Diplomacy & Crisis News

Facing pressure at home and criticism abroad, China wants to telegraph strength even on its rugged Himalayan border with India.

Why the end of lockdown looks so different around the world.

The United States needs the contagion equivalent of the National Weather Service.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (n° 2/2020).
Denis Bauchard propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Jean-Pierre Filiu, Algérie, la nouvelle indépendance (Le Seuil, 2019, 184 pages).

Ce nouvel ouvrage de Jean-Pierre Filiu se veut, selon l’auteur même, un « essai », « un cadre d’interprétation » du mouvement de fond que représente le Hirak qui, depuis le 22 février 2019, n’en finit pas de mobiliser les foules à Alger comme dans la plupart des villes algériennes. En fait, par-delà ce propos, il s’agit bien d’une réflexion sur l’Algérie d’aujourd’hui, les raisons qui ont conduit à cette « révolution populaire, inclusive et non violente », à la revendication en faveur d’une « deuxième indépendance », et à ses perspectives d’avenir.

L’auteur montre bien comment « l’armée des frontières », basée en Tunisie, a écarté à l’indépendance les combattants de l’intérieur. Le coup d’État de 1965 formalise cette emprise avec Houari Boumediene. Depuis lors, c’est toujours l’Armée nationale populaire qui a assuré la réalité du pouvoir, a mené la lutte contre les islamistes pendant la décennie noire des années 1990, et a mis en place Bouteflika, qui a essayé de se ménager un espace de manœuvre sans mettre en cause la prééminence et les prébendes des militaires.

Le Hirak est l’œuvre d’une génération, celle des jeunes urbains, qui rassemble chaque mardi les étudiants des universités à l’avenir incertain, faute d’emploi en perspective, et qui sont le noyau des foules qui défilent chaque vendredi. Cette « jovialité pacifiste », où les femmes prennent une place grandissante, n’est pas sans efficacité, puisque Bouteflika renonce dès avril 2019 à se représenter pour un cinquième mandat, que la date de l’élection présidentielle est repoussée, et que la lutte contre la corruption se développe, visant notamment le clan de l’ancien président. Mais ceci ne satisfait pas les manifestants « dégagistes » qui veulent le départ des « décideurs », la fin d’un système corrompu et répressif.

Depuis la rédaction de ce livre, en septembre 2019, plusieurs évènements sont intervenus, mais ils n’affectent en rien la pertinence de l’analyse proposée par Jean-Pierre Filiu, bien au contraire. Un président, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a été élu, mais avec un taux d’abstention important qui affaiblit sa légitimité, et le général Gaïd Salah, qui incarnait le pouvoir militaire, est mort. Le nouveau président, assisté d’un chef de l’armée plus discret, s’efforce non sans un certain succès de calmer le jeu en libérant des manifestants détenus, et en faisant un certain nombre de gestes symboliques ou de concessions cosmétiques. L’élaboration d’une nouvelle Constitution et de réformes politiques est annoncée, le mouvement se divise et s’essouffle, certains leaders d’opinion comme Kamel Daoud annoncent l’échec du Hirak. L’épidémie de coronavirus a rendu plus difficiles les manifestations dans la rue. Mais, même si la perspective d’une deuxième république s’éloigne,  les jeux ne sont pas encore faits. Comme le souligne l’auteur, « rien n’est acquis, tout est possible ».

On lira avec intérêt ce livre qui brosse un portrait empathique et nuancé de l’Algérie d’aujourd’hui. Le fait que, en dépit de l’extrême prudence de Paris, l’influence de la France ait été mise en cause, aussi bien par le pouvoir qui dénonce un complot venu de l’extérieur que par les manifestants qui l’accusent de soutenir le système, montre bien que ce qui se passe en Algérie nous concerne directement.

Denis Bauchard

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You can find the link to the quiz here.

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Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (n° 2/2020). Carlos Santiso propose une analyse de l’ouvrage dirigé par Melchior Powell, Dina Wafa et Tim A. Mau, Corruption in a Global Context: Restoring Public Trust, Integrity, and Accountability (Routledge, 2019, 336 pages).

La corruption est un fléau aussi persistant qu’impénétrable, qui balafre aussi bien les économies émergentes que les pays plus développés. Le défi est ici conceptuel et politique, dans la mesure où une meilleure compréhension du phénomène doit aider à discerner les causes et les remèdes, au-delà des symptômes et des conséquences. Cet ouvrage relève ce défi, mais manque de boussole conceptuelle pour encadrer les dix cas d’études et en extraire des conclusions sur les stratégies déployées pour y faire face.

Une typologie distingue entre la capture de l’autorité publique, la « grande corruption » et la « petite corruption ». Ces trois sortes de corruption ont différentes caractéristiques, et relèvent de solutions différentes. Concernant le Nigeria, David Enweremadu montre l’étendue de la capture de l’État et du pillage des ressources pétrolières par les élites, notamment locales. Le cas de la Tunisie sous Ben Ali révèle la façon dont un cartel familial s’approprie des leviers publics pour systématiser la corruption en détournant les règles. Trancher ces nœuds gordiens suppose de réformer le financement politique, et de mieux réguler les conflits d’intérêts.

La « grande corruption », quant à elle, est plus transactionnelle et affecte notamment les grands marchés publics, comme dans le cas du scandale d’Odebrecht en Amérique latine. Dans ce cas, des réformes institutionnelles telles que la création de commissions anticorruption suivant les modèles prometteurs de Hong Kong et Singapour, le renforcement de la transparence budgétaire et de l’open data, ou encore l’ouverture des marchés publics, sont plus efficaces. Cette corruption intervient lorsque certains hommes politiques peuvent extraire des rentes du pouvoir qu’ils centralisent et de l’information qu’ils contrôlent, et que les checks and balances sont trop faibles pour être dissuasifs.

Enfin, la « petite corruption », ou « corruption bureaucratique », n’en est pas moins néfaste pour la culture démocratique et l’État de droit. Elle affecte la vie quotidienne des personnes et des entreprises dans leurs interactions avec les pouvoirs publics – pour obtenir une carte d’identité, un permis de construire, ou payer ses impôts. Elle n’en est pas moins pernicieuse, gangrenant la confiance des citoyens dans les institutions. Les solutions passent ici par la réforme de la fonction publique, la refonte des prestations salariales, le renforcement de la méritocratie, et la dématérialisation des services publics.

