIS is shifting the battle to a place where it is in a better position to inflict costs directly on those countries that have taken up arms against it.

It is highly unlikely that the leaders of ISIS have ever read the works of Thomas Schelling, but these actions can be interpreted in terms of his notion of coercive threats, which include both deterrence and compellence.** Schelling, who played a large role in the development of deterrence theory, was the originator of the notion of compellence. The basic concept, deterrence, uses threats of retaliation to induce an adversary not to engage in some behavior that you want to prevent (e.g., Don’t attack me!). The derivative concept, compellence, is the use of threats or actual violence to compel an adversary to stop or change some behavior that is already under way (e.g., Stop attacking me!). Schelling reasoned that compellence would be the more difficult of the two inasmuch as it required a change in the status quo rather than the maintenance of the status quo. Both, however, entailed the manipulation of the adversary’s perceived costs and benefits so as to convince the adversary of the wisdom of avoiding, or ceasing, the undesired behavior.

Thus the recent attacks most likely represent a further round in the “natural” escalation of the sectarian war in Iraq and Syria—one carried out in the spirit of compellence. The expanding war on the ground has drawn in a number of outside powers who are concerned about the balance of power in the Middle East and eager to prevent an ISIS victory. These interventionists supply their preferred local factions, directly participate in ground combat, or in the case of the Western powers, bomb ISIS positions from the air.

Unable to defeat modern air forces, ISIS is raising the costs of intervention by attacking their homelands and killing their citizens, hoping to undermine their willingness to remain engaged in a distant fight in a foreign land. In the Vietnam War, the United States similarly used bombing in an attempt to raise the costs of war to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, in the hope that they would recalculate their relative costs and benefits, pack their bags, and go home. Unfortunately for the strategy in that instance, the Vietnamese were already home and it was the United States that packed its bags. Compared with that, ISIS’s use of compellence is far more logical.

ISIS runs the risk, of course, of eliciting a backlash in the form of even more intense bombing. Deterrence theory suggests an additional response. The Western powers should strive for “escalation dominance.”*** ISIS is seeking to fight on a battlefield of its choosing, one where the circumstances favor it over its adversaries. Its adversaries will have to make sure that no such battlefield exists. That does not necessarily mean changing strategy in Iraq and Syria (although one may choose to adjust it for other reasons). It means creating the capacity to defeat ISIS at other levels—thus removing the incentive to escalate—while the fight in Iraq and Syria continues.

Since the nature of the fight differs, the means will have to differ as well. Stealthy terrorist attacks against soft civilian targets in home cities cannot be combatted with battalions or fighter jets. It calls for police action, surveillance of suspected terrorists, cutting communications and travel links between ISIS headquarters and its operatives abroad, countering ISIS ideology and recruitment efforts, and improving relations between Muslim communities in the West and their host societies.

This approach will not satisfy those seeking a quick and easy answer. Unfortunately, quick and easy answers have a tendency to make things worse.

*For this argument’s sake, we shall assume that these actions have been directed by a central ISIS command and are not simply the products of inspiration or loosely networked organizations.

**The noun normally associated with the verb “compel” is compulsion, but Schelling was not happy with all of that word’s existing connotations, so he invented a new word.

***Herman Kahn developed this notion with reference to escalation among finely measured gradations of nuclear war. In my opinion, the expectation of controlling nuclear war with such precision is unrealistic. In the present context, however, the idea might be more useful.

¿Es posible revisar el perdón que en su momento recibieron los integrantes del M-19? ¿Qué alcance tienen las acciones de un fiscal o de un juez? ¿Por qué en América Latina se han caído tantas amnistías? ¿Por qué en Colombia no existe la memoria histórica?

La medida del Gobierno es una señal de que el cese bilateral al fuego y el acuerdo final están más cerca de lo que las discrepancias entre las partes insinúa.

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(Own report) - Within the German establishment, individual criticism of the expansion of military and police operations in the fight against the "Islamic State" (IS) is being raised. Last Friday, following the intensification of French airstrikes against IS positions and the French government's imposition of a state of emergency, the EU interior ministers initiated new domestic repressive measures. In fighting IS, it should not be forgotten that in the primarily military and police-led post-9/11 "war on terror," the "number of violence-prone Islamists, who have joined terrorist groups" has not diminished but rather "multiplied dangerously," warns a renowned Middle East expert. Referring to the fact that the majority of the Paris attackers were citizens of France or Belgium, Hamburg's Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) asks, "what is the purpose of war rhetoric, when a large portion of the problem is homemade?" This "talk about 'defending our values'," will only "steady the stirrups" for a police/military buildup, according to a longtime expert of German/European think tanks. There is a "sorely felt discrepancy between the values we proclaim and reality," which is a "breeding ground for IS." "We are certainly the rich, but since quite some time, no longer the 'good guys,' in the eyes of many. And some even view us as the barbarians."

