The people of both southern Israel and Gaza have had a difficult week, probably the most difficult since the end of Operation Protective Borders in 2014. A rocket attack rained down on the cities bordering the Gaza Strip. In the end, after forty-eight hours of clashes and political repercussions, who won this battle?
Background information
11 November in the evening: an Israeli commando tries to penetrate Gaza to carry out intelligence operations (according to Israeli sources). The operation failed and 7 Hamas militiamen and 1 IDF soldier lost their lives.
12 and 13 November: Hamas, in response to this attempt, fired more than 400 shells (rockets or mortars) into southern Israel. The Hebrew state responded by bombarding Gaza 150 times.
November 13th in the evening: Hamas and Israel, under the unofficial aegis of Egypt, signed a ceasefire that concluded these two days of hostilities.
What should be remembered?
In the outset, it should be recalled that the Gaza Strip has been suffering from a moribund economy for months. This reminder does not have humanitarian values but has a role to understanding events. Hamas responded to the attempted incursion of Israeli agents in order not to lose face with the people of Gaza. The latter, already in economic difficulties, probably does not want to know that Israeli spies can operate on their territory with impunity. Finally, Hamas acted in such a violent way not to further erodes its legitimacy with its “people”, which is already very weak due to the economic situation. A priori, this first element of analysis may suggest that the State of Israel has won, because it has pushed the Gazan political power to its limits. In addition, the strategic successes are clear: although no Hamas leaders have been killed, the official television building and one of the Islamist movement’s administrative headquarters have been destroyed. In less than two days, Israel succeeded militarily in depriving Hamas of its propaganda and an operational tool.
Israel has destroyed the official TV of the Hamas.
Politically, however, the consequences of this violence are terrible. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has resigned and the majority of Benjamin Netanyahu is weakened. The Prime Minister would therefore only have one seat in Parliament conferring a majority on him… This relatively slight outburst, resulting from a seemingly minor operational error, can be very costly for Israel: its Prime Minister.
In the end, Hamas lost militarily, but won politically.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vice President Mike Pence traded barbs at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea on Saturday, with each laying the blame for the trade war and growing geopolitical rivalry at the other’s doorstep, while also seeking to sell their vision of a regional development strategy.
In a speech lasting almost 40 minutes, Xi urged the business and political leaders gathered in Port Moresby to uphold free trade and promote a multilateral system.
“Unilateralism and protectionism will not solve problems but add uncertainty to the world economy,” he said. “History has shown that confrontation, whether in the form of a cold war, a hot war or a trade war, produces no winners.”
When it was his turn to take to the podium, Pence was equally fervent but far more direct in his criticism.
“We have great respect for President Xi and China, but as we all know, China has taken advantage of the United States for many, many years and those days are over,” he said.
He then leveled a number of accusations at Beijing, including its insistence on forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft.
“The U.S. will not change course until China changes its ways,” Pence said, adding that there was still room for the White House to introduce new tariffs on Chinese goods.
Since July, Washington has imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, while Beijing has slapped similar duties on $110 billion worth of goods it imports from the US. In September, President Donald Trump threatened to extend the tariffs to all of the products it imports from China.
Neither Xi nor Pence listened to the other’s speech, both of which were delivered from a conference room on a cruise ship moored in Port Moresby harbour.
Despite his hard line, Pence said Washington “believed progress could be made” when Trump and Xi meet in the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires at the end of the month on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit. The talks will be the first between the two leaders since the trade war began.
Aside from airing their grievances on trade, Xi and Pence were equally keen to promote their nations’ respective plans for regional cooperation, respectively the “Belt and Road Initiative” and Indo-Pacific strategy.
“The belt and road [plan] is an open platform for cooperation. [It is] neither designed to serve any hidden political agendas nor to target anyone,” Xi said.
“It does not cause debt traps, as some want to label it, [but] is a transparent project that brings common development to the world.”
Xi launched the trillion-dollar program in 2013 as a way to boost connectivity between China and the Eurasian land mass.
Pence, however, made a thinly veiled attack of China’s controversial overseas infrastructure building spree.
“As we are all aware, some are offering infrastructure loans to governments across the Indo-Pacific and around the world,” he said. “Yet the terms of those loans are often vague at best, projects they support are often unsustainable … too often they come with strings attached.”
While he made no specific references to China, Pence urged governments in Asia to consider Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, which is backed by Australia and Japan, as a preferable alternative to the belt and road plan.
“Know that the U.S. offers a better option,” he said. “We don’t drown our partners in a sea of debt, we don’t coerce, or compromise your independence … We don’t offer a constricting belt or a one way road.”
On the issue of China’s growing militarization of the disputed South China Sea, Pence said the U.S. would partner Australia on the upgrading of the Lombrum naval base on the Pacific nation’s Manus island.
Infrastructure development, including roads, railways, ports, pipelines and airports, would be the priority of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, Pence said, adding that the U.S. would adopt a “principled approach that will stand in contrast to some other nations”.