L’analyse de la corruption repose souvent sur les asymétries d’information et de pouvoir entre le « principal » (les citoyens) et ses « agents » (les politiques). Ces asymétries de savoir et d’information tendent à expliquer la corruption dans les démocraties, alors que les asymétries de pouvoir et d’influence peuvent l’expliquer dans les régimes autoritaires. La loi devient un instrument de contrôle, plus que d’autocontrôle. Plus récemment, cette approche institutionnelle s’est enrichie des apports de la psychologie des comportements.

Corruption in a Global Context montre comment la corruption constitue un phénomène global dans un monde devenu globalisé, notamment avec l’émergence de conventions internationales chaque fois plus contraignantes. L’ouvrage offre des cas d’études fascinants, mais manque de la rigueur qui permettrait d’en tirer des conclusions pour agir.

Carlos Santiso

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It has been 60 years since the Italian Somaliland and the British Somaliland became independent from their respective colonial powers to form a union that miserably failed 30 years later. After a long ever-morphing saga of blood, destruction, and loss of identity Soomaalinimo (Somaliness), these two political entities, legally known as Somalia, have just concluded yet another conference to negotiate a reunion or declare their relationship irreconcilable difference and amicably part ways. Many such conferences were hosted by Turkey, and all agreements reached in Istanbul are still pending. 

While such narrative may have yielded some traction for domestic consumption, in reality, the latest so-called reconciliation on the future of Somalia and Somaliland was nothing more than a geopolitical racket of dangerous consequence to the Somali people on both sides.

Due to the secrecy in which the initiative was shrouded, the last minute marching orders given to the top leaders on both sides to come, the foreign heads of states who participated, and the outcome of appointing a reconciliation committees from both sides compels any objective analyst to conclude this was a distraction tactic for a more serious or sinister issues.

Since 2012, both sides—Somalia and Somaliland—have appointed similar technical committees a number of times only to see them fizzle before the nostalgic thrill wore off. On more than one occasion, deal-breakers were planted right into the very committees that were established to negotiate a win/win outcome for both sides. And this time is no exception.

The Foreign Engines

On June 13th, before any announcement or news bulletin from the Federal Government of Somalia or Somaliland, Djibouti President, Ismail Omar Guelleh, tweeted “Tomorrow in Djibouti, I will chair a meeting between President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo and President Moussa Bihi Abdi to follow up on the mediation efforts between the two leaders. I have also invited Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to attend the discussions.” What a comical irony. So, Abiy was in the neighborhood running some errands before getting invited to drop in the powwow? He must have been as he came dressed for the part.

Seriously though, Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, was the most important official who attended that meeting. He is the conduit or the human thread running through all three competing grand strategies that I outlined in an article entitled Transformation Euphoria in the Horn of Africa that I wrote a couple of years ago. None of them earnestly consider Somalia a strategic partner. Each considers it the perfect dispensable pawn with the ideally useful inept and corrupt leaders.

Despite the inflated excitement surrounding the Djibouti Conference on Somalia and Somaliland, collectively they remain, as I wrote before, “the most important political theatre in the 21st century as it is where geopolitics, geo-economic, and geo-religious dynamics intersect and interplay.” It is where strategically most important waters—Indian Ocean and the Red Sea—intersect and one of the world’s largest untapped oil and gas resource is, due to chronic corruption, widely exposed for exploitation.    

To understand President Guelleh’s incentive to give cover to the real deals taking place off the center stage, one must remember that this is the 20th anniversary of the Arta Peace Conference that put Guelleh on the world stage and deservedly so. Guelleh is facing a groundswell of domestic discontent and growing accusations of human rights violations and corruption. He is also the leader that U.S considers the one who compromised its geopolitical poker game against China. And he is well aware there is no way he would defuse his domestic challengers if he does not have political capital in the West.

Now you see, now you don’t

International predators—including next door neighbors—and their domestic partners know how easy it is to send a clan-intoxicated, cash-addicted bunch of charlatans from both sides into a dramatic fool’s errand.

The Houdinis of corruption, headquartered in The Villa Somalia, are determined to auction the licensing of Somalia’s oil and gas by the first week of August 2020 without adequate and independent checks and balances. Granted President Farmajo signed into law the so-called Petroleum Bill. But, who were the experts who drafted it and the Parliamentarian experts or other independent committee that scrutinized it to protect Somalia from pending exploitation? Equally important, were all seven Somali presidents on board? The answer is: none and no. Neither Somaliland, nor Puntland, and by extension, Jubbaland are on board. Their unequivocal consent is necessary for some of these licensing shenanigans to materialize and to prevent potential resource wars.

In the meantime, the Houdinis have successfully fed two false narratives to a good portion of the Somali public: Somalia’s international loans were forgiven and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are giving Somalia a free grant of $800 million. This dangling carrot was good enough to lure Somaliland leadership and it was hoped to boost Presdiden Farmajo and Prime Minister Khaire’s chances for reelection by parliament. Their executive office has already co-opted the parliament unlike any of its predecessors. None of the numerous foreign deals it has been making or new loans received was brought before the parliament for scrutiny or oversight.  

The Counterintuitive Option

Somalia is a web of competing and counter-competing interests and predatory scams. To untangle and sift through all these mostly existential threats requires a moratorium period to administer the shock therapy that it so desperately needs to survive as a nation.

Current state of affairs is such that: foreign sponsored national reconciliation has been a periodical ritual since year 2000. The completion and ratification process of the transitional (provisional) constitution that already costed over $60 million has been on-going since 2004. The periodical U.S. aerial bombardments have been on-going since 2007 and are now intensified to bi-weekly deadly drones. AMISOM (including Ethiopia & Kenya with direct conflict of interest) has been fighting al-Shabaab since 2007. The Somali national army has been under a never-ending process of rebuilding since 2004 while Somalia still remains under UN arms embargo.