Extrait de F. Charillon, A. Dieckhoff (dirs.) Afrique du Nord Moyen-Orient 2016 : Logiques de chaos, dynamiques d’éclatement - La Documentation Française, 2015Le Golfe, nouveau pôle de stabilité apparente
C’est au final à une profonde redistribution des cartes que l’on assiste dans la région. Les régimes que l’on croyait sclérosés au point d’être éternels ont été soit destitués, soit violemment contestés, soit dans l’obligation d’entamer un processus de réformes au moins apparentes. D’une logique d’immobilisme (qui avait singularisé la région à l’heure où d’autres connaissaient le changement en plusieurs vagues - Amérique du Sud, puis Asie du Sud Est, Europe orientale, même Afrique subsaharienne…), la zone afrique du Nord Moyen-Orient (ANMO) est passée à une dynamique de turbulence, qui la transforme en inconnue majeure du système international. De cela découlent bien entendu plusieurs conséquences. En premier lieu, les interlocuteurs arabes traditionnels ont disparu, tandis que leurs remplaçants sont soit introuvables dans le cas des Etats effondrés (Libye, Yémen), soit dans une situation de stabilité fragile qui n’exclue pas de nouveaux soubresauts (Tunisie, Egypte). Plusieurs autres régimes ont tenu, mais ressortent déstabilisés par les événements récents, à la fois du fait de vulnérabilités internes et de du choc exogène régional récent. Ce dernier se fait sentir soit par des dangers directs (pour les Etats contigus à l’épicentre syro-irakien comme la Jordanie ou le Liban, dont les territoires sont menacés), soit par des retombées indirectes (pour ceux dont une partie de la jeunesse rejoint les rangs de l’Etat islamique, comme au Maroc ou en Tunisie, ou qui sont en première ligne de la violence sahélienne, comme l’Algérie). Ensuite, dans ce contexte, les monarchies du Golfe qui n’ont pas connu les « printemps arabes » font figure, selon l’angle d’analyse, de pôles de stabilité ou de systèmes réfractaires au changement. Ce qui n’exclut pas que leurs sociétés restent travaillées par des évolutions qui tôt ou tard devront être prises en compte.[1] Ce qui n’exclut pas non plus que des nuances subtiles apparaissent entre elles, sur fond de rivalités politico-religieuses, qui se manifestent particulièrement sur le terrain de la politique étrangère. Ainsi, si le Qatar a soutenu fortement l’accession de Mohamed Morsi à la tête d’une Egypte provisoirement dirigée par les Frères Musulmans (juin 2012 – juillet 2013), l’Arabie Saoudite a mis tout son poids derrière le Maréchal Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, qui a destitué ce dernier avant de se faire élire un an plus tard. Mais le Golfe, à la suite de cette séquence 2011-2015, apparaît néanmoins comme un espace aux fondements politiques plus solides, dont le « risque-pays » est moins élevé qu’ailleurs, ce qui n’échappe ni aux acteurs ou investisseurs économiques, ni aux politiques étrangères extérieures. D’un jeu moyen-oriental jadis dominé par les grands Etats du nationalisme arabe (Egypte, Syrie, Irak) dont les armées nombreuses étaient des acteurs clefs d’une reprise toujours possible d’un conflit avec Israël (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982…), on est passé à un pôle golfique attractif économiquement, aussi bien acheteur qu’investisseur imposant, devenu de surcroît entrepreneur politique et religieux régional (Syrie, Libye…) et transnational.Entre retour de l’homme fort et déliquescence de l'Etat
Le constat de chaos qui a émané des printemps arabes[2] a également remis en selle l’autoritarisme politique. Comme si l’on retenait davantage les leçons venues d’Egypte (où le pouvoir autoritaire de Sissi apparaît comme une tentative de restauration de l’ordre) que les enseignements de Syrie (où la dictature baasiste a précipité l’embrasement de la guerre civile) ou d’Irak (où la pratique politique de Maliki a préparé le succès de Daech chez les sunnites), le culte de l’homme fort réapparaît. On a déjà évoqué le cas égyptien, et en Libye, la nomination du général Khalifa Haftar à la tête de l'armée en mars 2015 obéit aussi à cette quête de charisme autoritaire comme rempart au chaos. Mais ce schéma a ses variantes non arabes, en système démocratique cette fois. La Turquie de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, devenu