Geopolitical thread

[abhishek_sharma]

Fear of a German Europe

[RajeshA]

Fear of a German Europe

It is the loser powers like UK and Italy who are inciting this Germanophobia. They are trying to pull down Germany to their own loser-level.

It is the same Paki-mentality - Give us more or we will hate you more!

[Prabu]

Russia to target U.S. sites if missile shield talks fail: Medvedev


Admins, You can shift it, if you feel some other thread is more appropriate.

[abhishek_sharma]

Medvedev announces failure of U.S.-Russia missile defense talks; threatens to withdraw from New START

[RamaY]

See india map compared to the others. It is intentionally distorted while the details of other nations are intentionally kept clear.

Bast**s...

[svinayak]

The Only Thing New In Life Is The History You Don't Know - Harry Truman

This interview with radical historian Douglas Dietrich is explosive. Possibly one of the best historical interviews I've ever listened to and certainly the best military historian on the planet period. I make no exaggeration that I felt more stupid after listening to it than I've ever felt. That's a good thing. I know enough of the history that doesn't make it into the school books like the link between the Bush family bank funding I.G. Farben that rebuilt Germany as opposed to the myth of a Nazi ideology. But that is "true history" 101 compared to what you will learn in this two hour plus interview. I've not heard of Mr Dietrich before but everything he says can be verified on the net and his command of historical detail is next level cogency. Douglas Dietrich is utterly lucid, fast as a whip and intellectually unstoppable.

I've not come across someone who can offload so much detailed information in order to make his case. You will learn more about how much you don't know than you could possibly imagine if you set aside the time to listen to this seminal interview. It starts off with a Satanic child sex abuse, military scandal back in the 80's that was hushed over,but by the time you get into the second segment the layers are peeled back on the war with Japan and how the military really ticks at the expense of military lives.

Short Profile:

Douglas Dietrich is the son of a retired U.S. Navy Sailor. Douglas worked for ten years as a Department of Defense Research Librarian at the Presidio Military Base of San Francisco, where one of his major duties was document destruction. He then experienced the 1991 Kuwaiti campaign, serving in Desert Storm as a United Sates Marine.

[kmkraoind]

CHyna On the Back Foot - Radio Free Asia

"Now, what struck me about that statement is not what he said, but what he didn't say," said the official, according to background briefing notes provided by the White House.

"Typically, the Chinese public posture has been to be vaguely positive about the idea of reaching a code of conduct, but then to qualify it by saying, at an appropriate time and when the circumstances are propitious. He [Wen] conspicuously omitted both of those caveats."

The official said that Wen also did not say, as officials had in the past, that the disputes should be resolved bilaterally.

"Now, here, too, I can't say that the Chinese have abandoned their position that the South China Sea competing claims need to be resolved one-on-one, 'mano a mano,' China versus each one of the small other claimants. They may not be abandoning that position, but he didn't say it."

CHyna initially thought that it can have a dinner every day by killing one rabbit every day. But after seeing all rabbits, tiger and eagle at once, now it seems to be backing off.

[JE Menon]

And a samurai to boot...

But as an Indian, I'm not praying for them to back off. They are smart enough to do so, though. Much will depend on socio-economic realities and the accuracy of data, and the quality of interpretation of that data, reaching relevant party mandarins.

[Philip]

Not too long ago,we were gripped with the titillating scandal of IMF boss DSK,being given a "blow (j*b),by blow (j*b)" description of his amorous activities with a hotel maid who claimed indecent assault.DSK,a well known sexual predator,whose alleged behaviour the French do not find too objectionable in their politicians, was later found not guilty by the US courts who found that the maid in question had a dubious reputation and the allegations that he was deliberately set up by alleged pro-Sarko supporters and French intel.,because he planned to contest the French presidency.

Further revelations now make it appear that these allegations of a conspiracy to derail DSK and kill his chances of election were well founded.The case is getting curioser and curioser.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/domi ... rrest.html

Xcpts:

Hotel staff 'celebrated' after Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest.

Claims that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a conspiracy were reignited last night, after extraordinary new allegations were made about his sexual encounter with a New York chambermaid.

It is alleged that one of Mr Strauss-Kahn's private emails was seen in the headquarters of his rival Nicolas Sarkozy's political party Photo: AP
By Henry Samuel, Paris
26 Nov 2011

Staff at the hotel where the ex-International Monetary Fund chief allegedly assaulted the maid were filmed high-fiving and doing a “dance of celebration” after the incident in May, a new article claims.

Mr Strauss-Kahn also believed his mobile phone had been hacked after being told one of his private emails was seen in the headquarters of his rival Nicolas Sarkozy's political party, it alleges.

The article, by the investigative journalist Edward Epstein in the New York Review of Books, will provoke fury among allies of Mr Strauss-Kahn, who have long maintained that he was set up.

He had been expected to challenge Mr Sarkozy for the French presidency next year, but was forced to resign from the IMF and withdraw from the presidential race after his arrest in New York.

Nafissatou Diallo, 32, claimed the 65-year-old tried to rape her when she arrived to clean his suite at the Manhttan Sofitel, before forcing her to give him oral sex. He was jailed and then detained under house arrest, but all charges were dropped when prosecutors found inconsistencies in Miss Diallo's account.

Epstein claims that the hotel's chief engineer, Brian Yearwood, was filmed by surveillance cameras meeting an unidentified colleague after sitting with Miss Diallo immediately following the incident.

“The two men high-five each other, clap their hands and do what looks like an extraordinary dance of celebration that lasts for three minutes,” Epstein writes of the footage.

He also reports that Mr Strauss-Kahn was warned that a private email had been seen in a Paris office of President Sarkozy’s UMP party.

The claim led Mr Strauss-Kahn to believe his IMF BlackBerry had been hacked. The phone later took on a crucial role in the scandal, after Mr Strauss-Kahn called the hotel to say he had left it in his room.

His call, from a taxi en route to John F. Kennedy airport, allowed hotel staff to direct police to the Air France jet that was about to fly him to Paris. The BlackBerry was allegedly never recovered, and Epstein claims its GPS locator was disabled about 40 minutes after the alleged assault.

The article was dismissed as “preposterous” last night by Douglas Wigdor, one of Miss Diallo's attorneys, who said it was “not based on facts or evidence”.

“This is like saying Neil Armstrong did not land on the moon, or that JFK was shot from the grassy knoll,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyers did not return a request for comment. Mr Yearwood and spokesmen for the hotel could not be reached for comment.

[Philip]

Hugn Chavez is bringing back Venezuela's gold fom EU bank,because he fears another Gadhaffi style freeze on his country's assets when he runs for presidency again next year.The astute Venezuelan pres. is eceuring his nation's gold assets so that brigandbanks operating with the connivance of western nations in cahoots with the right wing factions in Venezuela ,will not be able to stop Chavez's socialist and populist economic programmes for want of money,thus bringing him down.

Venezuela gets its first shipment of gold bars back from EuropePresident Hugo Chávez has ordered almost all of the country's foreign bullion reserves to be repatriated from western banks

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/no ... rope-banks

A first shipment of gold bars arrived in Venezuela on Friday after President Hugo Chávez ordered almost all of the country's foreign bullion reserves to be repatriated from western bank vaults.

Experts have cautioned that the operation, which will eventually transport more than 160 tonnes of ingots worth more than $11bn (£7.1bn) to Venezuela – will be risky, slow and expensive.