Furthermore, the balkanization process of Somalia into clan-based political entities; each with its own foreign, defense, and immigration policies, so to speak, has been on-going since 1991. Each of these entities is ruled by an Alpha clan that claims exclusive or zero-sum rights over all other clans. And each is founded or sustained by a hate narrative.  

Sometimes what one says is the most important; other times, how one says it; other times, where one says it; other times, why one says it; yet other times, who says it. Mindful of all that, I opted to go on record and recommend the ‘T’ option. Not terrorism, but trusteeship. For a context, allow me to digress a little in order to describe these four stages of evolution.

In 1992, a small group of diverse Somalis founded a volunteer-based organization to help assist Somali refugees in Kenya with blankets and used clothes, and help settle the very few who found sponsors. That small group developed close relations. So one night, after dinner, someone raised the most sensitive question at the peak of the Somali fratricide: How do we get out of this mess?

Each one of us was given enough time to ponder the question and add something into the brainstorming basket, so to speak. Each one of us offered something that would be acceptable at the Main Street or the Macca Al-Mukarama Street. All except one of the group who said:

• We need to ask for ‘Trusteeship’ to provide us time to cool off, address grievances, and streamline our national narrative
• We need to change the capital, even for temporary
• We need to redefine the five corner start in the flag to represent values of coexistence instead of lost territories that since accepted to become part of another nation or been recognized as a nation of its own.

In 2004, at the Israaca annual conference held in Columbus, members have thoroughly debated and finally approved a policy paper advocating the UN to consider placing Somalia in a trusteeship program.  

At its peak, that organization—once considered Somalia’s great hope—had a membership of more than 240 of what many considered as some of ‘Somalia’s best and brightest.’ They were from across clan and ethnic lines.

The organization’s modus operandi was to identify topics essential for peace and for the reconstitution of Soomalinimo or sense of nationhood. Debate it for two weeks. Elect an ad hoc committee to draft a policy paper to be approved at the annual conferences.

In 2008, the regional multi-national assembly or Ethiopian conduit known as IGAD has passed what it called “Declaration of the 13th Extraordinary Session of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of states and Governments” in which the transitional government led by President Abdullahi Yusuf   to “sign onto a scheme mimicking the UN Trusteeship only to place Somalia at the mercy of its (then) occupier, Ethiopia. This is a case of putting the fox in charge of the chicken barn…”

In 2013, several months after the transitional period has ended, the United Nations Political Office for Somalia was closed, and the country was welcomed back to the international community of nations, the FGS led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, agreed to allow the establishment of UNSOM- United Nations Assistance Mission In Somalia to keep Somalia in an indefinite silent trusteeship.  Within this on-going arrangement, the FGS cannot independently enact any significant domestic or foreign policy without getting clearance from UNSOM which is accountable to no Somali office, even symbolically. Never to be left out, President Mohamud also agreed for Ethiopia to join AMISOM.

Somalia is in a muted trusteeship in which U.K. still remains the country’s pen-holder or the official gate-keeper of all Somalia related issues at the UN Security Council.      

The trusteeship system was established to help the Trust Territories (former colonies) attain the capacity for self-determination and self-governance. This is good so long as there is a trustee willing to help in capacity-building and a trustee council providing the necessary supervision and scrutiny. Once The UN Security Council agrees to such proposal, a friendly country with proven goodwill toward Somalia will be invited to serve as a trustor for a period of 4 years.      

Painful, ego-wounding, and vanity-shattering as it may seem, that official and transparent humiliation maybe the precise condition to level the playing field and expose clan-based false narratives of superiority and equally humble all alpha clans in perpetual zero-sum clan competition: with your mentality Somalia is worse off today than before independence six decades ago.

It is the only way to streamline the multilayered Somalia’s domestic and foreign problems; the only way to form an independent reconciliation commission that is not funded and framed by foreign powers. It is the only way to genuinely negotiate a constitution that sidelines all forms of clan-based rights in favor of citizenship rights and Soomaalinimo.

• Follow author via twitter @Abukar_Arman or abukararman.com

 

 

The post A Shock Therapy for Somalia appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (n° 2/2020). Anne-Clémentine Larroque propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Pierre Vermeren, Le Déni français. Notre histoire secrète des liaisons franco-arabes (Albin Michel, 2019, 288 pages).

Le Déni français est paru fin 2019, quelques mois après la sortie d’un petit essai du même auteur La France qui déclasse. Les Gilets jaunes, une jacquerie au XXIe siècle (Tallandier). Ainsi Pierre Vermeren, historien et arabisant érudit, ouvre-t‑il son champ de spécialiste du monde arabe – maghrébin en particulier – à des considérations plus nationales.

Le Déni français présente un état des lieux très critique de tout ce que les élites françaises n’ont pas voulu voir depuis la mise en place de la politique arabe coloniale jusqu’à… ce qu’il en reste aujourd’hui. L’expansion de l’islamisme et la toxicité des investissements des pays du Golfe en France ne sont pas passées sous silence.

Le sous-titre – qui n’apparaît pas en couverture – Notre histoire secrète des liaisons franco-arabes, induit une contribution assumée à l’observation des transformations des relations entre la France et le monde arabe. L’auteur traite de nombreux pays, même si sa réflexion s’appuie sur un socle de connaissances plus développé sur le Maghreb, à l’exception de la Tunisie, peu suivie.

Pierre Vermeren tient à mettre en lien les territoires et les systèmes de pensée tissés entre la France et ses anciennes colonies. Il explique avec beaucoup de clarté comment la nécessité d’échapper au rôle du colonisateur a produit une forme d’aveuglement des dirigeants français sur les ressorts actuels des crises du monde arabe, et de la crise politique et identitaire de notre pays. Son constat sans concession éclaire trois formes de déni qui constituent autant de parties de l’ouvrage.