The tension between the two nations was also evident at a photo call for the leaders of the 21 Apec member nations on Saturday afternoon. While Xi stood beside Papua New Guinean President Peter O’Neill, Pence was noticeably absent from the shot.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s foreign ministry reported that the vice president met the self-ruled island’s envoy to Apec, Morris Chang, and discussed ways to “boost inclusive growth and shape the digital future”.
Pence described his meeting with Chang as being “about economics”. “They were strong supporters of TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] and made a case for being considered for a free-trade agreement. And I assured them we would carry back that ask,” he said.
In contrast, there were no reports of meetings between Chinese and American officials at the event.
Xi is currently on a seven-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. After leaving Papua New Guinea he will travel to Brunei and the Philippines for state visits, and attend the G20 summit from November 30 to December 1 in Buenos Aires.
This story is being published by POLITICO as part of a content partnership with the South China Morning Post. It originally appeared on scmp.com on Nov. 17, 2018.
When president-elect Jair Bolsonaro walks up the ramp to the Palácio do Planalto on January 1st, he will be facing more than a polarized Brazil with an underperforming economic recovery. The challenges ahead range from the low quality of public education and the return of once-eradicated diseases, to a lack of infrastructure and decreasing confidence in investments and consumption.
To make sense of the veritable Rubik’s cube which is 2018 Brazil, The Brazilian Report has compiled a comprehensive set of data, charts, and maps that synthesize what Brazil’s next president will inherit once in office.
Demographics
Jair Bolsonaro will rule over 208.5 million citizens, mostly concentrated in big cities. According to IBGE, Brazil’s statistics agency, 57 percent of the country’s population live in just 5.7 percent of its towns. That means 118.9 million people are crammed into just 317 of the country’s 5,570 municipalities.
The distribution of Brazilians across the extent of its territory is even more uneven if one considers that 84.3 percent of the people occupy merely 0.63 percent of the country, according to Embrapa, a public agribusiness research company.
On top of the challenge of balancing policies that will benefit both those living in condensed metropoles and others in small, isolated villages, Brazil’s demographic projections also turn the country into a ticking time bomb. IBGE estimates the country’s population will reach 233 million in 2047 and decrease afterwards.
The New Special Envoy Must Not Allow Russia to Protect Assad
Here’s Geid Pedersen, the new U.N special envoy in Syria.
Earlier this month, Geir Pedersen, Norway’s ambassador to China and a former permanent representative to the United Nations, was appointed special envoy on the Syria conflict. He replaces the veteran Italian-Swedish negotiator Staffan de Mistura, who for four years tried but failed to end the bloody civil war.
Syria has been brutalized for nearly eight years now. Eight years is the lifetime of a third-grade child. It is also two years longer than the total duration of World War II. And in those last two years, instead of winding down as all of its actors have grown exhausted, Syria’s crisis has actually escalated.
The effect on Syrian society has been catastrophic. The rising generation has known nothing but war. Six million people are displaced inside the country, and five million more have left as refugees. Nearly 14 million—out of a prewar population of 22 million—need humanitarian assistance. Syria is a burning country that has been starved, chemically assaulted, and bombed into submission in nearly all of the former opposition areas except Idlib, the final piece in the puzzle that Bashar al-Assad seeks to conquer. The human rights abuses—which include mass incarceration, torture, and rape, as well as chemical weapons attacks against civilians and starvation as a tool of war—are among the worst I have ever seen in three decades of conflict analysis and reporting.
Unless the war in Syria is halted soon, it will become something like the conflict that started in 1975 in Lebanon. That war lasted 17 years and destroyed a country, leaving more than 150,000 dead and tens of thousands displaced. If Syria’s war continues that long, there won’t be many people left in the country to kill.
No one really knows how many have died in Syria so far. The UN stopped counting the dead in 2016, but estimates are somewhere near half a million, if not more. Lebanon—just one of many affected neighboring countries—has taken in more than 1.5 million Syrians, nearly exhausting its already fragile institutions. Because many of the refugees are Sunni Muslim, the influx has upset Lebanon’s delicate religious balance, setting off a nasty anti-refugee backlash. Another winter is coming, and with it a desperate time for the refugees living in settlements and the civilians trapped in places like Idlib, Ghouta, and Aleppo, the last of which was pulverized by Russian and Syrian bombs.
The task Pedersen inherits is gargantuan.
The task Pedersen inherits is gargantuan, even for one of the better-respected diplomats in the UN biosphere, and one with a long history of work on seemingly intractable conflicts. Pedersen was part of the team that his countryman Terje Rod-Larsen steered in secret negotiations that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. He was the UN’s point man in Lebanon from 2005 to 2008, during which time he was known for speaking to all the political players, including Hezbollah. He will need these pragmatic skills in Syria.
What might work in Pedersen’s favor is timing: all the actors—the opposition, the regime, even the Russians, Hezbollah, the United States, and Turkey—are exhausted, suggesting that the time for negotiation might be ripe, something that was not the case when de Mistura came on board. The Italian has so far has been the longest-serving envoy on this conflict: Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi, no strangers to ending wars, lasted five months and a little less than two years, respectively, in the position, discouraged by the unyielding nature of the participants and the fact that nobody seemed to really want the war to end.
The strong relationship between Russia and Syria threatens peace agreements.