Central bank chief Nelson Merentes did not say how much gold was brought back in the first shipment.

The bars were unloaded at Maiquetia international airport, driven across the runway and packed on to pallets with an armed soldier riding on top, before being transferred to several grey armoured cars for the journey to Caracas.

"They say Chávez is going to take the gold … and give it to Cuba as a gift," the president chuckled yesterday, mocking rivals who accuse him of planning to sell the ingots to fill his warchest ahead of next year's presidential election.

"It's coming to the place it never should have left … the vaults of the Central Bank of Venezuela, not the bank of London or the bank of the United States," he said. "It's our gold."

Chávez announced the repatriation in August as a sovereign step that would help protect Venezuela's foreign reserves from economic turbulence in the US and Europe. It also was seen as a populist measure ahead of next October's election, when the socialist leader will seek another six-year term.

Next year's vote is likely to be contentious, and some critics suggest Chávez is worried about Venezuela's foreign reserves being frozen - as happened to Muammar Gaddafi.

The repatriattion also reduces the risk of assets seizures related to arbitration cases, including those linked to the nationalisation of oil projects run by big US companies.

[abhishek_sharma]

The Stories You Missed in 2011

The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers

[svinayak]

We Don't Need a "Pacific" President—We Need an American One

We Don't Need a "Pacific" President—We Need an American One

Kenneth Weisbrode

11-28-11

Kenneth Weisbrode is the Vincent Wright Fellow in History at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute, as well as the founder and managing editor of the journal New Global Studies. He is the author of "The Atlantic Century: Four Generations of Extraordinary Diplomats who Forged America's Vital Alliance with Europe."

“Geopolitics” is a strange word. In fusing geography with politics, it flips the academic term—political geography—on its head. It defines the political manipulation of territory more than the influence of political factors upon geography per se. Its import and orientation have accordingly been more normative and ideological than empirical.

Among the more notable founders of modern geopolitics were Germans—Friedrich Ratzel, Karl Haushofer—and a few of their ideas—namely, Lebensraum, or living space—were once sought eagerly and eastwardly by Nazis. For this reason geopolitics has had a checkered reputation. Although some concepts are well known—Russia with its “Near Abroad”; Pakistan and “Strategic Depth”—geopolitics tends to be a favorite of armchair (and some real) generals and journalists; many geographers do not regard it seriously.

In America especially, the geopolitical mind tends to be taken for granted. For many years American schoolchildren learned that their country had only two borders and that both are undisputed and largely peaceful. That was not always the case and life is messier on the ground, to be sure. But mental maps are aspirational. They also can be conspiratorial. They reveal the ways we like to see ourselves, as well as our fears. Thus maps with a polar projection appeared frequently during the Cold War: suddenly the Soviet Union was not on the other side of the world from most of us, but was there, on the map, right next door.

“Grand strategy,” it has been said, is the foible of generals with maps of too small a scale. The same might be said of geopolitics. But this would be unfortunate. Mental maps condition the thinking of our leaders, and translate their priorities and policies into everyday language. Take, for example, the Obama administration’s rising interest in Asia. Barack Obama has called himself the first “Pacific president.” Hillary Clinton has announced the dawn of a new “Pacific Century” and the need to bolster America’s presence there. Their recent trip to Asia appeared something like a self-coronation. The Old World of Europe now really does seem decrepit, and “Eurocentrism” an unfashionable relic of the twentieth century. The future is to be “won” elsewhere.

This is not new. The “Richer by Asia” mantra is resurrected with frequency, especially by American presidents, and it goes back to the beginning of the history of U.S. foreign relations. George Washington’s Farewell Address warned against becoming too tied to Europe, especially European conflicts, but did not proscribe Asia: some of the greatest American fortunes were to be made there. The “China market” fed the American geopolitical (and commercial) imagination throughout the nineteenth century. Asia, in the words of Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state William Seward, was nothing less than “the chief theatre of events in the world's great hereafter.” America’s school of geopolitics, such that it existed, emphasized isolation from European conflicts but hegemony in the Western hemisphere and a balance of power in Asia underpinned by the so-called Open Door. “Isolationism” (which in effect resembled more Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s name for it: “insulationism”) applied mainly to Europe, less so to Asia. America is, and more or less always has been, an Asian power. President Obama has never hesitated to acknowledge it.

By the mid-twentieth century, however, such longitudinal distinctions became tough to sustain in practice. For all that Franklin Roosevelt’s military advisers debated the priorities of the European and the Pacific theaters, everyone knew that the war had to be won in both places and that the United States was by then a world power. This continued throughout the Cold War and beyond to what some people like to call the era of globalization. So, why resurrect the distinctions now?

In a global era borders are presumed to disappear, or at least to become more fungible, like geopolitics itself. For example, Japan has been regarded as part of “the West” at least since the 1970s, whereas that notion would have seemed very strange a few decades earlier during Japan’s promotion of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” But, as we’re seeing, globalization entails different borders, not an end to them. New borders are drawn; some old ones are fortified. Among them are the mental borders that further what has been called the myth of the continents. They are difficult to resist because of their cultural, emotional and even spiritual connotations. And they demand mutual exclusivity. Our geopolitical minds simplify and exaggerate. They yearn for seductive trends and against ambivalence.

Yet if it amounts to anything, the Atlantic/Pacific distinction is an ambivalent one. The United States wouldn’t be the only power to succumb to its flaws. The Russian Empire, for example, regularly shifted its attention from Europe to Asia during the latter nineteenth century and into the early twentieth when, one could argue, its diplomatic priorities were badly reversed. When its leaders should have been worrying about their country’s interests in the Balkans, they were obsessed with Japan and Korea; and vice versa.

Why must we draw a border between Europe and Asia? Why must they be ranked at one another’s expense, or portrayed in dialectic? For all that “leading from behind” has been denounced by the White House as constituting any kind of official position, it is difficult to draw any other implication from the Obama administration’s public stance toward Europe and, for that matter, transatlantic interests, particularly with regard to the dramatic changes underway in the Middle East and North Africa. Helping those who help themselves is a nice idea and it may make sense in some cases; but adhering to it as a general principle or doctrine carries a big risk and no more so when applied in blanket fashion to the majority of America’s closest allies, or to a bevy of potential new allies in a most volatile part of the world.

There is a fine line, in other words, between a form of diplomatic deism and mere diffidence. The latter perception has already taken hold about America in many places; not least in East Asia, which now has its own multiplying relationships with Europe, the Middle East and important countries in other regions, notably Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Thus elements of the policy of the Pacific Century may become worthy parts of a broader hedging strategy but they suffer from being sold differently to various audiences and, as several commentators have recently pointed out, lack the material wherewithal for implementation. To some they may represent reassurance but to others they amount to mere jawboning, even grandstanding, and recall Dean Acheson’s line about a former empire in search of a role. The benefits of the policy are not self-evident, at least not yet. And like Henry Kissinger’s tactic of pre-emptive concession, it smells of being a premature negotiation with oneself. This is the time to reinforce commitments and to promote common interests in the places that need it most, not to limit liability behind the mask of grand strategic wisdom.