D’abord, « L’idéologie du déni » : l’historien insiste sur la responsabilité de la gauche, de l’Église catholique, des chercheurs et des « médias irresponsables » de ne pas avoir su lire les mutations régionales du monde arabe avec plus de nuances et de réalisme. Ces derniers auraient pu alerter les responsables politiques dont les actions ou inactions sont visées, plus loin, dans « La mécanique du déni ». L’auteur y pointe la politique néoconservatrice de l’exécutif français et de ses conseillers sur le dossier syrien, induisant une relative passivité du Quai d’Orsay et des armées. Au niveau de la politique intérieure, il montre la fébrilité et l’inculture religieuse de politiques négociant avec les Frères musulmans en échange de votes communautaires. Enfin, la troisième partie, « Le déni extérieur et intérieur » dépeint l’intrication des idéologies émanant du monde arabe et de leurs relais dans l’Hexagone, au fil d’une analyse intéressante sur la mécanique ambiguë des acteurs de l’islam de France. L’auteur relie une mauvaise compréhension de l’islam (notamment algérien) au jaillissement de l’islamisme radical. Les lacunes des élites françaises dans leur appréhension de la place de l’islam dans les systèmes de valeurs des sociétés arabes, expliquent en partie, selon lui, les attaques de Mohammed Merah, les attentats de 2015, et les suivants. Pierre Vermeren ne mentionne d’ailleurs pas les attentats du Groupe islamique armé (GIA) de 1995-1996, qui font pourtant partie des conséquences du déni de réalité de la puissance du djihad armé dans le monde arabe, et en France.

Ce livre s’inscrit dans la continuité des travaux de Pierre Vermeren, avec un ton plus critique encore à l’égard de certaines compromissions françaises, ce qui pourrait expliquer son trop modeste écho dans les médias.

Anne-Clémentine Larroque

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COVID-19 has been a boon for far-right extremists.

Years ago when writing on the plight of the Haitian people, it was evident that the quick global reaction to the 2010 Haiti earthquake may only help Haitians in the immediate term. Other issues like the kidnapping of the Nigerian school girls and the death of Neda at the hands of the Iranian regime received a great deal of attention at the time, only to become buried in stories about nonsense quickly thereafter. The end result of this eruption of immediate attention with next to no long term solutions creates the exact situation that the initial attention tried to avoid, a systemic and persistent oppression of people without power.

The aid to Haiti has been seen as being used to support already wealthy and influential individuals by some in the aid community. The fate of the Nigerian school girls has had some freed, with others still left in bondage. The Nigerian school girls were mostly ignored by international media after a strong and short bout of support for them with no actual or concrete assistance in helping them realise their freedom. The death of Neda has done little to prevent thousands more dying. Even this year with the downing of a civil airline by the same regime, there has been no appropriate support and even what could be seen as a partial submission to the killers of its citizens by officials in Canada. Change cannot be done by immediate actions and almost always gets cast aside later on for the sake of expediency. Still today, the effects of the 2010 Haitian earthquake left thousands in Haiti without proper housing or shelter. Few in Western media has discussed these issues in years.

To challenge a system that does little to invoke change in a society, the long term must take precedence over the short term photo opportunities and meaningless actions by those in control. Perhaps long term solutions are not that evident, but it is almost always the case that short term policies produce nothing more than campaign ads and photos. The reality is that if no one cares, nothing will change, and if that becomes the status quo it will enshrine itself throughout the entire system and culture.

The post Issues Ignored appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Auteure de l’article « Quelle politique étrangère américaine après 2020 ? », paru dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (2/2020), Laurence Nardon, responsable du Programme Amérique du Nord de l’Ifri, répond en vidéo à 3 questions, en exclusivité pour politique-etrangere.com.

Retrouvez l’article de Laurence Nardon ici. Retrouvez le sommaire du numéro d’été de Politique étrangère ici.

A behind-the-scenes look at how the United States' Cold-War Strategy of election meddling has evolved in the twenty-first century.

The enormous financial means that West Germany is still transferring to East Germany, 30 years after re-unification, suggest that Moscow’s grab of Crimea in 2014 has been an ill-calculated adventure. Sustaining over a long period of time the highly-subsidised economy of the annexed peninsula will be beyond the capacities of a more and more crisis-ridden Russian state. With deep historical connections between Russians and Crimea lacking, they will be less and less ready to sacrifice scarce financial resources to the remote peninsula during a time when Russia’s own population is suffering economically.

Until a few months ago, Vladimir Putin’s resolute seizure of Crimea, in February-March 2014, looked to be the defining moment of his, so far, four presidencies. It brought momentous change not only to Russia’s foreign relations, and changed European geopolitics to its core. Moscow’s capture of the beautiful peninsula also heavily impacted Russian domestic affairs. It created, with over 70 per cent public support for annexation in Russia and over 80 per cent of measured post-annexation approval on Crimea, a so-called “Crimean Consensus” in society at large. Only in 2019, the high approval rate in public opinion polls, in view of increasing economic hardship, started to sink. Notably, this tendency appeared already before the coronavirus crisis hit Russia in March 2020.

In 2014, however, the annexation appeared to most Russians – across all social layers, professional groups and political camps – as an elegant, quick, smooth, bloodless, and exhilarating operation. It was a stroke of strategic genius deftly undertaken by a daring Kremlin, in a unique historical moment. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance that Putin took firmly advantage of. To not go and get the gorgeous Black Sea pearl back under Moscow’s control – when it was briefly so easy to do – would have been an unforgivable omission for the Russian nation.

At least that is how not only the Kremlin and its closely controlled mass media present the “re-unification” of Russia and Crimea. This is also how many ordinary Russians – even many otherwise liberal and pro-Western observers – thought until recently about the annexation. This foreseeable effect was probably also the main reason why the Kremlin did it in the first place. Yet Putin’s ominous reference to the 1990 re-unification of Germany in his Crimea annexation speech of March 18, 2014, already indicated the major long-term challenge of his land grab. There will, as his quoted German example illustrates, be further costs for Russia, over the years and decades to come.

To be sure, the two “re-unifications” are very different in their origins, nature, status, and consequences. Neither is Crimea fully comparable to the “German Democratic Republic” nor is Russia today similar to West Germany. There was a plain Russian military aggression on Crimea, the preparation of which had already started on February 20, 2014, when Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was still in power. In East Germany, in contrast, the local population first rebelled against a Moscow-sponsored dictatorship after which a complicated domestic and international political process finally led to a peaceful reunification on October 3, 1990.