De Mistura, who had previously served in Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, worked tirelessly on Syria but continually ran up against a brick wall: Assad and his patron, Vladimir Putin. “I have never known a more cynical war,” he told me in 2015, noting that both parties were willing to sacrifice their people rather than compromise for peace. Known for his creative diplomacy, de Mistura tried cease-fires, which failed; rounds of negotiations so tense that often the parties did not show up or refused to speak to one another; and, before he left, attempts at drafting a new Syrian constitution, which, to no one’s surprise, Assad rejected. No one was ready to give in.
Wars end by force, fatigue, or negotiation. Sometimes the ground for negotiation takes years to become fertile. The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the European religious wars in 1648 and established the first sovereign nation-states, involved 109 political entities and took two years to sign. Whatever does end the Syrian conflict must be a settlement that will stick, so that the warring parties will not return to the battlefield. “A treaty to end a war is, in effect, a preparation for another war unless it addresses the reasons for that war and unless it creates a new political order to prevent its recurrence,” William I. Zartman wrote in Peace Versus Justice: Negotiating Forward- and Backward-Looking Outcomes, a bible for negotiators.
Pedersen inherits a broken opposition and a stubborn, unruly, murderous dictator in Damascus who refuses to leave. At the very heart of any negotiation must be the simple premise that Assad—a man with much blood on his hands, but who retains the support of Putin and Hezbollah—must go. It is impossible to imagine a post-conflict country attempting to heal with the man who wreaked such agony upon it still in power. How could transitional justice ever operate? The Russians, who ultimately hold the cards, have held fast to Assad’s being part of the political process. But if Pedersen managed to get Arafat and Rabin to shake hands, perhaps he can find a way to convince the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, that Assad is done.
Meanwhile, the agony continues. Last week, Raed al-Saleh, head of the much-maligned White Helmets, told the United Kingdom’s Daily Telegraph that Idlib, the last rebel stronghold, is once again in Assad’s crosshairs. Idlib is partly held by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group that Russia and the Syrian government regard as a legitimate target. A fragile cease-fire was established there in September, but Saleh warned last week that increased mortar fire from the regime has killed 20 people in the past few days. Finishing off Idlib with help from Russia was always part of Assad’s grand strategy—that is, if he had a strategy—and would complete his job of ethnically cleansing his country by corralling the Sunni opposition into a small territory. But it would also endanger the three million residents inside Idlib (http://www.young-diplomats.com/the-upcoming-battle-of-idlib-explained-in-5-bullet-points/) .
Idlib plays a paramount role in the strategy of Syria.
If Pedersen managed to get Arafat and Rabin to shake hands, perhaps he can find a way to convince the Russian foreign minister that Assad is done.
The war in Syria must end, and a path to justice, following the Rwandan model of local courts or the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, must be established in order to ensure that perpetrators of human rights abuses will be brought to justice. Only such a process can bring true healing to such a battered place. And it will not happen with Assad in power.
Twenty-three years ago this week, the U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke brought the leaders of warring factions in Bosnia to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. There, Holbrooke knocked heads together, wheedling Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic during late-night drinking sessions and bullying the frail Bosnian leader, Aliya Izetbegovic, into signing over parts of his country that he was vehemently opposed to losing, and to which the Muslims had, in fact, a rightful claim. The Dayton accords were not completely successful—many Bosnians were angry about how the war ended, and the current rise of nationalism in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, under Milorad Dodik, attests to the agreement’s serious shortcomings—but a negotiated settlement put a stop to the killing that had turned Bosnia into a bloodbath, culminating with the Srebrenica massacre in 1995.
The war in Syria needs to end. Pedersen has a track record of working with the most difficult negotiators on the planet. But he needs to insist that when this war ends, it ends on the right terms: Syria’s future must not include Assad, and any settlement must provide a mechanism for transitional justice, such that the perpetrators of horrific crimes against humanity can be sought out and tried.
Otherwise, in two decades, the hatred and the suffering will surely return. And another Assad will appear.
YoungDiplomats already published an article on the Defense of Europe more than a year ago(http://www.young-diplomats.com/what-about-the-defense-of-europe/). Sunday 11th of November marked the 100th birthday of the end of the first world war, commonly known as the Great War. Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, explained that only a ” European army ” can protect Europe as a whole. Of course, this statement has annoyed Donald Trump and pleased Vladimir Putin, praising for a fully autonomous Europe in order to decline U.S influence. The purpose of this column will be to explain how useless would be a European army.
A European army would be useless considering the threats
The Internal threats
When a country sets up an army force, it first and foremost has to think about the
Carles Puigdemont has feared many people at the end of 2017
threats. Once threats are analyzed, a government elaborates an army to deal with these threats. the European Union is facing different type of threats. On one side, the EU can be vulnerable when it comes to internal dislocation. The case of Catalonia is here the perfect case study. Carles Puigdemont, former leader of Catalonia declared its region to be autonomous from the central Spanish state. This internal threat is more important for countries such France or Spanish which tend to be much more centralistic than other European countries namely Germany or Italy. Then, terrorism can also be deemed as an internal threat considering how numerous would be “lone wolves” and minor islamic groups.