As any American politician knows, it is important to find ways to keep voters interested in, and willing to pay for, foreign policy. If you can’t scare them, you must tempt them. Americans are weary of being scared by the Middle East, no matter how critical, consequential and precarious much of it remains, or how badly its people need moral and material support. There seems little to tempt Americans, apart from a potentially stronger dollar, in Europe. Thus the legendary China market has been rehabilitated as the “Asia-Pacific region,” the new promised land of jobs and other opportunities as against the potential menace of a newly militarized co-prosperity sphere. Nonetheless, there comes a point at which rhetoric dictates action, or inaction, as the case may be. As the Obama administration has already discovered, keeping a rhetorical distance from Europe, its difficulties and its extended neighborhood carries a cost. Drawing new geopolitical borders always does.

No power can be present everywhere at once and all nations must set priorities. The administration’s efforts to fertilize formerly Atlanticist, now global (and someday universal), concepts—collective security, regional integration, free trade, human rights, and so forth—in Asian soil is also laudable. But all of this will fail if portrayed deliberately or even inadvertently in zero-sum terms. Equating a shift toward Asia with a larger force or trend, or worse, with a special historical pattern of evolution and a preferred cultural disposition, may not necessarily be wrong to do for historians looking back, but it usually is for politicians looking ahead. Doubling over past biases doesn’t make it right. The sun may rise in the East and set in the West, but the earth is round and Americans would be much better off with a global president, or just an American president, than with a self-appointed “Pacific” one. For mental borders have a tendency to take on real world lives of their own. And no geopolitical vision, however elegant or appealing, can correct an ambivalent policy.

[svinayak]

All aberrations come to a natural end

All aberrations come to a natural end
NOVEMBER 28, 2011 PROFESSOR KISHORE MAHBUBANI 0 COMMENTS
The following is the text of remarks made by this writer at the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum in Geneva on 27th August 2010.

Please let me begin by confessing that I face a serious dilemma in my remarks today.

The goal of any speaker is to make his audience feel good at the end of his remarks.

However, the world that is coming will be a world that will be outside your comfort zones.

If I am going to help you prepare for this, I should make you feel uncomfortable when I have finished.

I may succeed in this.

Hence, to be true to my Asian roots, I will have to apologise to you in advance if I succeed in making you uncomfortable.
At the same time, let me admit that it will be difficult to speak about global geopolitical and geo-economic developments in 20 minutes.

In the next few decades, we are going to witness some of the biggest power shifts we have seen in centuries.

Many of these changes will also be amazingly complex.

However, the larger backdrop of history against which these complex changes are happening is simple and clear and can be captured with two key points:
First, we will see the end of the era of Western domination of world history (but not the end of the West).

The days when the US and the EU could unilaterally impose sanctions are gone.
Second, we will see the return of Asia.

From the year 1 to 1820, China and India consistently had the world's largest economies and by 2050 or earlier, we will return to this 2,000-year norm.

The last 200 years of world history have been major historical aberrations.

All aberrations come to a natural end.

This is why the return of Asia is unstoppable.
So, one practical question that all CEOs should ask at the end of my presentation is this: how Western is the identity of my firm? How identified is my firm with the rise of Asia?
Despite what I said about the first scenario, none of us can predict the future.

Frankly, to take the most important geopolitical relationship, the US-China relationship, neither Obama nor Hu Jintao can predict what will happen because we are in a very plastic phase of history.

All kinds of events may happen (and some I will speak about).

Therefore the only way to speak about the future is to think in terms of scenarios.

And I will speak about three scenarios: (1) the logical scenario (2) the illogical scenario (3) the most likely scenario.
The logical scenario
Geopolitics can be predictable because sometimes it works very logically.

Hence, throughout history, the most important relationship is between the world's greatest power and the world's greatest emerging power because the world's greatest power will always try to prevent the emergence of a competitor.

Today, the world's greatest power is USA.

The world's greatest emerging power is China.
If world history followed traditional geopolitical logic, we should be seeing a massive geopolitical struggle between USA and China.

Most of you in the room remember well the Cold War between USA and Soviet Union when both sides had a comprehensive global strategy to thwart each other.

Indeed, the USA, by and large, succeeded in its containment strategy of the Soviet Union.

Logically, the USA should be deploying the same kind of containment strategy against China.
However, as we all know, this is not happening.

Instead, we are seeing, by and large, a more cooperative than a competitive relationship between USA and China.

This goes against all geopolitical logic.

So why is it happening? The simple but uncomfortable answer is that this is a result of massive geopolitical incompetence by the US and remarkable geopolitical competence by China.

I have to emphasise this point because all the American analysts talk about how America is managing the US-China relationship.

Actually, America is not managing it.

China is managing this relationship.
In my next scenario, the illogical scenario, I will describe at length the geopolitical incompetence of the US.

Here, let me describe the geopolitical competence of China.

China has put together several elements to manage the US and deflect any containment strategy.

Let me mention just a few.

First, China has generated deep economic interdependence between China and the US.

Remember there was no economic interdependence between USSR and USA.

Therefore, while China still relies on American markets (although China will progressively reduce its reliance on US markets), America relies on China to buy US Treasury Bills.

With rising American deficits, this reliance on China will continue.

Why did Hillary Clinton visit Asia and China instead of Europe on her first overseas trip in February 2009? To ensure that China continued to buy US Treasury Bills at the height of the financial crisis.

Secondly, China has launched a pre-emptive strike against a Soviet-style American containment policy by sharing its prosperity with all of its neighbours.

Hence, regional trade is growing for both economic and geopolitical reasons.

Thirdly, China has tried to allay American fears by complying with WTO and other rules of the rules-based order that USA and Europe created in 1945.

Indeed, China, India and other Asian countries are becoming the biggest beneficiaries of the rules-based order.

Hence, we are not likely to see the breakdown of the WTO order.

This is why I am sceptical of all scenarios, which predict resource-based wars.

China, India and other emerging power will have to become very stupid to go to the war to acquire resources when they can get them through long-term contracts.

Just look at the number of long-term contracts China has signed with Australia.

Fourthly, the new assertiveness of both Africa and Latin America is playing to China's advantage as they turn to China to balance traditional European and American domination of their continents.

Fifthly, China is careful to avoid the cardinal mistake made by the Soviet Union: to engage in an arms race with USA.

It has enough nuclear weapons for Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).

It does not need much more.

Sixthly, China is still trying hard to take a low profile and not overly challenge America's domination of leadership of international organisations.

I presume you are aware of Deng Xiaoping's famous 28 characters, which prescribed seven guidelines for China to follow: (1) lengjing guancha, observe and analyse developments calmly; (2) chenzhuo yingfu, deal with changes patiently and confidently; (3) wenzhu zhenjiao, secure our own position; (4) taoguang yanghui, conceal our capabilities and avoid the limelight; (5) shanyu shouzhuo, keep a low profile; (6) juebu dangtou, never become a leader; and (7) yousuo zuowei, strive for achievements.
In short, the extraordinarily intelligent geopolitical performance of China has averted the logical scenario.

Please remember that the Chinese geopolitical policymakers treat the world as a complex geopolitical chessboard and make the connections between different issues.

By contrast, American geopolitical policymakers treat each problem as a silo and fail to make connections.

Let me mention another paradox.

In the long run, the American political system is functional while China's is not but in the short run, China's political system is functional while America's is not.

This too explains the extraordinary geopolitical incompetence of the US, which has created the illogical scenario.
The illogical scenario
What is the illogical geopolitical scenario? The illogical scenario is a struggle between the US and the Islamic world.

Why is it illogical? There are no fundamental geopolitical contradictions between the US and the Islamic world.

Indeed, both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans separate America from the Islamic world.

And there are no Islamic states in America.