Still, for all the differences, there is, for the Russian people, a clear lesson to be drawn from the German example: the economic and social integration of new territories into an existing state is, as the Germans have learnt during the last 30 years, a rather expensive undertaking. The main question with Russia’s all too uncomplicated acquisition of Crimea in 2014 will thus not be whether Russians want Crimea or not. Rather, the issue is whether the Russian nation is ready to pay the full price for this audacious territorial enlargement of its state, and whether the Russians will still be prepared to do so once the various economic as well as social effects of the pandemic will fully kick in.

The former East German state’s territory – with such cities as Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Magdeburg, Halle or Jena – is flesh of the flesh of Germany. The lands of the former GDR are, in terms of their history and geography, clearly a part of Germany. An unequally large part of the cultural heritage of the German nation – such as its Protestant church, Magdeburg town law, classic and Romantic literatures and so on – were created on the territory of the 1949-1990 Soviet-German satellite state. The crucial biographical phases of such famous Germans as Martin Luther, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and many others played out in the lands of the post-war East rather than the (much larger) West German republic.

The historically disproportionate cultural weight of East German cities and towns in the formation of the modern all-German nation is one of the reasons why West Germans agreed to transfer approximately 1.6 trillion euros to East Germany between 1990 and 2018. This is also why they are today still ready to pay willy-nilly the so-called Solidaritätszuschlag (solidarity surcharge) which is an additional obligatory salary reduction amounting to 5.5 per cent of their income tax, almost 30 years after re-unification. One wonders whether the Russians will still be prepared for lengthy and costly financial commitments to Crimea, once the grave social repercussions of the coronavirus crisis and its various economic after-effects start biting.

The birth name of Crimea’s internationally best-known Russian son, the famous marine painter Ivan Aivazovskiy, is Hovhannes Aivazian, whose Armenian family moved to Crimea from the former Eastern Polish and today Western Ukrainian region of Galicia. The majority of Crimea’s main indigenous ethnic group, the Crimean Tatars, as well as its main political organs, the executive Mejlis and representative Qurultay, are resolutely anti-Putinist and staunchly pro-Ukrainian.

Unlike Russia and Crimea, Germany’s East and West are geographically unified. Because of, among others, earlier close connections between the FRG and West Berlin, an enclave located within the former GDR, East and West Germany’s infrastructures had already before 1990 been partially integrated. Russia only managed to create a physical link to Crimea in 2018-19 when it gradually completed the so-called “Crimean Bridge” through the Kerch Straits. This conduit, to be sure, constitutes an impressive engineering achievement.

Yet the Kerch bridge is no panacea for the numerous challenges of the Crimean economy and its full integration into the Russian one. Moscow’s generous donations for Crimea’s budget and economy of, until 2019, about 20 billion US dollars, have led to significant economic growth on the peninsula since 2014. At the same time, there has been a sharp drop in Ukrainian mainland and foreign non-Russian tourism and private investment in Crimea. This momentous loss has only partly been compensated for by tourists and private investors from Russia, and will become more acutely felt on Crimea, as Russia’s economy dives into recession or even depression.

There are, moreover, some major infrastructural challenges for Crimea’s new Moscow-installed authorities. The most curious one is the peninsula’s vastly diminished supply of fresh water, after Ukraine closed its North Crimean Canal from the Dnipro river to the abolished Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea in 2014. Over the last six years, Russia has only done little to address the rising water issue on the peninsula. Above all, there is no larger project to utilise saltwater from the Black Sea. Today, there is such a wide range of technologies for the production of fresh water available that Moscow would be able to overcome the problem of sanctions on Crimea. A number of countries are now undertaking desalination on an industrial scale, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The main challenge for such projects is usually that of providing sufficient energy for the desalination process – an issue that for Russia as a self-ascribed “energy superpower” should, however, not be salient. Moscow has, nevertheless, not even started to implement some larger project to adequately address Crimea’s water issue although the problems have been accumulating for almost six years now.

No such challenges have been hampering the development of the East German lands since re-unification. On the contrary, international tourism, foreign investment and water quality, among many other aspects of social and economic life, have vastly improved. Nevertheless, the East German economy remains, until today, dependent on significant monthly subsidies from West Germany.

The evolving deep crisis in Russia’s economy as a result of the simultaneous effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, dropping energy prices, and continuing Western sanctions will have far-reaching social and eventually political as well as geopolitical repercussions. To be sure, as long as Putin is in power, Crimea will remain under Russia’s control. However, a sober weighing of future fiscal means of the Russian state, continuing financial needs of an internationally isolated Crimea, remaining basic infrastructural challenges of the peninsula’s economy, and dearth of emotional attachment of Russians to Crimea does not bode well for the continuation of Moscow’s expansionist adventure.

Many self-ascribed realists dismiss Crimea’s return to Ukraine as mere wishful thinking. Yet a realistic assessment of likely future developments within the Russian Federation already foretells that the Kremlin’s daring annexation of the peninsula is only a temporary phenomenon. Ukrainians (not the least Crimeans), Western diplomats, and Russian politicians should brace themselves for yet another major change in the geopolitics of Eastern Europe’s post-Soviet space – once Putin has left the political stage.

This brief was first published on the website “Emerging Europe.”

 

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Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (n° 2/2020). Mohammad-Reza Djalili propose une analyse de l’ouvrage dirigé par Clément Therme, L’Iran et ses rivaux entre nation et révolution (Passés composés, 2020, 208 pages).

Clément Therme, spécialiste de l’histoire contemporaine de l’Iran, réunit ici une dizaine de contributions consacrées à la diplomatie de la République islamique, une diplomatie à la fois islamiste, chiite et révolutionnaire.