président en août 2014, en donne un exemple intéressant, dans le bras de fer qui se joue entre d’une part la crispation autoritaire d’un régime en voie de personnalisation croissante, et  d’autre part la résistance du corps électoral, qui a abouti à la perte de la majorité absolue par l’AKP (parti islamiste modéré du président Erdoğan) lors des élections de juin 2015. La victoire de Benjamin Netanyahu aux élections législatives israéliennes (mars 2015), a vu la victoire (surprenante au regard des derniers sondages) de cette stratégie de l’homme fort, au discours intransigeant, au prix même de quelques dérapages. Ce retour des hommes forts ne saurait remédier à la crise profonde que connaît l'Etat au sud et à l’est de la Méditerranée en général. On l’a dit plus haut, le révisionnisme territorial de Daech, la fin désormais plus qu’envisageable d’entités façonnées par l’histoire récente (et souvent coloniale),[3] tournent d’abord indéniablement une page arabe. Comme l’a résumé le politiste (et polémiste conservateur) américain Charles Krauthammer (pour une fois avec plus de justesse que dans d’autres de ses hypothèses passées), des Etats comme l'Irak et la Syrie doivent être entièrement repensés : les frontières anciennes ont disparu, l’unité étatique ne pourra être reconstituée, les lignes de la carte Sykes-Picot sont caduques, et pour les Etats-Unis ou leurs alliés, de nouveaux ennemis pour l’instant non étatiques apparaissent, ainsi d’ailleurs que de nouveaux alliés possibles (comme les Kurdes).[4]Si l’Etat arabe est aujourd’hui dans un moment crucial et difficile de son histoire, c’est notamment en raison du fait que les printemps ont mis à bas quelques-uns de ses piliers, sans résoudre pour autant ses impasses principales. L’incroyable pérennité des régimes, on l’a dit, démocratiquement condamnable et socialement dommageable en interne mais politiquement et économiquement rassurante pour l’extérieur, a disparu dans plusieurs pays. Avec elle s’est effondrée, au moins provisoirement, la sécurité intérieure ou encore la manne touristique (les deux phénomènes étant liés). Les combats récurrents entre l’armée égyptienne et les groupes islamistes (en particulier dans le Sinaï), les attentats qui ont touché la Tunisie en 2015,[5] en sont l’illustration dans les deux pays qui ont initié les « printemps » en 2011. Le semblant d’unité arabe, certes en partie factice mais qui demeurait au moins un garde-fou rhétorique autour de quelques thèmes comme la cause palestinienne, a laissé place à des clivages assumés, et, de plus en plus au Levant, à une confrontation destructrice entre sunnisme et chi’isme. Parallèlement, l’intégration des mouvements ou partis religieux dans un jeu politique normalisé, n’a pas eu lieu. La chasse aux Frères Musulmans ouverte par le président égyptien Morsi depuis son accession au pouvoir, l’attraction exercée par Daech sur les mouvements radicaux arabes, les jeux obscurs (et à haut risque) de clientélisme ou de manipulation de certains de ces mouvements par des Etats sur des théâtres extérieurs, ont largement fait échouer toute amorce de débat serein sur une place négociée de l’acteur religieux dans la vie politique régionale. A terme, ce jeu déstabilisera l’ensemble des Etats qui s’y seront prêtés. De la même manière, la longue liste des maux connus du monde arabe depuis plusieurs décennies, reste quasi intacte : difficulté des processus de succession ici, sortie de l’économie de rente ailleurs, place de l’armée dans la conduite du pays et efficacité réelle de celle-ci face à la menace extérieure, centralité de la question israélo-palestinienne aux yeux d’une opinion en proie par ailleurs à des frustrations nombreuses…Si l’extrême diversité des situations nationales fait que l’on ne peut plus parler globalement de « régimes politiques arabe », comme le faisaient en leur temps M. Flory, B. Korany, R. Mantran, M. Camau et P. Agate,[6]l’équation arabe certainement, le malaise arabe probablement, peut-être même « le malheur arabe » hélas,[7]demeurent. A l’heure d’un néo-ottomanisme turc, d’une réintégration de l’Iran dans le jeu régional et international, et d’une crispation droitière encore exacerbée en Israël, les ingrédients semblent rassemblés pour de nouveaux épisodes orageux.