Future historians will someday wonder how America lost an entire decade, from 2001 to 2010.

Instead of focusing on China, it got trapped in two unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, lost $3 trillion and will end up with military failures in both counties.

One thing that amazes me is that so few Americans are asking the obvious question: Why has America failed in such a catastrophic fashion? And why did America get sucked into unnecessary wars? Amazingly, despite President Obama's two brilliant speeches in Cairo and Istanbul, America's relations with the Islamic world are no better.

Why not?
This is where I will have to step into some truly uncomfortable territory.

To avoid misunderstanding, let me stress at the very outset that I am a friend of both the US and Israel.

I believe that Israel is a global treasure of a country.

It should be protected, not destroyed.

It is precisely because I am a friend of both Israel and the US, I believe that both are engaged in an amazingly self-destructive strategy in the long run.

First, it is a fundamental strategic mistake for Israel to put all its eggs into one basket: to attach its long-term survival to one major power whose power has peaked and will from now on perpetually decline in relative terms.

American power reached an artificial high in the 1990s.

Even if American power does not decline in absolute terms, it will decline in relative terms.

And the power of the Islamic world (which is as unnaturally low as that of China and India) will naturally increase, as the Muslim societies will learn from the successes of China and India.

Please remember that American failures in Iraq and Afghanistan will boost the morale of Islamic societies.

And why will it improve Islamic morale? Because they will say that the era when Christian military boots could march on Islamic soil and succeed is gone.

To understand how assertive Islamic societies will become, look at Turkey's behaviour in the last two years.

This is a leading indicator of the increasing assertiveness of the Islamic world.

There is still a small window of opportunity for Israel to achieve a two-state solution.

If it misses this moment, things will become harder with each passing decade as American power declines and Islamic power rises in relative terms.

I am amazed that so few Israelis recognise that time is no longer on their side.

And the daily drop of delegitimization that Israel is suffering will do immense long-term damage to Israel.
Secondly, it is a fundamental strategic error for America to have a completely unbalanced policy on Israel and Palestine.

We all know why this happens: the powerful pro-Israeli lobby in Washington D.C.

The power of this lobby has generated a remarkable geopolitical distortion.

It prevents Israel from making the necessary pragmatic adjustments to its difficult neighbourhood.

And it prevents the USA from focusing on its primary geopolitical challenge, namely China.
Now I am going to say something which may come across a politically explosive statement.

So please allow me to choose my words carefully and state what I hope is an obvious geopolitical fact: the biggest geopolitical beneficiary of the powerful Israeli lobby is not necessarily Israel (and indeed this lobby may be doing long-term geopolitical damage to Israel) but it may be China.

How does China benefit: the more powerful the lobby, the more distorted American policies become in the Islamic world.

The more preoccupied America gets with the Islamic world, the more time China gets to emerge quietly.

Even the ongoing saga about the Islamic cultural centre in New York will benefit China immensely.
Let me tell you one simple true story to illustrate how brilliantly China benefits from failed American policies in the Islamic world.

Three months after invading Iraq, America discovered it could not export Iraqi oil because the UN Security Council sanctions on Iraq had not been lifted.

So the US successfully got a UNSC Resolution No 1483 to legitimise the American military presence in Iraq and allow Iraqi oil exports.

On the day that this resolution was adopted, I asked a senior American diplomat who helped the US most.

He replied unhesitantly, "China".

China got a double benefit by doing this.

First, it got immense political goodwill from the Bush Administration, which then squeezed Taiwan in gratitude.

Second, by legitimising the American presence, it ensured that America got sucked deeper into the Iraqi quagmire.
There is one other reason why I tell this story.

The most dangerous geopolitical development we could experience in the next year or two is an Israeli or American military strike on Iran.

Here you don't have to be a geopolitical genius to guess who will be the biggest geopolitical beneficiary of this strike: China.
I have spent some time explaining this illogical scenario because in many American and European minds, there is a deeply held belief that we are moving into a more dangerous world.

And much of the fear comes from a fear of the perceived unpredictable and explosive nature of the so-called 'Islamic' threat.

Therefore, let me end with some good news.

The Islamic world is not becoming more dangerous.

In fact most Muslims want to join the "March to Modernity" that China, India and East Asia have joined.

Trust me, if you can get rid of the causes of the illogical scenario I have described, you will suddenly find that the world will look far less dangerous place.
The likely scenario
This is a logical segue into the most likely scenario.

The most likely scenario is that the next two decades from 2010 to 2030 are going to be similar to the past two decades of 1990 to 2010.

In short, we are likely to have more of the same, with no major geopolitical discontinuities.

And why are we likely to have more of the same?
The reason is that the geopolitical driving forces of both the logical and illogical scenarios will continue to play out.

China's leaders know that China needs at least another 20 or 30 years before China becomes a full and comprehensive great power.

And China still has massive internal problems.

Hence, China's geopolitical caution will continue (although China will bare its teeth from time to time to warn that it should not be taken for granted).

And, the US will continue to have its geopolitical hands, feet and mouth tied vis-à-vis the Islamic world.

The US unlike China is incapable of making brilliant geopolitical moves.

For example, diplomacy was invented 2,000 years ago to enable you to talk to your enemies.

The most brilliant geopolitical move that the US could make is for Obama to go to Teheran, just as Nixon went to Beijing or Sadat went to Jerusalem.

But you and I know that this is politically impossible.

This one example illustrates how American policies are inflexible and hidebound.

By contrast, observe how brilliant China has been on Taiwan.
Let me mention Europe.

In theory, the EU should be a geopolitical giant as it has the world's largest economy, in practice, it is a geopolitical dwarf, and its geopolitical performance will become even worse as it gets even more bogged down by its internal difficulties.

The standard geopolitical impulse of the EU is to follow the US unthinkingly.

Sadly, this will bring geopolitical grief to the EU, especially on its borders with North Africa.

The EU is incapable of making any independent moves.

Hence, the second largest geopolitical actor in the world, the EU, will remain silent and predictable.
By contrast, as we saw at the final negotiating session of the Copenhagen conferences, the newly emerging powers - like India and Brazil and later maybe South Africa and Turkey - will become more assertive.

India's GNP is far smaller than the EU's but its geopolitical influence will increase by leaps and bounds while that of the EU will shrink.

However, please remember that all the newly emerging powers are becoming the biggest beneficiaries of the 1945 rules-based order.

Hence, they have the greatest vested interest in seeing the continuation of this rules-based order.

Indeed, we will have a massive explosion in middle-class population.

This is why I can say with great confidence that we are likely to have more of the same.
And, now let me add some good news.

The best news of the 21st century is that major wars are becoming a sunset industry.

A three-thousand-year-old industry does not disappear so easily.

A combination of forces is leading to its disappearance: Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD); the civilising example of the European Union (which has taught us that humanity can achieve zero-prospect of war); the ability to acquire natural resources through WTO rules and, equally importantly, the proliferation of American style Schools of Business and Schools of Public Policy.

Graduates with MBA or MPA learn that it is stupid to go to war.

The costs - as we have just seen in Iraq and Afghanistan - far exceed the benefits.

If the world's most powerful country, which spends more on defence than the rest of the world combined cannot win two small wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which other country can win wars?
But I do not want to conclude by making you believe that all we have to do is to remain complacent.

Yes, the geopolitical correlation of forces - for the reasons I have specified - will probably remain stable.

