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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   38163 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Thucydidean Thursdays (International Updates) 3

Are there synonyms for international or global that start with “T”? If people think it’s a good idea I’ll make these their own separate thread. I worry about it getting less engagement than in the main thread, but it would be cool to have a dedicated international relations day.

As before, please feel free to add updates from any countries you're interested in.

Ecuador

A cheeky near-dictator moment was evaded with President Guillermo Lasso, having previously disbanded the National Assembly after being accused of embezzlement, allowing himself to rule by decree, announced yesterday that he would not run for re-election. Coincidentally or not, the US has ben talking about investigating some of his assets in Florida. Surprisingly, his party has said they’re not going to run anyone either. Unfortunately, the nation has also been hit with some nasty floods…

Haiti

…As has Haiti, along with earthquakes. This country can’t catch a break. The US continues its ill fated search to get somebody, anybody else, to lead a regional intervention into Haiti, and is demonstrating its commitment by putting Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the search. Jamaica will host a meeting of the Caribbean countries next week to plan out further steps.

Colombia

Colombian President Gustavo Petro is in Havana to hopefully sign a peace agreement with his former rebel group, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional, or the ELN. Tensions have been rocky with them throughout his term, and after being buffeted by a series of corruption scandals in his cabinet, this would be a major victory. Other leftists think the supposed crusade against corruption is partisan, and several former and current (ie Lula) Latin American leaders, plus Jeremy Corbyn and Jean-Luc Mélenchon for some reason, have all signed a letter warning of a “soft coup”.

Argentina

Argentina will now formally join the BRICS New Development Bank (Egypt, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabi will probably join as well).This should open up Argentina for more access to financing, mainly via China, who has come to play a larger role funding in Latin America in general. Related: “Taylor Swift Argentina Tickets Are a Bargain With Inflation Over 100%"

The DRC

After the Rwandan genocide a bunch of Hutus fled to the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where then-strongman Mobutu allowed them to stay and stage attacks on Rwanda. The new leader of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, pursued them to eliminate the threat; the conflict that followed is legendary for its brutality. The Congo Wars have been formerly over since 2003, but the Hutu paramilitaries were never fully defeated, and now-old President Kagame, still in power thirty years later, funds and arms a Tutsi paramilitary called M23 to fight them on Congolese soil. This has been going on forever, but has attracted a flurry of attention lately. Things became especially acute last year when rebels almost sieged the main Eastern City of Goma, and the DRC has formerly accused the M23 and Rwanda of preparing to stage another attack on the city, which has already become flush with over a million refugees from the conflict. Ironically, the United Nations (or at least a relevant spokesperson) has been calling for the UN Peacekeepers to withdraw and for the DRC to step up handling the rebels themselves. The DRC is also doing terribly in general, with recent protests over falling living standards met with mass tear gas a few days ago.

Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Civil War has been formerly over since November. However, Human Rights Watch has accused the government of continuing to ethnically cleanse the Tigray minority, accusations the government of course denies. Some 47,000 refugees are estimated to have fled to Sudan; the number internally displaced is unknown but assuredly much higher. Ethiopia is also now dealing with new border issues, having recently repulsed an attack from the Somali terrorist group Al Shabaab on its border (the east of Ethiopia is ethnically Somali and has been a source of tension between the two countries in the past).

Iraq

Foreign Affairs offers a retrospective on the Iranian proxies and their long walk through Iraq’s institutions. The Shia party nominally took a beating in the 2021 election to the anti-Tehran Moqtada al-Sadr. However, the Iranian aligned judiciary intervened, ruling that rather than the historical simple majority standard, the Sadrists needed a two-thirds majority to form a government, and barring his junior coalition partner, the Kurdistan Democratic Party's nominee from the Presidency (which would mark the completion of a formed coalition). Within a year Sadr and most of his faction stepped down, leaving no bloc to oppose the Iranian aligned Coordination Framework parties. They nominated the pliant Al-Sudani to prime minister, ensuring that Iranian-friendly faces have dominated the cabinet, and stretching Iranian influence throughout “The Iraqi National Intelligence Service, Baghdad airport, anticorruption bodies, and customs posts…Iraq’s media regulator, the Communications and Media Commission”. Critics accuse them of attempting to replicate an IRGC style of political patronage via welfare, state backed jobs, and by contracting out state assets controlled by the shia paramilitaries.

Libya

The disparate factions in Libya have said they’ve finally hammered out an agreement for how to proceed with their 2021 election, which has been indefinitely delayed, and the UN has offered to help.

Myanmar

Myanmar, still riven with ethnic secessionist groups, is starting to catch the ire of its neighbors. Borders between Myanmar and the neighboring Indian state of Manipur have historically been open, but ethnic violence is starting to spill over into Manipur itself. Thailand also cut off electricity to two Chinese backed, Karen militia-managed casinos over the border in Myanmar that they accuse of “being centres where people from other nations are tricked into taking jobs and then put into virtual captivity and forced to work in call centres conducting internet scams”. Last month a humanitarian envoy from ASEAN was attacked by the militias as well, rocketing up Myanmar on ASEAN’s list of regional priorities.