A European army would be completely useless to deal with the internal threats. Fragmentation of Europe can be faced off with centralization and a more effective administration. It also has to be said that the EU has significantly played a role in this dislocation because of providing the regions with mass amount of money. Would the EU finance and administrate an army against a threat it has contributed to create ?
The External threats
Even if this scenario remains highly unlikely, Russia can be a threat in the years (or decades) to come. Russia is the main threat because this is the only border power in Europe able to launch a massive conflict against a couple of states. Turkey or Maghreb States are far from having this ability.
At first sight a massive European army seems really attractive during a struggle with Russia. Nevertheless, it is necessary to say that member states of the EU still have full competency on their foreign policy. Thus from France to Hungary, the relationships with Russia really are diverse. If the EU builds a European army it first have to deprive States of this competence. Given the current rise of Euro skepticism, it’s obvious that States will not allow such a sovereignty transfer.
Such army would need a nation !
The Great Army of Napoleon is the best example of how an army and a people can fuse.
The real power is the one people are ready to die for it. The underlying issue with a European army is to know whether Europeans are ready to die for the EU. People don’t have this feeling of being European. They are not ready to give their life to the EU, seen as a huge technocratic machine far from the people. An army is really efficient when it is nation, sharing a common culture, value and langage. Of course the creation of a European army is not an easy topic and opinions differ !
It is clear that the foreign affairs strategy under the fourth republic is based on the principles of good neighborliness and friendship, documenting and cementing the nudity of relations with neighboring countries and seeking good relations with the international community which are the principles of the Chadian foreign policy. Accordingly, Chad’s current foreign policies shapers need at this stage to adopt several factors, and develop a comprehensive constitution that takes into account diversity and sustainability in a changing world.
The crisis of lake Chad is a real issue for the Chadian government.
As a result of the above mentioned, there is a problem in implementing strategic plans in many fields, which led to the need of formulating a new foreign policy approach, with stronger elements in terms of planning, implementation, necessitating the reform of the country’s foreign policy under the fourth Republic. It is easy to believe that very little will change in today’s foreign policy of Chad unless the government undertakes wide-ranging economic and political reforms. Currently, few international investors would be attracted to Chad even though there were no restrictions on doing business, because the economy is in dire straits, corruption is rampant, conflict continues in northern parts of the country and the Lake Chad basin, in addition to the unstable financial and domestic political conditions.
Based on these facts, any political analyst can understand the deep causes that have led to the trends of the Chadian foreign policy in recent years. Thus when diplomats with no known foreign policy experience thrust into the great office of the foreign affairs ministry; the question now is what will he do with it? Perhaps his greatest advantage as a Chadian diplomat is that he is trusted by the president. There is no doubt that there are other reasons to add to the abyss of the aforementioned reasons. In the forefront is the inability of Chad to achieve an innovative economic, theoretical and practical political thought has a real impact on the mood of citizens.
Moreover, the failure of building national institutions that implement soft power strategies locally and outside national borders has negatively affected the Chadian foreign policy, which has entrenched the rigidities of its diplomatic institutions and prevented it from seriously contributing to the development of a sophisticated architecture of the network of material and symbolic relations at the regional and international theater levels. Thus, it is true that the main reason for the weakness of Chad’s foreign policy is not just the weakness of the people involved in planning of the Chadian foreign policy, but also the absence of a Chadian strategic policy which has its own uniqueness, cultural, educational and technological appeal. Therefore, it is clear that the current strategic plans of Chad’s foreign policy in terms of preparation were not deficient in relation to the scientific approach customary in the strategic planning, implementation and follow-up, the country may have smart foreign policy plans, but the failure was in the process of the implementation of these plans and the means by which implementation of the strategic plans which necessitates reform in the Chadian foreign policy.
Rebuilding Chad’s foreign policy
In the future vision of the Chadian foreign affairs policy, the development of a new strategic vision with new leadership requires a consolidation of external political discourse in Chad – any foreign policy making process must emanate from the bottom-up culture, geographical and political history of the Chadian people, which requires a good reading of the ethnic and country’s diversity and its tendency towards democracy, freedom and consultation.
Chad has to think about strategy and how it can improve its position.
Further, as these diverse interpretations indicate, the future of liberal internationalism in Chad’s foreign policy is uncertain. However, the ministry of foreign affairs should play its desired role by restructuring it in a way that keeps abreast of the changes. In today’s Chad, the country’s foreign policy has to be reconsidered, the establishment of a Supreme Council for Chadian Foreign Policy and a National Foreign Service Training Institute is the most reasonable and appropriate way to avoid the temperamental acts that occur in the Chadian diplomatic environment, as well as to re-breathe the spirit in popular diplomacy, which has become a source of pressure and an important influence in the decisions of many states.
It is clear that there is a need to formulate an effective strategy to reform Chad’s foreign policy under the new constitution that brought out the birth of the Fourth Republic. This strategy must be agreed upon by international relations professionals. In formulating such strategy; it is necessary to attract some important principles that control foreign policy. First, foreign policy works to serve the common interests of the country. These interests may be political, economic, security or cultural, which means the need to improve diplomatic relations with neighboring countries and all countries of the world, including Qatar and Israel – diplomatic relations that depend on mutual respect and collaboration.