[svinayak]

Approach Number One – Current Justifications of Classical Geopolitics

The primacy of geography
When turning to “The Continued Primacy of Geography” we quickly see Gray argue that geographical factors, though not deterministic, “are pervasive in world politics.” Geography may not require political behavior of any kind, but it “conditions, shapes and influences the course of a polity’s historical choices.” Statesmen may seem to be free to pursue the foreign policies of their choice, but different geographical settings actually impose distinctive constraints and opportunities on them.
After making this fundamental argument, Gray spends the rest of his essay defending it against four main counterarguments: 1) advances in transportation and communications technology have ‘conquered geography,’ rendering traditional concerns of distance, terrain and climate irrelevant; 2) a converging ‘global culture’ is eroding the territorial basis of political communities; 3) conflict is becoming far more economic than military-political; and 4) changes in the nature of warfare, such as the importance of air power, make the dichotomy between maritime and naval powers obsolete. (History has favored nations with powerful navies rather than armies, or so Gray argues.) In the opinion of our author, none of these arguments undermines the continued relevance of geopolitical theory.
First, technology has not eclipsed the fundamental political significance of controlling populations that must inevitably inhabit a physical geographic space. And though there have been impressive technological advances in the transportation of troops and light weaponry in recent decades, this has not been the case for the heavy artillery, armor and large quantities of ammunition needed for prolonged military engagements. Reality, in other words, hasn’t really changed.
Second, expansive concepts such as global citizenship show few signs of undermining territorial nationalism as the world’s most powerful political force. Even now “hearts do not beat faster at the sight of the UN or EU flags” and there is little evidence to suggest that this will change anytime soon.
Third, economic conflicts have not in any serious way superseded military-political ones. It remains as true today as it ever did that “polities that elect to devote little of their wealth to military defense tend, ultimately, to lose the basis of that wealth.”
Last, even with the advent of air power, which the geopolitical thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th century knew little about, the geopolitical fundamentals of the game have not changed. Yes, “aircraft can bombard, and they can execute missions rapidly,” but they “cannot transport goods in bulk or goods of great weight” or “exercise control of the ground continuously or reliably.” In other words, air power can be extremely powerful but only in support of conventional naval and land operations.
By walking through his realist’s argument in the way that he does, Gray concludes that the basic insights provided by the geopolitical thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries do not require fundamental revision or adaptation for today’s context. If structural changes to the international system are indeed occurring, they are doing so at the margins and at the level of intangibles. Indeed, “so pervasive are geographical images and facts for statecraft and strategy,” Gray concludes, that it is hard for him “to understand why geopolitical analysis is controversial.”
A timeless focus on Eurasia
Another prominent and contemporary proponent of classical geopolitics is Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives has become a classic in many eyes. Brzezinski’s eponymous chessboard is the landmass of Eurasia, to which he turns directly in Chapter Two. “Ever since the continents began interacting politically some five hundred years ago,” he writes, “Eurasia has been the center of world power.” The reasons for this assertion are not mysterious, at least to the author. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world’s population, 75% of its known energy resources, and 60 percent of its GDP. If one power were able to control all of Eurasia, it would “almost automatically” be able to subordinate Africa and render “the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral.” Classical geopoliticians, Brzezinski tells us, have long understood this logic and have sought either to implement it or prevent others from doing so. Historically, however, no power has ever been able to dominate Eurasia completely. It has always been and remains “too large, too populous, culturally too varied, and composed of too many historically ambitious and politically energetic states” to be engulfed by an aspiring hegemon. When seen especially from an American perspective, this frustrating grail quest puts “a premium on geostrategic skill, [and] on the careful, selective, and very deliberate deployment of America’s resources” For Brzezinski, playing “chess” adroitly in this arena will be critical for America’s long-term national security, and therefore should be the fundamental, overriding concern of American foreign policy.
But despite this seemingly shopworn and familiar focus on the Eurasian landmass, Brzezinski’s geopolitical approach is different from the geopolitical theories first generated near the turn of the 20th century. Yes, physical territoriality is still all-important, but Mackinder for example focused on determining what part of Eurasia -- or “pivot area” – should be considered the point of departure for continental domination. Today’s great powers have more complex identities than the narrow nationalistic ones of the past and they are more concerned with economic rather than force-dependent prowess over the Eurasian landmass as a whole. Nevertheless, these updated realities don’t change the fundamentals, or so Brzezinski argues. Preventing the emergence of a hegemon is imperative, not only for the U.S. but also for the world.
To do this, the focus should not be on controlling one pivotal area but on positively engaging with geostrategically dynamic states that can affect the distribution of power in Eurasia as a whole. Brzezinski identified these key states as Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and South Korea. Azerbaijan and the Ukraine were (and remain) pivotal because their independence from Russian suzerainty blocks its influence in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Turkey was (and is) vital because of the stabilizing role it plays in the highly competitive Black Sea region, because of its ability to still prevent Russian naval access to the Mediterranean, and because of its general ability to counterbalance others. Iran, despite its hostility to the U.S., is still able to block northern powers such as Russia from foraying into the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. And, on the other side of the continent, South Korea remains critical to the forward defense of Japan and an essential component of America’s ability to check Chinese influence in the Far East. One can criticize a Cold Warrior such as Brzezinski for still obsessing over a resurgent Russia and rising China, and one should wonder whether in a post-911 edition of his text he might have given greater prominence to Central Asia, but he could (and still can) reply with genuine conviction that it’s the fundamentals that matter, which here means the centrality of what once was called “the world island” to the West’s foreign policy.
Conclusion
When looking at the two sample texts selected here, it’s obvious that classical geopolitics continues to have its adherents. They believe, and with some justification, that the basic insights provided by the geopolitical thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries do not require fundamental revision or adaptation for today’s context. They therefore largely parrot the giants of classical geopolitical thought in emphasizing the enduring importance of geography in international relations. Geography may not be destiny, but it remains pervasive in world politics, particularly in the Eurasian landmass. But whereas Colin Gray focuses on the continuity between the classical approaches and geopolitics today, Brzezinski admits a modest departure. For him, a hundred years of political and technological developments may demand some nips and tucks to Mackinder’s famous formula, “He who rules Eurasia rules the world.” According to Brzezinski, the key now is to engage positively with a handful of states that deserve our attention and resources. When it comes to the fundamentals, it appears he continues to be right.

[RamaY]

Acharyaji,

All aberrations will have to come to an end.

this is a very good speech. Many hints on what to come next. Much for India to play, and I can see it playing the game properly.

[Philip]

Acharya,may tx for posting that excellent piece by Kishore M.A coupole oif years agi I mentioned on BR that he was one of the most brilliant diplomats on the scene.It is tragic as he says that US arrogance,its "cowboy culture",best exemplified by Dubya Bush ,and its tilting at Islamic windmills in a bloody crescent from N.Africa to Afghanistan has wekened it both economically and morally.It is fast losing its global leadership claims and the wheel as he says has turned towards Asia.It is upto India to carve out for itself an equal position with China,that is if its rulers shrugg off the US's attempts to inveigle us into being thir catspaw against China.We must face China alone and develop our own indigenous strategies to counter Chinese arrogance which Kishore M has not mentioned,but is incresingly being felt by smaller powers from Asia to Africa.

Here is a delightful decision by British courts to allow the accused "Russian spy" to remain in the UK,rubbishing the claims of Britain's "keystone cops" that she was a Russian agent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 69410.html

Former aide accused of spying can remain in UK

"However, it should not have taken 12 months of costly legal proceedings to reach today's outcome.