Après une brève et éclairante introduction, les trois premiers chapitres sont consacrés aux relations de l’Iran avec les États-Unis, la Chine et la Russie. Le texte d’Annick Cizel, « L’obsession iranienne : les États-Unis au défi des (dés) équilibres régionaux », analyse la politique de Trump à l’égard de Téhéran, la volonté de celui-ci de défaire l’héritage de son prédécesseur, et sa politique de sanctions destinées à isoler, voire à renverser, le régime islamique. La contribution de Thierry Kellner, « La Chine : vers une intégration de l’Iran dans la sphère d’influence de Pékin ? », voit en l’Iran un partenaire, sinon un allié de Pékin qui, en l’absence d’alternative, est contraint à se tourner de plus en plus vers la Chine. Le troisième chapitre, « La Russie dans la politique régionale de l’Iran : allié ou concurrent ? » – de Clément Therme – fait le constat que, tout en étant cobelligérants en Syrie, Téhéran et Moscou ne sont pas alliés sur le plan régional.

Les quatre chapitres suivants sont plus centrés sur les dimensions régionales de la politique iranienne. Après une étude de Hayk A. Martirosyan « L’Iran et le Caucase du Sud : la prudence de Téhéran », le chapitre de Massoud Sharifi Dryaz « État et minorités en Iran : les enjeux de la question kurde », évoque la question de la relation entre l’oumma et la nation, que pose l’arrivée du clergé au pouvoir en Iran. Au chapitre 6, « La Turquie et l’Iran : deux navires amiraux dans la tempête du Proche-Orient », Michel Duclos met en évidence le rôle et l’impact des deux anciennes puissances régionales. Élisabeth Marteu traite dans le chapitre 7, « L’Iran vu d’Israël : de la doctrine de la périphérie à la menace existentielle », de l’évolution de l’image d’un Iran perçu jusqu’en 1979 comme proche, à celle d’un pays désormais présenté comme une menace existentielle.

Avec le chapitre 9, « La France, l’Iran et la prolifération nucléaire », François Nicoullaud livre une étude stimulante sur la relation tourmentée, mais jamais indifférente, de la France et de l’Iran. Le chapitre 10, « Les relations Iran-Arabie saoudite : la rivalité structurante » de Louis Blin, analyse les relations entre les deux États riverains du golfe Persique, l’un chiite et l’autre sunnite. Les deux derniers chapitres sont consacrés à des régions plus éloignées. Les relations contrastées entre l’Amérique latine et l’Iran sont analysées par Élodie Brun ; quand Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos s’attache à la politique de « l’Iran en Afrique subsaharienne ».

La publication de cet ouvrage, qui rassemble des textes de qualité et évoque un grand nombre de problématiques, est bienvenue : elle contribue à une meilleure évaluation de la politique extérieure d’un important pays du Moyen-Orient, et dont certains aspects restent mal connus, particulièrement dans le monde francophone. Un regret cependant : on aurait aimé lire une ou deux contributions sur les pays d’Asie centrale et du sous-continent indien, dont les liens avec l’Iran ne sont pas négligeables, tant sur le plan historique que géopolitique.

Mohammad-Reza Djalili

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Though the long history of African American engagement overseas is often omitted from conventional narratives about U.S. foreign policy, it has profoundly shaped contemporary global understandings of race, and has complicated—when it has not outright undermined—official U.S. government messaging about American values.

A year has passed since the Department of Defense released the Indo-Pacific Strategy Report (IPSR); however, we still lack future visions surrounding how best to truly earn the hearts and minds of our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific community. In the long run, America needs to institutionally convince the community that it is the endgame defender of the regionally shared common values from threats imposed by any revisionist, malign, and rogue states’ national interests.

The framework for the IPSR was explicated in the former Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan’s keynote speech during the 2019 Shangri-La security summit. Simply put, the IPSR could be understood as being a neorealist version of the Obama administration’s ‘Pivot to Asia’  rhetoric. It reasserts America’s leadership role to safeguard regionally shared principles of “respect for sovereignty and independence of all nations,” “free, fair, and reciprocal trade,” “peaceful resolution of disputes,” and “adherence to international rules and norms” through neorealist visions’ preparedness, strategic partnerships, and promotion of a networked region. Strategically speaking, the IPSR is innovative to the extent that it inclusively extends the strategic geopolitical boundary of the region from Asia-Pacific to India-Pacific to reflect the changing strategic geopolitical landscape of the region. Nevertheless, it is more or less a protraction of the deterrence theory-based power through strength logic of balancing regional security order through minimalist reinforcement of America’s traditional hub-and-spoke-centered architecture. The latter aspect could be best exonerated as minilateralist alliance management efforts to efficiently strengthen the credibility of America’s deterrence capability against the declared antagonists’ increasing instances of breaching the rules of the game in the region. However, such an immoderately hawkish stance casts an implication on critics that America’s minilateralist management of its hub-and-spoke architecture is widening the threat perception gap between America’s pursuit of hard-hedge anti-China containment and middle/small power allies/partners’ pursuit of a soft-hedge strategy against China. Furthermore, its less-prioritized view of regional multilateralism underestimates the increasingly multidimensional nature of today’s landscape of strategic warfare that rather demands skillful peace through diplomacy, full spectrum diplomacy strategies.

Widening Threat Perception Gap Between America and Allies/Partners

For many ASEAN member countries, the IPSR signals a paradigmatic shift from prosperity to security, which might peripheralize their ASEAN centrality vision and revive the Cold War Hamlet enigma of tight-roping between ‘bandwagoning’ or balancing strategies. These concerns are apprehending not only ASEAN member countries but also the members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue excluding America: Australia, India, and Japan. The four allies’ diplomatic/political willingness to hard-hedge against China is questionable due to the countries’ diverging national priorities. For instance, Japan’s growing thaw with China since the escalation of the U.S.-China trade war, the surfaced reality revealing the intensification of the country’s economic dependency on China over the last decade, implies that it is burdensome for Japan to adopt a political stance in favor of America’s radical policy shift to hard-hedging against China. Similarly, Australia’s establishment of the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations, an attempt to offset the fallouts from the U.S.-China trade war, alludes that the fallouts outweigh the country’s risk perception of China’s existential threats. For India, the IPSR’s sketch identification of the country’s security role in the region misleads the country to understand the IPSR as a complementary initiative to its regional economic policy, titled Act East.