As successful public diplomacy requires assigned structure, defined interests, roles, and effective means of communication, therefore, it is necessary to address clearly the real domestic policy of the county – structuring a good SWOT analysis – which is the main determinant of its foreign affairs policy. National challenges that affect the implementation of foreign policy must be addressed independently in a unique framework in order to have a full understanding and comparing the politics of different departments which are highlighted by the problem of rebuilding the country and achieving national political integration.
Even though Chad generally enjoys good relations with most of its neighboring states, it has been playing a major role in the political and military landscape of the African continent, however, the country has been marginalized when it comes to effective media in foreign relations, which means that the Chadian foreign affairs ministry should train media professionals and diplomats to gain knowledge and experience in the art of media influence in different social environments, and provide the necessary tools and communication devices.
Chad needs to open to great powers including Russia.
Meanwhile, Chad needs to adopt an open foreign policy, relying mostly on soft power tools such as media, economy, diplomacy and humanitarian works. The country’s new strategy should maintain good relations with all of its neighbors, regardless of their contradictory policies towards each other, notably CAR and Sudan – the country should open its southern border with the strife-wracked Central African Republic. In addition, Chad is in need to form alliances with major powers such as the United States, China, Russia and the European Union, and medium powers including KSA, Israel, Qatar and Turkey, while working on creating its own unique African brand.
December will be an important deadline for the international governance regarding the protection of the environment. The 197 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take part in the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24). The COP24 will take place from 3-14 December in Katowice, Poland, and is likely to represent a step further in the global action against climate change. Indeed the states that signed the Paris Agreement of 2015 are supposed to finally define the agreement’s rulebook in Katowice, providing the exact definition of the measures to adopt.
However the action of the UNFCCC is increasingly undermined by an ever growing community of sceptic actors in regards to the real dangers of climate change. The recently elected President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro highlighted his doubts about environmental policies and affirmed his will to pursue the industrial operation of the Amazon rainforest. At least after promising in his campaign he would join the US President Donald Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement, he back-pedaled and agreed to remain in the accord. In any case it shows what an immense challenge it is to provide efficient environmental policies at the state level. It may be the time to adopt a different scale.
On 10th September Governor Jerry Brown of the American state of California signed an executive order to initiate a large-scale process to make the state entirely carbon-neutral by 2045. This will imply the shift to a zero-carbon electricity system and the installation of many forms of renewable energies. As a comparison it would be the same if France, which is the world’s sixth biggest economy with the same GDP as California, decided to turn carbon-neutral. Although Jerry Brown will no longer be Governor after the midterm elections California is deeply dedicated to the protection of environment. The state remains bound by the Paris Agreement and will therefore probably keep this executive order as it stands. It is indeed the opposite to Mr Trump’s vision which is to ignore all warning signs and to promote polluting industries.
Such actions can be first steps towards more efficient ways to deal with global warming and climate change.
This example of California choosing its own way embodies the increasing role of local initiatives. Besides Trump’s government hostile attitude towards environment important measures were implemented in many American cities, such as electrified public transports or energy-efficiency standards on buildings. An even more meaningful example is that of the state of Illinois. The Republican Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois has promised a $750 million investment in job training in renewable-energy industries and has undertaken to substantially increase the state’s solar capacity. Moreover cities around the world are trying to meet the emissions reduction target. It is the case of huge metropolis like Paris or Tokyo, or smaller cities such as Aachen in Germany or Zapopan in Mexico.
All of these initiatives were encouraged by international organisations that have the ambitious goal to connect every human-size actions on the planet. It is based on the interesting approach to promote the local efforts at a global scale. The Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA) was created by the UNFCCC in 2014 to pursue this specific goal. In 2016, 2,021 cities representing 7.3 per cent of the global population had engaged measures against global warming under the aegis of the NAZCA. But it also includes one third of the 2,000 biggest companies and 15 of the 20 biggest banks in the world, showing that even the world champions of pollution can sometimes be involved in eco-friendly measures. The NAZCA acts alongside the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), a UN mandated organisation that is in charge of creating cooperation between cities and towns around local initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Founded in 1990 the ICLEI now represents a network of 1,500 cities in 120 different countries representing twenty-five percent of the global urban population.
However it has to be said that while these organisations give hope in creating connections and exchanges, it remains minor in impact. Many studies proved that any progress in California or through the NAZCA network will only bring marginal improvements as long as states fund polluting industries. But it had the merit to bring about a new form of governance with the interaction of smaller local entities but still at a global scale. The main assumption in the field of international relations that states are the main actors had already been questioned by Barry Buzan in the 1980s. It appears now that for any action related to the protection of the environment, the role of states is less and less important while the impact of municipalities working together is not longer to be proved. Even though it is a mere drop in the ocean, it may be the key to the future.