"If the Security Service, like the court, had rigorously analysed the available evidence, they would never have concluded that she was a Russian spy and we would not be here today.

"Our Security Service is supposed to be responsible for protecting us against serious threats to national security.

"It is therefore extremely worrying that they have chosen to waste their time, at great public expense, needlessly and unfairly pursuing an innocent young woman.

"Their case was built entirely on speculation, prejudice and conjecture.

"It was amateur, poorly researched and compared very unfavourably to the counter-espionage work conducted by the FBI in recent years."

Miss Gregory said her client had been living a "Kafkaesque nightmare" for the last year "attempting to prove a negative - that she has not and never has been a spy".

[abhishek_sharma]

The nuclear bombs to nowhere

[Arjun]

And the power of the Islamic world (which is as unnaturally low as that of China and India) will naturally increase, as the Muslim societies will learn from the successes of China and India.

He's generalizing a bit too much. Turkey and Indonesia are the only major Islamic powers that are likely to see their relative clout increase...The rest of the Middle East is already punching above its 'natural' weight - largely due to the presence of oil.

[abhischekcc]

Kishore Mahbubani is giving too much credence to China's so called diplomatic master strokes.

He does not pay any attention to China equally disastrous failures - the biggest one being 1962 war against India. In one stroke, China turned into foe a country that had never fought a war against it and was its staunchest supporter. Never has a country snatched enemity from the jaws of friendship so deliberately as China did.

Mahbubani also fails to mention that China is surrounded by countires that hate its very guts - Vietnam, Japan, SK. So while China has a lot of commerce based friends, it also has a lot of geopolitical enemies in the same region - IOW, China will not ever be able to ensure tranquility on its borders.

[devesh]

Mahbubani, like most other "analysts" does not understand Islamic taqyia. therefore, all the pontificating about Israel and how they are being blind. what he doesn't understand is that the legitimization of Palestine will be the beginning of the end for the present version of Israel. doesn't mean they will be gone forever, but more likely they will have to migrate again and hope to return later.

[abhischekcc]

No, more likely there will be war in the Middle East, if Israel is pushed beyond a point.

But none of the big Arab players want a war with Israel - certainly not at this juncture when their own populations are so restive, that a military defeat at the hands of Israel will mean regime change in them - KSA, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, and maybe even UAE.

Hmmm, that means a defeat by Israel might actually be a good thing for Arab countries

[ramana]

it will be Arab Spring -> Arab Winter of Discontent.

[RamaY]

No, more likely there will be war in the Middle East, if Israel is pushed beyond a point.

But none of the big Arab players want a war with Israel - certainly not at this juncture when their own populations are so restive, that a military defeat at the hands of Israel will mean regime change in them - KSA, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, and maybe even UAE.

Hmmm, that means a defeat by Israel might actually be a good thing for Arab countries

We need to take stray paki nukes into account in any future Arab-Israeli war.

[devesh]

^^^
+1. things for Israel are not as rosy as they seem. and at some point the EJ's are going to demand their scriptural authority: Jews "accepting" Christianity. think about it. if the EJ delusions and Arab hatred converge onto a common theme, Israel's days are numbered, unless some other power is willing to back it up...

[RamaY]

I DO NOT think Israel faces existential threat either from Iran or a Sunni-Paki stray nuke. Complete destruction of Israel takes more than 10 nukes. Any nuke attack on Israel will attract disproportionate response on various Islamic ideological and military sources. I doubt the Islamic nations will venture into such a do/die attack on Israel.

Instead they will try to harass Israel with non-state actor jihadi pushes in to Israel periphery. This will exhaust Israeli conventional military energy in a decade or so.

Israel's survival depends on making sure that its immediate neighbors are kept under constant internal turmoil. That is why, IMHO, we see so much 'bhedopaya' at play in west-asia.

[ramana]

Nightwatch 30 nov 2011

US-Iran: The United States unveiled sanctions against the energy and petrochemical sectors, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of a "significant ratcheting-up of pressure" on Iran.

She said Iran's oil and gas industry and its financial sector would also be targeted by the sanctions.

Comment: Sanctions on oil and gas and on banks dominate public conversations about restraining Iranian nuclear programs. The logical or practical connection between oil and banking sanctions and Iran's nuclear program, however, has not been well explained. To paraphrase Kissinger, means must match ends in order to achieve successful policy outcomes. Thus far that match has not been established, demonstrably.

Both oil and banking sanctions contain significant threats of unintended consequences. China relies on Iran for 10% of its petroleum imports. That means that it will never cooperate in imposing sanctions on oil exports because it cannot without disastrous effects on its economy and Europe's economy as well, because of global economic linkages.

Germany and Italy import Iranian oil, as well as India, China, Japan and South Korea. The economic stability of those countries could be affected by French President Sarkozy's proposal to sanction Iranian oil.

Higher oil prices would ripple across the world. Oil producers would reap a windfall and consumers would go into recession. That is why hedge fund managers are buying options that oil will reach $140 or $150 the barrel.

Banking sanctions have extensive backlash potential as well. India favors non-proliferation of nuclear weapons programs and related capabilities. Earlier this year an Indian bank agreed to cooperate in limited banking sanctions against Iran.

When Indian oil refiners found they could not use Indian banking facilities to pay for Iranian oil imports, Iran stopped shipping oil to India, 12% of whose oil imports come from Iran. The refiners found a work-around to keep the oil flowing.

The lesson is that sanctions on Iranian banks would have consequences for China, India, Russia, Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the UAE and Turkey, before the sanctions hurt Iran. Iran is one of the few countries that continued to grow during the 2008 global economic crisis; has a favorable balance of payments, and has significant cash reserves owing to the high price of crude in the past three years.

It might be time for world leaders to devise more imaginative policy responses than punishment through sanctions to achieve compliant behavior by Iran. One of the downsides of an increasingly integrated global economy is the unintended consequences of sanctions.

Europe Union (EU): An agency of the European Union, Eurostat, published the latest unemployment figures for the core EU states. Some 16.294 million people in the 17-nation euro zone were out of work in October 2011, the highest tally since records began in 1995 and more than the combined populations of Belgium and Ireland. The figures beg the question of how much worse it can get, according to the report.

In addition to the suffering of the individuals who have lost their job, the rise makes it harder still for governments to end the debt crisis. More unemployment means higher social security payments and lower tax receipts. Growth suffers, public borrowing rises, investors get anxious, and the debt crisis rolls on.

Comment: In today's news cycle, the Eurostat report was overwhelmed by the report of action by the European central banks to improve liquidity. The action of the banks is what financial theorists call paying the "price of time." They bought more time for European banks and governments to meet immediate commitments, while hoping longer term economic improvements start to emerge. They bought approximately two weeks of time.

The main strategy of the big banks, according to Michael Lewis, is to buy time and wait and see whether economic conditions, such as jobs, get better. Thus far, that strategy is proving calamitous.

The problem with the strategy is that public confidence apparently is less a function of time than of present ability to pay and outlook for future ability to pay. The Eurostat unemployment data justify a negative outlook on present and future ability to pay in many of the EU countries. That is an indicator of a lack of confidence and increased stress in the financial system.

Again adds to my hypothesis of economic war btweeen the Anglo-Saxons and Europeans. US sanctions on Iran oil and banking will hurt Europe more thant they will hurt Iran. This is another poke at the PIIGS which in turn will hurt the Frecnch and Germans together and PRC who hold the Euro Debt.