[1] Voir L. Bonnefoy, M. Catusse (dirs.), Jeunesses arabes, La Découverte, paris, 2013.A. Le renard, Femmes et espaces publics en Arabie Saoudite, Dalloz, Paris, 2011. [2]Parmi les dernières livraisons sur ce sujet, voir H. Bozarslan, Révolution et état de violence : Moyen-Orient 2011-2015, CNRS Editions, Paris, 2015. [3]Voir P-J. Luizard, Le piège Daech. l'Etat islamique ou le retour de l’histoire, La Découverte, Paris, 2015. M. Benraad, Irak, la revanche de l'histoire : De l'occupation étrangère à l'Etat islamique, Vendémiaire, Paris, 2015. [4] Ch. Krauthammer, « A new strategy for Iraq and Syria”, the Washington post, 18 juin 2015. [5] A Sousse en juin 2015, près de Tunis en mars au musée du Bardo. [6] Les régimes politiques arabes, PUF, Thémis, Paris, 1990. [7] S. Kassir, Considérations sur le malheur arabe, Actes Sud, Paris, 2004.

 

via Flickr’ user mg-muscapix

While the U.S. is inching closer to pre-crisis unemployment and GDP growth figures, the picture across the pond is much, much darker. The Eurozone, once the darling of economists and businessmen everywhere, is unable to wiggle its way out of a quagmire of depressed investments, contracting exports, low employment and external shocks. The third-quarter growth figures, released on November 13, were underwhelming and fell beneath the expectations of analysts, further dispelling the hopeful notion that 2015 will be the year the Euro will boom. Instead of a predicted 0.4% growth, the 19 members of the currency bloc clocked in at 0.3% as Germany slowed, Portugal caved and Finland out-shrank even debt-laden Greece.

While a full, sector-by-sector breakdown of the economic contributions of every member state will be released in December, Barclays estimates that “domestic demand, and in particular private consumption, was once again the main contributor to GDP growth”. However, saying that consumption was responsible for keeping the Euro area in the green isn’t an epiphany—what is, however, is the extent to which exports slowed and imports rose. If historically net trade served as the engine of growth for the Euro economy as a whole (especially for export-dependent Germany), pundits, faced with a slump in emerging markets, anticipate consumption to become the dominant force in European growth. Indeed, consumption can be held responsible for the strong performance of the Euro area’s industrial production, which rose by 1.9% in the three months to September.

With unemployment refusing to budge downwards from its 11% summit, inflation barely registering at 0.1%, the onus is now on the ECB to accelerate its stimulus program ahead of a key meeting in December.

However, it’s not just global market trends that are responsible for the Eurozone’s flagging exports. In certain sectors, it is European policy itself that is to blame. Take the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector, seen as the backbone of the European economy. Unlike their American counterparts, EU SMEs are ill-fitted to secure financing, partly because the EU lacks a capital markets union, but also because EU funds are slowly trickling down and not across all sectors. For example, even if the European start-up economy benefits from a talented pool of STEM graduates that surpasses the U.S.’, the lack of collaboration between tech hubs and dependency on outside funding has meant that almost no innovative products have come from Europe. While the U.S. raised financing totaling some $39 billion in the first three quarters of 2015, the EU lagged far behind with $7.43 billion. Venture capital is so fragmented and caught up in red tape that European startups have to turn to the U.S. to secure funding, leading a CEO to exclaim: “How come we can’t get funding right in Europe?”

And it’s not just access to financing: sometimes competing European interests collide, dealing blows to European competitiveness and growth. Even if more than 600,000 EU SMEs are part of the export ecosystem, generating over a third of EU exports and employing more than six million people throughout the continent, their capacity to grow has in some respects been curtailed by poorly tailored policies. According to industry sources, adapting to regulations is a topic of growing concern, consistently ranking in the three most pressing problems faced by SMEs across the European Union.

A vivid example concerns the lowly aluminum foil sector, where an over-eager trade policy has led to significant job losses that eventually put at risk the viability of the entire sector. The European Commission placed anti-dumping tariffs upon aluminum foil imported from China, Brazil and Armenia back in 2009, ostensibly in a bid to protect businesses in the EU from the typically unfair trade practice of selling goods or commodities at a rate far below the ordinary market value. A similar action is now on the table for Russian exports. But with 80% of the production costs for the European SMEs rewinding foil into supermarket rolls, cutting off the source of raw materials can only bode ill on the industry as a whole. In safeguarding this principle, thousands of workers spread across several dozen EU SMEs involved in the chopping down of the so-called “jumbo rolls” into the household items used in kitchens everywhere are now at risk of losing their jobs, posing a threat to the European aluminum rewinder industry as a whole.