Despite the widening threat perception gap between the Indo-Pacific community and America, the relegated importance of regional multilateralism under the Trump administration’s minilateralist pursuit of the America First doctrine has fostered a contingency-based, transactional, and top-down diplomatic culture that prioritizes practical, yet malign/revisionist partisan pursuit of national interests over sustainable regional norms or institutional mechanisms. The 2019 political rift between South Korean and Japanese elites that led to the Moon administration’s suspension of GISOMIA(General Security of Military Information Agreement) is a good example of how the spillover effects of Trumpism can boomerang to burden America. Since President Trump’s inauguration, both the Abe and Moon administrations have emulated Trumpism for their malign partisan maneuvering of the rift. Whereas the Abe administration has abused it to consolidate its right-wing nationalist supporter base, the Moon administration did the same for its left-wing nationalist supporter base. This diplomatic botch for America-led trilateral security cooperation in Northeast Asia reveals the limits of the minilateralist hub-and-spoke alliance portfolio management.

Amidst the post-INF arms race climate, which beclouds the Indo-Pacific regional security order with uncertainty, adherents of deterrence theory often abuse the controversial Thucydides’ Trap as a good excuse to argue in favor of the restoration of the Cold War certainty. Their so-called ‘peace through strength’ emphasis, however, seems to disregard one of the most important Cold War lessons, in that the Soviet Union would have walked away from the negotiation table if NATO’s dual-track approach failed to successfully calibrate the risk perception gap between America, its European allies and, eventually, the Soviet Union. Given the absence of a collective security community like NATO in the Indo-Pacific, America needs an alternative form of alliance portfolio management that is viable in the long run. Such a strategy, on the one hand, ought to be instrumental for risk perception calibration between America and its allies so that we can come up with the positive creation of peaceful resolution strategies in the escalatory phases of U.S.-China conflicts. Conversely, it should also be normatively preparatory to gradually set the cornerstone conditions for the establishment of a NATO-like value-sharing security community in the region. The historical animosity and the tradition of need-based diplomatic gathering in the Indo-Pacific cannot simply be managed by Trumpist minilateralism. In order to better strategize the risk management of future security dilemmas/conflicts, America rather needs to accommodate the fluid network of what Victor Cha calls “Complex patchworks” or, indeed, bilateral, trilateral, and plurilateral institutions that connect America, China, and small/middle-power allies/partners.

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Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (n° 2/2020).
Jean-Bernard Véron propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Paul D. Williams, Fighting for Peace in Somalia: A History and Analysis of the African Union Mission (AMISOM), 2007-2017 
(Oxford University Press, 2018, 400 pages).

Cet ouvrage traite de l’intervention multidimensionnelle de l’Union africaine en Somalie, sous le nom d’AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia). Sur une décennie, de 2007 à 2017, il en expose le parcours historique et les multiples défis auxquels elle a été confrontée.

Le parcours se divise en six étapes. La première est l’entrée en lice de l’AMISOM dans un pays privé d’État depuis la chute du régime de Siad Barre, et livré à l’insécurité du fait de la multiplication des groupes armés (seigneurs de la guerre, milices claniques, acteurs politico-militaires dont les Shabaab).

Suivent deux années d’impasse marquées par des affrontements non conclusifs pour le contrôle de Mogadiscio, où les Shabaab sont solidement implantés. L’AMISOM passe ensuite à l’offensive, et parvient à en chasser ces derniers. Mais cette victoire militaire n’est pas suivie d’avancées sur le plan politique et pour le fonctionnement de l’État.

L’AMISOM se lance alors dans la reconquête du centre et du sud du pays. Mais, bien que sur le repli, les Shabaab ne s’avouent pas vaincus, et font d’ailleurs allégeance à Al-Qaïda. Et pas plus que lors des périodes précédentes, les succès militaires remportés contre eux n’induisent des progrès significatifs dans les domaines du politique et de la couverture des besoins des populations. À mi-mandat, donc en 2012, c’est le passage à la consolidation dans les régions reconquises.

Enfin, dans les années suivantes, l’AMISOM élargit les régions sous son contrôle, mais avec un éparpillement de ses forces qui les rend vulnérables, et une stabilisation fragile dans les territoires reconquis.

Cette analyse historique éclaire quelques points cruciaux. L’AMISOM mène une guerre et non pas une opération de peace building classique. Certains des pays participants sont souvent motivés par leurs intérêts nationaux. La reconstruction d’un appareil d’État, y compris des forces de sécurité, ainsi que la couverture des besoins des populations, sont toujours en retard par rapport aux succès sécuritaires.

Dans une seconde partie, l’auteur revient en détail sur les défis auxquels a été confrontée l’AMISOM.

– La diversification des missions qui lui sont assignées ;

– la multiplicité des contributeurs financiers, aux modes d’intervention différents ;

– la reconstruction des forces de sécurité somaliennes ;

– la protection des populations et la délivrance de services de base ;

– la communication, domaine dans lequel les Shabaab sont très actifs ;

– la stabilisation des régions reconquises, où le politique et la gouvernance importent plus que le militaire ;

– la préparation d’une stratégie de sortie, sans créer un vide sécuritaire.

En conclusion, l’auteur rappelle que cette mission a été la plus longue, la plus chère, et la plus meurtrière de toutes celles diligentées par l’Union africaine. Mais aussi l’une des plus ambitieuses, vu l’état du pays et l’objectif d’articuler conduite de guerre et reconstruction d’un État. Cet ouvrage est incontestablement une analyse très détaillée de la problématique traitée. Analyse pour laquelle l’auteur s’est appuyé sur un grand nombre de sources et plus de 200 interviews. Ce qui renvoie d’ailleurs à la complexité et à la durée de la crise somalienne – soit aujourd’hui un demi-siècle depuis le début de la guerre civile au début des années 1980 -, à ce jour toujours non résolue.

Jean-Bernard Véron

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The present and future effects of a Covid shutdown on international society will have significant consequences on our employment, economy, taxes, and even those mechanisms that protect and insure us. New laws and regulations that would be considered a violation of consumer rights and protections, labour codes, and to some degree human compassion, are taking place in many countries at once.