[svinayak]

This is exactly what Imperial Japan faced before WWII. They were under sanctions which forced them to attack their own allies of the WWI.

Similarily Iran is being provoked to attack the western interest including Israel before it is demonized.

[Agnimitra]

That has happened to Iran in 1979 itself, IMHO.

[ramana]

Two posts that relate to this thread from Econ prespectives thread....

Fed saves Europe's banks as ECB stands pat By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

The interwoven banking and sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone has become so dangerous for the world that the US Federal Reserve has been forced to take emergency action, acting as global lender of last resort{you wish?} to shore up Europe's banking system.

The move came once it was clear that Europe's prostrate banks would struggle to roll over $2 trillion (£1.3 trillion) of debts denominated in dollars. Data from ratings agency Fitch shows that US money markets have slashed funding for French banks by 69pc and German banks by 50pc.

Strains have been ratcheting up over the past two weeks. European banks are mostly shut out of the dollar market, or only able to raise money for a week at a time.

The joint offer of cut-rate currency swap lines by the central banks of the US, Britain, Japan, Canada, Switzerland and the ECB preserves the polite fiction that this was to "ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit", but this was a Fed action to provide cheap dollar funding and head off a lethal crunch in Europe.

China took its own precautions – perhaps in concert – cutting its reserve ratio for the first time in three years to boost liquidity.

The drama always comes back to the ECB. Will it blink?

and

Markets focus on Europe, but China bigger worry

China's move this week to keep its economy afloat isn't generating the big headlines that Europe's actions got, but is no less important in keeping the world's economic engine churning.

While coordinated action by the world's other central banks to enhance liquidity for Europe's banks stole the focus Wednesday, China's decision to cut reserve requirements for banks was even more important, some believe.

That's because the developed world has come to depend on China for a variety of reasons - from buying up American debt to providing loans to growing businesses to keeping its mighty manufacturing base growing.

Easing the amount of money banks have to keep on hand, as the People's Bank of China did with a lowering of the rate by half a percentage point, helps accomplish those goals by keeping the lending spigots flowing.

"A change in the reserve requirement literally either frees up or delimits real lending by that nation's banks," hedge fund manager Dennis Gartman told subscribers to The Gartman Letter. "A lowering - or raising - of funding costs is a fly on the mule's skin, but a change in the reserve requirement is a board laid straight away to the mule's forehead."


Worries over China's economic growth have come as a surprise. Whereas the nation actually had been trying to slow down and control inflation that peaked above 6 percent over the summer, it now finds itself fighting to avoid a slowdown triggered by the European crisis.

Fresh data Thursday showed the Chinese factory sector contracting for the first time in three years, as a purchasing managers' index slipped to 49.0, the lowest since February 2009.

Gartman asserted, then, that the change to the reserve rate requirement in China trumps the decision by six major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve , to cut the interest rate charged for currency swaps. That move essentially lowers the cost of liquidity injections into areas, Europe in particular, that may need it should markets freeze up.

The two moves, though not explicitly coordinated, attack the same problem.

In the case of the PBOC action, the goal is to make sure the nation maintains its ability to grow as it faces a difficult period, inspired mostly by the slowdown in Europe and the corresponding pullback in demand for Chinese products.

The two moves sent U.S. stocks soaring to a 4 percent rally Wednesday, though the momentum appeared short-lived as the market was mixed in Thursday trading. But the entities involved in the two moves are expected to act again in 2012 as policymakers battle the European debt crisis and the corresponding threat of recession.

"We're looking at history being made, history being rewritten and new theories being created with how to deal with economic crises," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, N.J. "These are all experiments, whether we're talking about China, Washington, D.C., or Europe."


Indeed, the policymaker reactions make dueling statements about the condition of the economies in question: On one hand, there is little doubt left that central banks are poised to take extraordinary steps to address growth. On the other hand, that aggressiveness signals that the problems are so deep that they will require unprecedented measures to manage.

"The bigger picture is a global response to an economic deterioration in demand," Krosby said. "What investors look at is these moves by central banks offer an opportunity for a major risk-on move."

That could be a mistake, though, if the moves don't have a lasting effect.

David Rosenberg, senior economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff in Toronto, pointed out that policymakers instituted four such liquidity moves during the financial crisis from 2007 to 2009, resulting in short-term rallies of about 3,000 Dow points. The bluechip average ultimately lost nearly 8,000 points during the downturn.

The short-term effects of such moves had investors worried enough to pull back Thursday.

"We saw ephemeral relief rallies occur during the heart of the 2008 crisis, and while we do not expect conditions to become as dire as they were then, that crisis period is a reminder that even surprising policy action can still wind up being overwhelmed by continued market dislocation," John Shin, forex strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a note to clients.

The China situation is particularly worrisome.


With inflation fears in the background, China now must pivot around and address growth. As such, the PBOC is expected to announce three more reserve rate cuts in the coming months, according to BofAML.

"The Chinese economy is slowing, facing strong headwinds from a worsening European debt crisis," Ting Lu, China economist at BofAML, said in a note. "Export growth could slow significantly from 20 percent in previous months, and falling property prices could affect aggregate demand on the margin."

As such, policy response there will be watched perhaps just as closely as what the European Central Bank, the Fed and the International Monetary Fund try to do with the sovereign debt crisis.

Hopes are that the Chinese authorities have created enough cushion in their inflation fight to provide some policy weapons to get growth going again.

"The PBOC, having embarked on a tightening cycle during the past 18 months, is in a better position to start easing monetary policy, helping to couch business and consumer confidence along the way," Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak in New York, told clients. "Nobody wants to see the Chinese PMI repeat its 2008 performance - for everyone's sake."

[abhishek_sharma]

A bandwagon for offshore balancing?

[abhishek_sharma]

Forget the BRICs. The real economies that will shake up the world over the next few decades need a new acronym.

[Arjun]

Why can’t Arabs learn from Eastern Islam’s moderation?

By all acounts, Eastern Islam is the current great white hope (following on the path of Turkish, Persian and South Asian Islam whose hype cycles seem to be on the wane...)

[RamaY]

It is the otherway. Arab Islam is pulling back east Asia. When will Asia renounce Arab Islam? should be the question. Arabs are a small tribe and they can live/die with their Islam.

[Pranav]

Putin-speak:

During his 2000-2008 presidency, Putin repeatedly accused the West of seeking to weaken Russia and of meddling in its affairs, including by funding non-governmental organizations meant to strengthen democracy.

Formally launching his bid to return to the Kremlin next year by accepting United Russia's nomination at a party congress last Sunday, Putin reiterated these accusations last month.

He said "representatives of some foreign countries are gathering those they are paying money to, so-called grant recipients, to instruct them and assign work in order to influence the election campaign themselves."

He said any such activity was a "wasted effort" because Russians would reject foreign-funded politicians, comparing them to Judas, the traitor of Jesus in the bible.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/ ... 9B20111203

The reference to Judas has its own cultural significance.

[ramana]

Why can’t Arabs learn from Eastern Islam’s moderation?

By all accounts, Eastern Islam is the current great white hope (following on the path of Turkish, Persian and South Asian Islam whose hype cycles seem to be on the wane...)

What is Eastern Islam?