Therefore, the European economy is sputtering not just because the Chinese economy is in for a rough landing, nor because of growing political uncertainties attributable to rising Eurosceptic feelings—that would be an over simplistic analysis of the structural risks underpinning the much-expected and twice delayed European recovery. The truth is that the European economy is getting harder and harder to manage and understand by Brussels. The sad cliché that makes EU specialists chuckle is still relevant—there is no such thing as a silver bullet that can restart EU growth, what is needed is a coordinated institutional response.

(Own report) - The German government does not preclude a Bundeswehr mission in Syria. According to government circles in Berlin, German military intervention to monitor a future ceasefire in that country is "conceivable," as was confirmed Wednesday. However, the German government rejects military support for France's airstrikes against the "Islamic State" (IS). In the aftermath of last Friday's attacks, Paris has expanded its offensives against IS bases in Syria, and evoked the "EU Mutual Defense Clause" - an unprecedented measure, obligating all EU member states, Germany included, to provide fundamental support. The French government insists on the Bundeswehr joining its offensive against IS, not merely as retaliation for Germany's EU domination. With military offensives against the IS - in which it is already playing a significant role - and by rallying the EU to support its campaign in Syria, under its command, Paris seeks to recuperate at least some of the influence it lost in essential economic and foreign policy areas, over the past few years. Berlin refuses to grant its French rival a strategic advantage.

 

Presidents Milosevic, Tudjman, and Izetbegovic formalize in Paris the Dayton Accords initialed weeks earlier, Wikimedia, http://bit.ly/1NZD6TG

The 20th anniversary of the Dayton Accords (November 21, 1995) is much in the news. A conference this week at the University of Dayton includes President Bill Clinton and several principles from the negotiations. HBO’s documentary, The Diplomat, explores Dayton’s chief negotiator, Richard Holbrooke. Continuing trouble in divided societies like Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere illustrates how significant was the Dayton agreement that ended the war in Yugoslavia. But many questions remain.

A wide range of analysts are reassessing Dayton. The U.S. Institute of Peace was ahead of the curve, with a conference in 2014. More recently, Stratfor described the risk of declining EU influence in Bosnia, and the risk of renewed violence. The Weekly Standard offered a withering analysis of the agreement, cementing ethnic divisions as political divisions (three presidents, three police forces, etc.), discriminating against other minorities, and creating an EU colonial master—all of which resulted in a stagnant and unreformed economy. Two scholars in The Washington Post described Dayton as a terrible model for understanding Syria—misunderstanding (as they said Dayton did) the causes of the war and the solutions. An article in Foreign Policy asked straight out: Is war about to break out in the Balkans?

Based on my recent travels in Serbia and Bosnia, it seems clear that the relationships inside Bosnia and between Bosnia and Serbia remain strained, at best. Competing narratives over history, that now includes the 1990s and the subsequent peace, continue. And the role of Islam itself remains a seemingly minor, but not fully understood, factor.

Young Serbs feel judged, and misjudged, as the perpetrators of genocide rather than as one side of a complicated story, or even as victims. This summer’s commemorations of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica were a continuation of a Western narrative, they say, that forgets or deliberately obscures atrocities on all sides, and that overstates an admittedly terrible war crime as genocide. They recognize that their path to Europe, that is, membership in the EU, has been delayed for a variety of reasons but not least of all because of these prejudices against them.

In Bosnia, meanwhile, the divided government contributes to an anemic economy, with an unemployment rate of 60% for young people. Bosnian Serbs have special access to Serbia, including Serbian passports, and therefore a possible future route into the EU economy. Bosnian Croats can get Croatian passports, making them essentially already members of the EU. Bosniaks, whom we called in the 1990s Bosnian Muslims, are being pulled in competing directions by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The number of Bosniaks attracted to ISIS or other jihadi groups remains limited, but not zero.

A farmer in Bugojno, Bosnia, http://govt396.com/2014/10/19/back-to-bosnia-gallery-1/

A critical difference, however, seems to be the view of the future. The many young Serbs I met were embarrassed and frustrated by the indignities that their country still bears for its role in the war of the 1990s. And it has not forgotten the NATO bombing of their country in 1999—indeed, it leaves the partially-destroyed former Ministry of Defense building “as is” on a major thoroughfare. But the young Serbs were at least hopeful that membership in the EU, that golden ticket, was a possibility and indeed was nearing, however slowly.