Since gaining its independence from France in 1960, there have rarely been so many open questions regarding Chad’s role in the world. What is Chad’s place in Africa, CEMAC or the African Union? What risks and opportunities exist for Chadian government in a conflict-ridden Africa? As foreign policy of any country is a reflection of its internal situation; many Chadians have high-arguably temperamental or unrealistic expectations of the economic boost that normalized relations will confer – heir initial optimism has been tempered as they wait for the international community to outline its next moves and endure an economic crisis brought on by years of corruption and poor governance. But the importance of the geostrategic location of Chad has led to attracting the interest of many countries, especially the developed ones.
In regards to geostrategic risks, you may wonder, how will N’Djamena deal with a changing Africa, an unstable Central African Republic (CAR), an unstable Libya and Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin region? Meanwhile, Chad faces daunting political, economic, and social pressures at home, which in turn affect the country’s security and foreign policies. The challenges and opportunities facing the country in the international level on key global issues such as poverty, inclusiveness, environmental sustainability, international cooperation, security and global development demand different solutions – what worked a year ago with foreign policy makers or a minister of foreign affairs might now be not the best approach.
The Situation Today
Chad’s diplomatic and foreign policy has undergone a shift with the rise of Boko Haram and its geopolitical and security implications in the region. Thanks to its military interventionism, Chad has acquired a new regional and international status in the diplomatic arena. However, and as domestic politics is typically an important part of the explanation for states’ foreign policy; power remains concentrated within president Idriss Déby’s ethnic group – even though the regime has been able to co-opt elites from different regional and ethnic backgrounds, but, such domestic policies will absolutely have a negative long-term impact on foreign policies, because it only produces incompetent bureaucrats and gives counter cyclical stabilization policies.
Boko Haram has been underestimated by Chad and pose a serious threat.
Despite the Chadian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s engagement in intensive and complicated regional and international diplomatic activities; however, if we generate—collectively—a clear picture of the outputs, outcomes and impacts of these activities on the international arena, I am afraid that there seems to be a misunderstanding of exactly what we are here for. The absence of a clear body for foreign policy to planning and coordination has been important in the confusion that has arisen in its administration, not only, but the absence of a specialized foreign policy makers, regarding the selection of diplomatic figures, the least important sites, and reliance only on the bureaucratic method of choice. Due to its geostrategic importance, Chad is supposed to be a location of considerable peace road construction for Africa and the entire world.
In addition to the academic and diplomatic qualifications that raised a problem within the Chadian ministry of foreign affairs which I did not expect in a long-standing institution; have proved to me that the decisions taken by U.S. government to include the country on its travel ban list last year; is a clear example of weakness of the outcomes of such intensive foreign activities. It illustrates the superficial relations with executive states which have a chapter in this regard. Moreover, it’s not just the academic and economic landscape that has changed in Chad; the security one has, too. After a decade of relative peace, at least compared with previous generations, the past couple of years have seen cross-border aggression in Africa, tensions between regional and international powers, and an increased Islamic terror threat in the Lake Chad basin.
Building trust
Due to Chad’s geo-strategic importance in the Sahel, I think it is important to talk about strategic ally as long as economic, military and political alliance is required in our modern world. Chad is officially non-aligned country, but has close relations with France, the former colonial power – the country has generally looked to France as its main ally in international affairs, it has enjoyed a close relationship with each other for decades, but relations with neighboring countries like Libya, and Sudan vary periodically.
As trust is so central to maintaining a healthy alliance; the pursuit of an ally doesn’t mean to surrender or showing weakness, however, having alliances is a prominent history – if we look at Chad’s relations with its African neighbors, it has been markedly different. The country has lost a historic opportunity to penetrate into the depths of Africa – In fact, Chad’s current foreign policy predicament is not the result of today’s developments – it is an old disease that rooted in its domestic politics, at least in the last three decades, it has been accompanied by a saving covenant since its birth, which began as a revolutionary ideology with ethnic and religious slogans and practices beyond the norm in the world of international relations without a significant balance of power.
Chad has deep relations with France. It does affect its position in the region.
It is difficult to imagine an effective foreign policy that has a servant effect for national interest without a deep consideration of domestic politics for security, stability and peace. It is obvious that this was a direct reason for Chad to find itself weak in its domestic and regional environment, internal problems won’t be resolved only by external will.
It is easy to believe that Chad is still vulnerable to national and regional threats; there is much to be said about the deep and chronic imbalances of the Chadian foreign policy. But on the other side, there is a high likelihood that Chad’s role within Africa as well as internationally will become even more important than today in the coming years. Given the rapidly changing international context, the country will most likely take on more responsibility in global stability and security under increasingly difficult circumstances in the continent. The next Chadian generation will confront a particularly complex constellation of challenges. It is obvious that the current regional and international context is changing rapidly. New security risks not only blur the lines between national and foreign policies; but they also raise questions about ability of the regional regimes in general to provide their populations with security. Not only, but, the rise of nationalist sentiment in politics
around the developed world is one of the biggest challenges that Chadian foreign policy makers face today and tomorrow, and what opportunities could it offer?