The British and Americans played with Eastern Islam in order to down the Ottomons (Sick man of Europe and then Former Soviet Union respectively and revived Arab Islam, Now they have the nerve to bemoan the rise of Arab Islam!!!

[svinayak]

Burma Learns to Play Geopolitics

[svinayak]

Geopolitical Approach Number Three – Geopolitics and the Rise of the Rest

Global history since 1945
If we then turn to Wallerstein’s lecture at the L’Internationale Conference in Vienna, we see world-systems theory used to explain the ‘logic’ of global history from 1945 to the present. Conventional geopolitical narratives, he argues, systematically misrepresent and misunderstand this period of world history. Whereas the four-and-a-half decades following the defeat of Nazi Germany are typically regarded as a period of indirect hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union, Wallerstein seeks to demonstrate that the Cold War was actually an unequal “collusive partnership”. The Soviet Union merely ratified the global hegemony of the United States in exchange for greater control over its near abroad. The terms of this collusion, which Wallerstein refers to as the “Yalta agreement,” were 1) the division of the world into a small, economically insulated Soviet sphere of influence and a much larger American one; and 2) mutual participation in “a very loud rhetorical war known as the ‘Cold War,’” in order to exploit the periphery and control the semi-periphery.
By 1956, however, the semi-peripheries began to recognize this Faustian pact for what it was and tried to assert their autonomy (the Hungarian and Polish uprisings immediately come to mind, as does Egypt’s attempt to nationalize the Suez Canal). On both sides of the Iron Curtain, these initial stirrings led into a cycle of repression and fracturing that culminated in the ‘world revolution’ of 1968. Just as the Soviet Union was again intervening forcibly in Eastern Europe, this time to put down the Prague Spring, the “American version of the Brezhnev doctrine” came into play with the Colonel’s coup in Greece, like-minded coups in Brazil and Chile, and the ramping up of the war in Vietnam. For Wallerstein, 1968 was a world revolution because it occurred simultaneously in each of the world’s three geopolitical arenas – “the pan-European world, the so-called socialist bloc, and the so-called Third World.” In each location, this generalized revolution denounced two things: 1) the hegemonic misdeeds of the U.S. together with the Soviet Union’s collusion in those misdeeds, and 2) the hierarchical structure of the “traditional anti-systemic movements” that had inspired and framed popular struggles for at least half a century. For Wallerstein, this revolution largely exposed American-Soviet collusion for what it was and called for more democratic (e.g., ‘horizontal’) alternatives to it.
Crucially, 1967-73 also marked the end of post-war expansion in the world-economy, and began a cycle of stagnation that persists to this day. In this new economic context, the exploitation of the periphery by the core acquired a new modus operandi. One of the enduring truths of capitalist business cycles is that profits from productive enterprises are much harder to come by in stagnation cycles than in expansion cycles. The solution for this problem is that in periods of stagnation capital accumulation tends to be driven by financial speculation. So, just as the years 1945 -1970 saw the biggest expansion of productive enterprise in history, the years 1970-2000 saw the biggest expansion of financialization in history. While the United States eventually adapted to an exploitation system based on financialization rather than production, the Soviet Union – without a functioning bond market or private sector to speak of – proved fatally less agile. When it eventually proved unable to repay the debt that it had accumulated, it suddenly and dramatically collapsed.
Meanwhile, in the American sphere, exploitation was re-constituted by a program known as ‘neo-liberalism,’ which advocated rolling back advances in social welfare. Neo-liberalism also rejected the previously unquestioned principle of ‘developmentalism,’ or the idea that the periphery was entitled or destined to attain the standards of living and welfare enjoyed by the core. By 1980, neo-liberalism was firmly ensconced in power in the United States and Great Britain. The answer to developmentalism, it argued, was globalization, which meant “embracing the opening of frontiers to the free movement of capital and merchandise, but not labor.” This new freedom of maneuver for the capitalist classes temporarily restored the levels of prosperity that the core had experienced in the initial decades of American hegemony.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, however, was ultimately a disaster for the United States that neo-liberalism proved (and is proving) unable to compensate for, as the post-2008 global financial crisis is demonstrating. Without its trusty imperial sidekick, the reasoning goes, the U.S. cannot stop core areas such as Western Europe and Japan from pushing for greater autonomy, and in the former Soviet sphere ‘rogue states’ have emerged that pursue their own agendas. Moreover, resistance to the financialized exploitation of the periphery cannot be as effectively suppressed without the rhetoric of a common enemy. In the 1990s, “alter-globalization” movements began to coalesce against the core, culminating in the creation of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001.
Hegemonic powers, however, rarely go quietly into the night. In that same year, a group of foreign policy intellectuals came to power in the U.S. with a desperate plan to reverse its decline. That plan, the invasion of Iraq, was supposed to scare the rest of the world into submission and inaugurate a 21st century ‘Pax Americana’, or so Wallerstein argues. Specifically, the idea was to scare Western Europe back into old-style conformity, nudge North Korea and Iran into giving up their nuclear weapons programs, and pressure the Arab world into settling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Israeli terms. Instead, it reaped almost exactly the opposite effects and confirmed the “precipitate and definitive” decline of the US as a hegemonic power.
Conclusion
But hegemony is not the central story here. It is not synonymous with core-periphery-based imperialism, which is much more comprehensive in scope. The replacement of the current hegemonic power (a waning U.S.) by another one would require adjustments for elites in America, China and Europe, but it would not by itself mean a fundamental change in the logic of international politics and history as it has operated for the last five hundred years. Today, as ever, that logic revolves around the spatial division of the world into peripheral and semi-peripheral areas and their continued exploitation by the states of the core. The deeper world-geographical economic reality still exists, regardless of whether the power enjoying the greatest share of the spoils shifts to another part of the core.
One can of course agree or disagree with Wallerstein’s grand geo-economic and geopolitical characterizations of the last 500 years, but he deserves respect for doing something that isn’t common in this era of hyper-specialization populated by more of Isaiah Berlin’s foxes rather than hedgehogs. We have few Toynbees or Spenglers among us now and maybe that’s all to the good. On the other hand, the boldness and scope of Wallerstein’s thesis amply illustrates that geopolitics, be it classical, critical, or world-systems in its orientation, still has explanatory power for students of international relations today. In the case of Wallerstein, we are reminded that we may be witnessing a great ‘re-convergence’ of standards of living across the world, or what many of us are now calling the “rise of the rest.” For the moment, the extent and direction of this economically troubled phenomenon is unclear, but it just might be heralding a structural change to the international system that we haven’t seen in 500 years. That would be structural change indeed.

[svinayak]

Very good slides on the geo politics from the past 2000 years


Critical Geopolitics – A Case Study

[svinayak]

Classical Geopolitics Today – A Case Study

RObert Kaplan and George Friedman talking about China and the change coming

Today we look at the classical approach to geopolitics in relation to China. There are those who would very much like to contain this growing geopolitical power, but there are very real impediments in the way – e.g., an economy expected to become the world’s largest in the coming decades, a lengthy coastline that cannot be ‘landlocked’ by containment-minded foes, and a growing ‘blue water’ naval capability. The latter development, of course, is of special interest to those nations that populate the broader Indian Ocean area. In the following STRATFOR conversation, it is also of interest to George Friedman and Robert Kaplan, who discuss China’s far reaching bid for sea power and its geopolitical implications.

Very important for Indians to understand

[svinayak]

There is something wrong in the discussion
George Friedman and Robert Kaplan

We will have to figure this out