The young people I met in Sarajevo—equally smart and ambitious and hardworking as their Belgrade peers—had no such hope. They knew that the political divisions within their country, many of which were driven by the same divisions that led to war in the 1990s and that were made permanent by the Dayton Accords, prevent any reasonable path to the EU, and even any reasonable working governance in their own country.  Two young women I talked with said they wanted to rebuild a multi-ethnic country, but that the economy, health care, and corruption compelled many of their friends to emigrate.  Bosnia’s most recent elections were decently run, but seemed to offer few solutions.

The danger for Bosnia, Europe, and all of us, is that this hopelessness will allow violence—ethnic or jihadi—to re-emerge. The task for the EU, for Bosnia’s benefit and for its own, is to help Bosnia find a new path forward.

À la suite des attentats du vendredi 13 novembre 2015, nous vous invitons à relire l’article de Myriam Benraad, « Défaire Daech : une guerre tant financière que militaire », publié dans le numéro d’été 2015 (2/2015) de Politique étrangère.

Organisation terroriste la plus médiatisée et la plus redoutée de la nébuleuse djihadiste mondiale, l’État islamique a largement bâti sa puissance militaire et politique sur le développement d’une véritable économie de guerre, à cheval entre l’Irak et la Syrie, passé graduellement d’activités de contrebande et d’extorsion diverses à un système dont chaque aspect a été méticuleusement pensé par ses concepteurs[1]. De par sa volonté de fonder un « État », qui confère tout son sens à son action au-delà des multiples débats sémantiques qui l’ont entouré, « Daech »[2] s’est doté de ressources qui, en 2015, en font toujours le groupe armé le plus fortuné au monde, avec près de deux milliards de dollars à son actif. Cette richesse se combine à un fonctionnement interne reposant sur une gestion millimétrée de revenus démultipliés à la faveur de l’absence de développement socioéconomique et de la déliquescence des institutions dans les territoires conquis ; revenus qui rendent compte de l’essor du djihad et de l’autonomisation de ses représentants par rapport à leurs promoteurs passés[3].

Cette sombre réalité et la résilience de l’État islamique en dépit des frappes aériennes de ces derniers mois rappellent, s’il en était besoin, l’urgence d’une compréhension plus aboutie de la machine de guerre qui sous-tend la survie même de l’organisation. Les djihadistes ont, en effet, su parfaire des méthodes de levée et de transfert de fonds extrêmement sophistiquées, qui fondent leur faculté à donner corps à l’État dont ils se prévalent. À ce titre, l’État islamique constitue une nouvelle forme de terrorisme pour laquelle conserver une activité financière pérenne est essentiel à la réalisation de ses ambitions. Or, si elles sont partiellement connues, les sources de financement de l’organisation appellent une documentation plus minutieuse, essentielle à l’adoption de mesures appropriées pour empêcher l’État islamique de faire usage de sa richesse, et pour tarir les ressources dont il pourrait s’emparer. Le caractère changeant des fonds en cause rend l’exercice périlleux, mais non moins décisif pour la réussite de la lutte anti-djihadiste.

On éclairera ici tout d’abord les rouages économiques et financiers de l’État islamique qui lui ont permis, dès son émergence sur la scène irakienne à l’automne 2006, de conquérir un vaste territoire à travers le Moyen-Orient, niant les frontières contemporaines de la région, et qui s’étend désormais à l’Égypte, à la Libye et, dans une moindre mesure, au Yémen. Quoiqu’une typologie exhaustive des sources de financement soit difficile à dresser, la richesse de l’État islamique provient principalement de ses extorsions et trafics divers – dont celui des populations fragilisées qui subissent son chantage –, de même que des ressources naturelles qu’il maîtrise et exploite au sein de son « califat » autoproclamé. Les revenus de Daech servent une stratégie qui vise par le biais de divers mécanismes de terrain et le recours aux technologies et aux derniers moyens de communication, à façonner un projet sociopolitique à double vocation régionale et globale[4].

On soulignera ensuite que les besoins financiers croissants de l’État islamique pour réaliser ses ambitions et consolider ses structures internes l’ont aussi très tôt placé dans une posture de vulnérabilité. Comme en témoigne son expansion hors d’Irak et de Syrie vers d’autres théâtres de conflit comme la Libye, l’organisation terroriste est contrainte de prendre de nouveaux territoires et de nouvelles ressources pour maintenir un flux constant de revenus et financer ses opérations. Depuis l’été 2014, la réponse militaire vise particulièrement l’économie de l’État islamique pour assécher ses revenus et le mettre en déroute au plan militaire. Le groupe djihadiste est aujourd’hui confronté à un défi : pérenniser sa richesse pour pouvoir subsister.