Therefore, Chadian foreign policy seems to have many manifestations in highlighting the multiplicity of relations and keenness on unilateral involvement and sought a role to fill in the continent where the UN could not – which are very ineffective on the ground in achieving national interests and serving geostrategic interests, however, perhaps the deteriorating economic situation of Chad at this time is only a sign of non-reflection of these intimate external relations imagined – it is true that the current economic crisis hitting Chad is a result of an internal deficit. But what is the meaning of foreign relations and engagement in regional conflicts and alliances that doesn’t test the meaning of “friend in need is a friend indeed”? African countries need to be aware that foreign military interventions are not always useful (http://www.young-diplomats.com/futility-foreign-military-interventions-africa-best-self-serving/)
A security bulwark for the region
Despite the important security role that the country continues to play today in Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon; Chad’s relations with the international community are still plagued by a number of pitfalls, although they are somewhat better than ever before. Still, it is easy to believe that the nature of the next phase requires more to adopt an appropriate foreign policy that the country should adopt in order to protect its self and other neighboring countries according to a certain strategic vision, as experts believe that the development of foreign policies on new bases and substantial changes is necessary for the benefit of Chad and its economic conditions.
In the decades to come, the Chadian government will have to solve regional issues hand in hand with the CEMAC.
Chad’s efforts seem to suggest that the country has been positioning itself as a new dynamic regional player in the Sahel and CEMAC region, which maintains friendly ties with opposing powers. This new role has been part of its national security strategy. However, the features of dynamics of the region have shown that N’Djamena is unable to drive a regional agenda, in a diplomatic and political manner. There are always a million reasons to believe that Chad cannot afford to antagonize the region diplomatically and economically with the current foreign policymakers – by saying this; I do not only mean the Chadian foreign affairs minister, as there are many people and groups involving in the process of making and shaping the Chadian foreign policy; including the president, cabinet departments, intelligence agencies, local governments and military institutions.
The United States is doubtlessly the first world super power and what happens inside the U.S is widely observed by the whole world. On the six of November, the U.S voters elected congressmen and women. In the U.S political system, this election is paramount because it can become a threat for the President. Here is what you need to know about these key elections !
The Democrat won the House of representatives. They indeed reached the majority composed of 218 seats. On the other side, the senate is kept between the hands of Republicans.
Judicial cases: the Democrats are effectively giving themselves the opportunity to launch an impeachment procedure against the President. But this explosive option is certainly doomed to failure in a Republican Senate, which has the final say. A two-thirds majority of the Senators would have to vote on the articles to condemn the President. Nevertheless, the democratic majority has now the ability to elaborate committees and to further investigate on a certain number of issues.
The passing of laws : Over the next two years, the passing of laws will be complicated. On many topic, no laws will pass because of this political difference between the House and the Senate.
Foreign policy : the House of Representative doesn’t have big powers concerning foreign policy. However, its influence can be important when it comes to committees. For instance, as Joshua Kurlantzick noted ” They likely will attempt to relaunch legislation that would bolster sanctions on any actors, such as Russian actors, who interfere in U.S. elections in the future “. (https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-will-midterm-elections-affect-us-foreign-policy). Then, it’s likely that Democrats will do their best to be tougher against Saudi Arabia and other Human Rights issues all over the world. In foreign policy many people blames the U.S (http://www.young-diplomats.com/north-korea-how-donald-trumps-diplomacy-is-a-threat-to-peace/), and this slight victory of the Democrats is well seen by critics.
Conclusion : To sum up, Democrats as well as Republicans did win a victory on the 6th of November. Democrats gained the opportunity to block measures and laws in the parliamentary affairs. Comparatively to what they had before, we could see that as a victory. On the other side, Republicans has confirmed that they weren’t off the game and that an important part of the country is behind the President.
Donald Trump said that if the Saudis’ guilt in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their embassy was proven, a very severe sanction would be imposed on his Saudi ally. Is the situation slipping for Crown Prince Mohammed ben Salman? Has he gone too far?
Roland Lombardi: I think Donald Trump’s statement was made only for the form and gallery. Admittedly, if the famous Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was actually kidnapped and executed by the Saudi services (which is highly probable, but the judicial inquiry is still ongoing), it is a serious and above all very gross misconduct on the part of Crown Prince Mohammed ben Salman. Especially since Khashoggi was far from being the most virulent critic of MBS. However, I would remind you that there have already been many precedents.
Nearly a dozen Saudi princes or dignitaries in exile abroad, and especially those opposed to the young Salman, suffered the same fate. And not to mention the many “disappearances” within the kingdom itself…
So did he go too far, did Mohammed ben Salman’s men get out of control or overzealous? Maybe. But beyond the international scandal raised by this sad affair, it must not be forgotten that it is also, for the young prince, a new way of sending a strong and terrifying message to all his internal opponents or those in exile. In my opinion, in this day and age, when one piece of information is always chasing the other at a mad speed, this crime will unfortunately be quickly forgotten. The Saudi authorities will of course continue to deny it and make a round back, waiting for the emotion to fade with time and for the truth to crush on the wall of reason of state….
Indeed, Khashoggi did lost his life. but does it really change something for Saudi Arabia ?
Finally, coming back to Donald Trump, I don’t think he’s carrying out his threat. However, even if appearances are deceiving and the American President, as soon as he arrived in the White House, renewed the alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia, he does not hold the Saudis in his heart. Remember his campaign statements… They were probably sincere. Moreover, there is little talk about it, but he is the first American president to exert unprecedented pressure on the kingdom to finally fight sincerely (because this was never totally the case), jihadism, terrorism and its financing.