Protections, even ones that favoured consumers to a greater degree, are being limited or outright suspended. Anyone who has recently tried to find a recourse for having their money returned has often been denied. One notable example are those seeking compensation for their air travel or hotel reservations as they are often being told that they are no longer owed a refund. This is occurring because many regional and national governments are aware that for many large companies, covering their usual contractual obligations with their customers might place those companies in the red, and might even end the existence of those companies altogether. For this reason, many governments are suspending or altering laws that protect consumers. While they are advising their customers to change dates, the worse case scenario may be that the company gets wound up into bankruptcy and those customers lose their investment altogether.

The basis for many large economies is that the governments, the banks, and the insurance companies need to be solvent in order for commerce and society as a whole to become successful. While a coordination to reduce or remove taxes from small and medium sized business entities would likely have the effect of saving employees their wages and accompanying insurance, the governments and banks seek to push the onus of the damage caused by Covid on those with less influential interests in society. For this reason, the Covid lock-down permeates the economic system, as someone in the chain has to pay for the debt. As governments offer trillions in financial support, impressions are widely positive. In many cases governments will go beyond the call to pull out all the stops, using taxpayer money in order to help in the short term, while piling on unsustainable, eye watering debt and deficits for the future. The reality however is that if there is no money, and the government will not be able to help when the next emergency comes about. For this reason there should be strict controls and oversight on spending during the Covid crisis.

The next crisis of confidence may be in the confidence industry itself. As we see above, many companies are not honouring their original agreements with consumers, leaving the consumer to face the losses. What occurs when a state or region runs out of employment insurance assistance? More taxes will surely result, but what occurs when a private insurance company faces bankruptcy? More often than not the insurance company will not pay out as they should, may put up administrative or legal barriers or just void the policies altogether and ask the governments to alter the laws so that the company preserves itself instead of servicing their clients. Even some labour laws are being altered so that severance payments can be cruelly delayed during a possible economic depression. With a lack of insurance, any losses or damages related to Covid (and those apart from Covid) could result in the termination of otherwise healthy companies and industries.

So it will be the case that any additional damage or losses to companies may not permit them to return, as insurance may be limited or non existent. The job losses will exacerbate as private people also lose their coverage, but also do not pay into the insurance industry. Governments may have a limited capacity to tax and spend as employed people are evidently not a good source of revenue. While it will be a rocky road ahead, there has to be balance, and that balance must be met with extreme transparency. Any government or company fleecing tax money from their customers must be held to account to a great degree. Any damage to society will be now felt by most of us, because corrupt practices in 2020 will significantly hurt us all.

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Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’été de Politique étrangère (n° 2/2020). Laurence Nardon, responsable du Programme Amérique du Nord à l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Andrew Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory (Metropolitan Books, 2020, 256 pages).

Aux yeux d’Andrew Bacevich, deux consensus politiques différents, chacun décliné sous les angles de l’économie, de la politique étrangère et de la moralité individuelle, se sont succédé à Washington depuis 1945.

Le premier – celui de la guerre froide – est fondé sur une forte mobilité sociale pour les classes moyennes dans un contexte de prospérité ; sur une présence militaire américaine forte dans le monde, justifiée par la menace soviétique ; enfin une morale stricte, appuyée d’une pratique religieuse soutenue et d’une domination des « mâles blancs hétérosexuels ».

La chute du mur de Berlin a fait basculer les États-Unis dans un nouveau consensus, inspiré par la théorie de Francis Fukuyama sur le triomphe définitif du modèle américain. Dès lors, les États-Unis ont imposé au monde un libéralisme économique débridé ; des interventions militaires inconsidérées ; et une morale individualiste excessive, débarrassée de tout cadre social. Or ces excès ont appauvri les classes moyennes et détruit le contrat social américain. Ainsi les élites boudent‑elles l’armée par défaut de patriotisme, seuls les fils de familles pauvres s’engageant pour des raisons financières. C’est cette trahison des idéaux américains qui a conduit à l’élection de Trump.

Ancien militaire devenu universitaire, Bacevich appartient à l’espèce rare des conservateurs anti-Trump. Déjà, ses critiques de l’invasion de l’Irak en 2003 avaient été appréciées des Démocrates, tandis que les Républicains ne pouvaient complètement le désavouer. Il montre beaucoup d’attachement pour l’âge d’or de la guerre froide, et beaucoup de méfiance envers le consensus des années 1989-2016.

Si George Bush père a admirablement négocié la fin de l’URSS au début des années 1990, Bacevich blâme également Bill Clinton, Bush fils et Barack Obama : tous trois sont coupables à ses yeux d’hubris militariste, et d’une mondialisation économique fondée sur le profit à tout prix. Si Clinton s’est montré hypocrite quant à ses promesses progressistes (refusant en 1992 de gracier Ricky Ray Rector, condamné à mort noir aux graves troubles psychiques, pour ne pas nuire à sa carrière politique), Obama a été plus actif pour faire respecter les engagements sociétaux du Parti démocrate.

Le fil rouge du livre est l’évocation, parallèlement à la grande histoire, des carrières respectives de l’auteur, né en 1947, et de Trump, né en 1946. L’ouvrage propose de nombreuses comparaisons historiques, et la démonstration des deux consensus est convaincante, même si elle reste un peu scolaire et recèle quelques angles morts : les années 1960 n’avaient‑elles pas, déjà, secoué le consensus de l’après-guerre, bien avant 1989 ? Le racisme des années 1950 est mentionné plusieurs fois par l’auteur, mais ne suffit manifestement pas à ses yeux à disqualifier le consensus social de la guerre froide.

À part la piste (peu détaillée) de la lutte contre le changement climatique, le livre fait peu de recommandations. Pour en savoir plus, il faudra se tourner vers le Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, ce nouveau think tank de Washington que préside Bacevich. S’inspirant du président John Quincy Adams qui, en 1821, exhortait son pays, à « ne pas aller à l’étranger chercher des monstres à abattre », le Quincy défend une politique étrangère non interventionniste pour les États-Unis.

Laurence Nardon

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You can find the link to the quiz here.

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