Some 47,000 refugees are estimated to have fled to Sudan;

any updates on Sudan itself?

The 12 day ceasfire from a few weeks ago expired on the third and fighting between the Army, and the RSF resumed seriously in the capital and the two cities nearby, Omdurman and Bahri, and a farther west city called El Obeid. The US and Saudi Arabia are still trying to moderate and the warring parties actually just agreed to another 24 hour truce.

The conflict has displaced more than 1.9 million people, some 400,000 of whom have crossed into neighbouring countries. The urban area around Sudan's capital Khartoum, home to at least five million people, has been turned into a war zone, and unrest has also flared in the conflict-scarred western region of Darfur.

(Darfur is where the RSF is based out of, and where they cut their teeth on the genocide in the mid 2010s)

formerly

*formally

I'm om vacation and too busy to read newspapers, so I can't add anything at present, but I greatly enjoy these windows into regions I normally ignore entirely.

Top-level comment or post, whichever it is, please keep it up!

Thanks, definitely interested in hearing your perspectives when you’re freed up again.

the BRICS New Development Bank (Egypt, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabi will probably join as well).

So after all those betl-and-road-initiative projects failed, the Chinese want to lose more money and influence?

They lose money, but not necessarily influence, as they can leverage the loss of money for concessions in other areas, such as Chinese access into other infrastructure or concessions to allow Chinese-only installations. And losing money isn't exactly an issue, as a non-trivial part of the belt and road initiative was to find a way to use massive cash reserves that couldn't be productively invested internally and were sitting as American dollars.

They lose money, but not necessarily influence, as they can leverage the loss of money for concessions in other areas, such as Chinese access into other infrastructure or concessions to allow Chinese-only installations

This is what I thought the belt-and-road was for. Pretend loans, that are actually payments to buy influence. But no, apparently the Chinese actually ask for their money back, and do so much more insistently than the IMF etc.

I'm particularly familiar with Sri Lanka. That stuff you might have heard of about the place failng organic farming was BS. That nonsense was government copium because they couldn't buy fertilizer, because they ran out of dollars, because the Chinese had lost patience.

The result was that China's friends in power got literally run out of town while protesters jumped into the presidential swimming pool. The new president is nobody's friend, but is now going cap in hand to the IMF.

Argentina will now formally join the BRICS New Development Bank (Egypt, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabi will probably join as well).This should open up Argentina for more access to financing, mainly via China, who has come to play a larger role funding in Latin America in general. Related: “Taylor Swift Argentina Tickets Are a Bargain With Inflation Over 100%"

What will China do when Argentina defaults on its debt again and this time much of it is owed to China?

Own more land and have more power.

There's already a "scientific" space station in the southwest region, where not even Argentineans are allowed inside.

Now apparently China has almost a green light to build their own port (inside the country) in the southest part of the country, near the Beagle Channel for reference.

Sieze ports and railroads and other important infastructure? Isn't that their MO?

I keep having this nagging feeling that I need to understand the politics and economy of Argentina better because they offer a glimpse of a possible future for the US if current trends continue, but I just haven't found the right books or references yet.

Are there synonyms for international or global that start with “T”?

Transnational?

I thought transcontinental, but either works

That brings to mind the Transcontinental Railroad, which crossed the North American continent but didn't leave the US.

Also pretty solid tbh.

Maybe just call it Trans* Thursdays.

There we go. Perfect.

Putting Kamala Harris in charge is how the Biden administration signals its indifference, not its commitment. She's both the border security czar and the abortion rights czar, neither of which are issues that have fared well in the last few years. I think they also made her the AI czar recently, which I'm sure must delight the alignment hawks.

It was meant to be sarcastic but I guess I didn’t lay it on thick enough.

Don't worry, I got you the first time.

Who would the Biden administration put in charge to signal they're fully invested in a positive outcome?

Is there a deep bench of competent capable people they've kept concealed or are busy work on all of their success like the war in The Ukraine, relations with China, or inflation?

Honestly? Victoria Nuland. Sure, she was bad for the stability of Eastern Europe, but she very definitely achieved US foreign policy success.

Is the problem with Hati, alignment with Russia a coup will solve?

Probably anyone except Kamala Harris. If it was some guy you'd never heard of who had an impressive foreign policy resume then no one would think twice about it. That being said, retired political figures are usually a good bet for these kind of projects, like when James Baker unsuccessfully tried to resolve the mess in Western Sahara. Obama was beloved in the Caribbean and elsewhere so he'd be an obvious first choice, but he's a bit too high-profile. Someone like Samantha Power if she weren't already head of USAID. Or hell, throw Hillary Clinton at it.

Tot-erritori-al Thursdays

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