La communauté internationale continue quant à elle de se mobiliser, concentrant ses efforts pour entraver l’essor de la contrebande et des autres activités illicites aux mains des djihadistes. L’identification des acteurs, intermédiaires, transporteurs, acheteurs, reste toutefois ardue ; de même que le contrôle du secteur financier et des subventions extérieures. Quelles politiques peuvent être adoptées ou développées pour mettre fin au financement de l’État islamique ? Outre la poursuite des frappes sur ses infrastructures matérielles, une coopération internationale renforcée s’impose, de toute évidence. Mais selon quels dispositifs, eu égard à la capacité des djihadistes à déjouer les mesures traditionnellement prises contre les entreprises terroristes ? »

[…]

Et Myriam Benraad de conclure :

« Aucune victoire décisive contre l’État islamique ne pourra advenir sans une contre-offensive économique et financière qui requiert la mobilisation du plus grand nombre et la criminalisation de tout financement à destination du groupe et d’autres formations djihadistes actives. À l’heure actuelle, l’imposition de sanctions adéquates et la création de dispositifs judiciaires et institutionnels susceptibles de prévenir ces flux financiers butent sur des dissensions d’ordre géopolitique, notamment entre acteurs régionaux (Arabie Saoudite et Iran en tête) qui n’ont pas été directement frappés par l’onde de choc djihadiste, et restent par conséquent plus préoccupés par l’extension de leur influence. Vus du terrain, l’entremêlement sans fin des dynamiques conflictuelles et la primauté des réseaux économiques et circuits financiers informels n’est pas sans compliquer la donne. »

Lire l’intégralité de l’article sur cairn.info.

S’abonner à Politique étrangère.

[1]. On peut évoquer ici une économie politique. Voir à ce sujet : M. Batal Al-Shishani, « The Political Economy of the Islamic State », Terrorism Monitor, vol. 12, n° 24, The Jamestown Foundation, décembre 2014.

[2]. Ironiquement, l’usage du terme « Daech » ne retire rien à la prétention étatisante de ses membres. Il ne s’agit, en effet, que de l’acronyme arabe de Dawla islamiyya fi al-‘Iraq wa al-Cham, qui signifie « État islamique en Irak et au Levant ».

[3]. Sur le rôle joué par certains régimes sunnites du Golfe, au premier plan desquels l’Arabie Saoudite, dans l’essor continu du djihadisme et de l’État islamique en particulier, voir l’excellent essai de P. Cockburn, Le Retour des djihadistes. Aux racines de l’État islamique, Paris, Éditions des Équateurs, 2014.

[4]. Sur la stratégie de l’État islamique et ses multiples dimensions, voir l’essai remarquable de P.-J. Luizard, Le Piège Daech. L’État islamique ou le retour de l’Histoire, Paris, La Découverte, 2015.

Myanmar's people have voted overwhelmingly for change. It may have been a simple message -- some would say simplistic, given the deep problems the country faces -- but the campaign slogan of the National League for Democracy, "time for change," resonated powerfully in a country still emerging from five decades of authoritarian rule.

(Own report) - The austerity dictate, imposed by Berlin on the Eurozone, is a stumbling block for the formation of a democratically legitimized government in Portugal. In the country's recent elections, the Partido Socialista (PS) and two alliances of left-wing parties had won the majority of parliamentary seats because they had promised to reject the former government's harsh austerity program. This was not tolerated in the German-dominated EU, therefore, President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, refuses to mandate the PS to form a new government. Instead, he has called on the former Prime Minister of the conservatives, Pedro Passos Coelho, who had lost the elections. Cavaco Silva declared, Portugal's governments have never relied on "the support of anti-European forces," with reference to the EU critical positions of the two alliances of left parties, which are also not tolerated by Portugal's establishment. It is unclear how this will develop. In spite of the new democratic majority, Passos Coelho may be kept in office for another six months. On various occasions over the past few years, electoral and referendum results have been negated, because they did not correspond to the EU's austerity dictate. Democracy is losing out to the German-inspired austerity.

Photo from the deleted Weibo posts, via Quartz

The coordinated series of bombings and shootings by the Islamic State (IS) on Friday the 13th which killed 129 people in Paris and 43 people in Beirut the day before, will have long-reaching repercussions on the domestic and foreign policies of many nations. Already, talk is growing of closing borders across Europe and 19 U.S. governors have indicated they will refuse any Syrians planning to seek refuge in their states. France reacted militarily by launching punitive airstrikes against IS in Syria on Sunday night, and the U.S. conducted airstrikes against IS and its oil smuggling network. Numerous raids on suspected Islamic terrorists were conducted across France and are also underway in Brussels.  