For the time being, Trump is using Riyadh in his policy of bringing the Iranian mullahs to their knees and in particular in his “deal of the century” negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Saudis being the only real and last real supporters of the Palestinian Authority and the only ones still having, thanks to the money, some influence over Mahmoud Abbas. By the way, and this is not nothing, let’s not forget that, if I dare say so, Trump always takes the opportunity to make them pay a lot (see the billions of dollars worth of American arms purchases by Riyadh). While taking care to remind King Salman, as he would have done recently with his legendary tact, that the Saudis finally owe their survival only to American protection!
Beyond the United States, Saudi relations are strained with many Western countries, starting with Canada, but also with some European countries. Can this growing enmity, based mainly on criticism of human rights violations, have any consequences for Saudi Arabia?
Roland Lombardi : I don’t think you should dream too much. You know, whether we like it or not, in international relations, and more than ever today, and all the more so in the region, it is the balance of power that prevails. Not to mention, of course, trade. The Saudis do not give a damn, as they did about their first Shemagh (the Bedouin scarf), about tensions with Canada or certain Scandinavian countries which, it is true, courageously protested against the kingdom and its human rights violations and its war in Yemen. Seriously, what does the international community weigh, assuming it exists? The UN? Europe? Not much of anything. Have international (especially verbal) condemnations put an end to the massacres carried out by the Saudi army in Yemen since 2015? Clearly not. Let us take the example of France. When President Macron was questioned about the Khashoggi case, we could very well feel his embarrassment…. Why? Why? For years France has been paralysed by its trade policy with the Gulf countries. I would remind you that French weapons and ammunition are currently being used in Yemen by Saudi forces… It is this same economic diplomacy, so dear to some French officials, that forces us in the region to follow the Riyadh line again, unfortunately. However, it is most often at the opposite of our own strategic and security interests (Syria, Lebanon…), while causing us to lose all credit and respect. On the Paris side, there will certainly be official protests, but it will suffice for the Saudis to frown and threaten not to sign any more contracts, some of which have already been waiting for years to be initialled, for the silence to be spread on the banks of the Seine about the disappearance of Khashoggi… We are too afraid to lose the last commercial crumbs that the American military-industrial complex in the region wants to leave us. It’s sad and pathetic, but that’s the way it is.
Good ties between Russia and Saudi Arabia is a good thing for MBS.
No, the only ones who really have a hold on the kingdom or who would eventually be listened to are mainly the United States and, to a lesser extent, Russia. However, as we know, it is not Moscow’s policy at all to condemn a country for its human rights violations… Rightly or wrongly, these criteria do not fit into the diplomatic considerations of the Kremlin. Especially since relations between Russians and Saudis have warmed up. Indeed, Russia and Saudi Arabia are currently cooperating, more than we think, on many regional issues. For example, the price of oil or the negotiations in Syria, in particular to have some jihadist rebel groups, formerly supported by Riyadh (such as Qatar), lay down their arms…
The Riyadh regime is clearly weakened internationally. However, isn’t it internally that it now seems to be the most exposed?
Roland Lombardi : You are absolutely right. In 2016, I wrote that Saudi Arabia was just a paper tiger[1]. This is still the case. Admittedly, the international situation has improved somewhat (Trump election, rapprochement with Israel to contain the Iranian “threat”, rise in oil prices, particularly following the normalisation of Russian-Saudi relations…). However, the kingdom is still bogged down in Yemen and tensions with Iran and Qatar are still high. As for the internal political situation, it remains extremely tense. The economic reforms of the young Crown Prince are stalled and his societal reforms are met with many opposition, particularly among the clergy, and the observers who believed that this Eastern Perestroika would be smooth and, above all, that it would be accompanied by a relaxation of the regime were very naïve.
MBS is likely to put a lot a pressure within the kingdom a in the years to come.
Certainly, Mohammed ben Salman still wants to reform Saudi society. Perhaps at first, and as was certainly the case, in order to give pledges to the Westerners, the Russians and especially to his American protector. The consequence is that he has made many enemies. All the more so, having as a model Sissi and Emir Zayed of Abu Dhabi, Crown Prince Salman surely dreams for tomorrow’s Arabia of a clever mix of a more or less open society and economic liberalism. However, let us not be fooled, for this MBS must first establish its own dictatorship and thus put an end to the old Saudi political system based on consensus between the royal family, the various tribes of the kingdom and the ulemas. Thus, as I wrote a year ago[2], surrounded by enemies, found among the religious, the princes of the kingdom and even among his own cousins, the future king must “be merciless”. And since then, it has been… Today, Saudi Arabia is a volcano. The young prince’s life would have already been attempted twice… And the purges continue. So expect even more ferocity from the “Reform Prince”. For, for his own survival, he cannot show any weakness. It remains to be seen whether he will survive his old father to gain the throne and, above all, whether he will finally succeed in saving his country from a “war of Arabia” that would be catastrophic for the region.