Over in China’s far western autonomous province of Xinjiang, the attacks in Paris and Beirut will probably result in a green light from Beijing for local officials to step up their crackdown against the Islamic militant threat.  Following the attacks, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly called for Xinjiang to become an “important part” of the world’s war on terror, calling for a “united front to combat terrorism.” Minister Wang was also reported saying, “China is also a victim of terrorism. The fight against the ‘East Turkestan Islamic Movement’… should become an important part of the international fight against terrorism.”

The momentum for increased counterinsurgency efforts in China is clearly building, and efforts to get the Chinese public on board, using propaganda, in the fight against terrorism will increase.  On the day following the Paris attacks, the state-owned People’s Daily ran an article (since removed) covering a counterinsurgency effort to combat terrorist militants in Xinjiang. The article was accompanied by several pictures of armed police in mountainous areas, some preparing to raid a rural home (as shown above).  

Xinjiang is the Chinese province which has witnessed the greatest number of terrorist actions, with hundreds killed, although recent attacks have spread across China to include Beijing, Kunming and Guangzhou. Beijing blames these attacks on Islamic terrorists, often pointing the finger at the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a group it claims has links with al Qaeda.  

Beijing claims ETIM is fighting for an independent state called “East Turkestan,” or “Uyghuristan” modeled after neighboring Central Asian nations. Two “Eastern Turkestan Republics” survived between 1931-1934 and 1944-1949 before Mao Zedong took control and eventually conceded the title “Xinjiang Autonomous Region” in 1955, partly to win over Turkic speakers in the territory.  Beijing also asserts some 300 of Xinjiang’s ethnic Uighur population have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside IS.

Despite ETIM having been placed by the U.N. and Washington on a list of terror organizations in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, many foreign experts doubt the portrayal by Beijing of ETIM as a formidable force.  Rather, human rights organizations and the exile community argue the violence can be traced to the widespread resentment among Uighurs to strict controls on the practice of their religion and efforts to eradicate their culture.

These efforts have included the banning of veils for women, imposing restrictions on Uighur travel rights, banning students from fasting during Ramadan, restricting religious teaching for children, and putting limits on Uighur-language education. Analysts also point to widespread discrimination against Uighurs in hiring and other economic opportunities.  

Back in September 2014, China’s highest court, highest prosecution office and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued detailed instructions on dealing with terrorism and religious extremism.  The instructions urged court officials, prosecutors and police to distinguish between the illegal acts of religious extremists and ordinary religious activities, urging officials to avoid discriminating against any religion or ethnic minority, and to avoid interfering with citizens’ freedom to practice their religion.

In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, government officials in Xinjiang will be tempted to put aside these restraints on their policing, and any excessive actions against the Uighur population will likely be overlooked by Beijing.  The rhetoric coming from China’s top police chief, Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun, “to smash violent terrorism before it occurs,” sets a dangerous precedent.  Beijing is certainly justified in stepping up efforts to counter any real terrorist threats in the aftermath of the Paris and Beirut attacks, as many nations are doing.  Yet greater efforts will need to be undertaken to promote smarter policing in Xinjiang, as also advocated by Guo, lest the rights of the innocent be further infringed upon in the name of expediency.

It is time for the two countries to resolve their differences and work together.

KMT presidential candidate Eric Chu used his visit to the U.S. to question his opponent's plans for cross-strait ties.

(Own report) - Following last Friday's terrorist attacks in Paris, leading German media have begun speaking of a new world war. A renowned daily, for example, wrote that "a third world war" is currently being forced upon "the entire planet," warning that the war against IS "is not yet being waged with the intensity needed in a world war." Other journals are calling for resolute action without "half-heartedness" or even "self-recrimination." The fact that after 14 years of the "War on Terror," terrorism is stronger than ever before and the Arab-Muslim world is in shambles is allegedly not the result of a misguided western policy. The West supposedly bears no responsibility for the fact that "processes of disintegration and decivilization" have begun within the "Muslim belt of crisis stretching from Pakistan to Morocco," which has led to a "breakdown of civilization." In addition to the continuation - and even expansion - of the policy of military intervention, various media are also calling for broadening domestic repression. In the case of a "terror threat," the Bundeswehr should take on the task of protecting endangered streets. Among Germany's main national media organs, only one renowned business journal is not participating in this comprehensive orchestration of public opinion and preparation for a "world war." Military escalation "does not bring peace," it only "spawns suicide bombers," warns its chief editor and calls for finally searching for alternatives.