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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1328 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 4, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Japan

Nothing political but the New Year hasn't been particularly kind.

Day 1 we had the earthquake at 7.5 off the coast of Ishikawa, a city on the Northeast coastline. This event already has its own Wiki page. First reports were only about 6 dead, but that of course has risen to 123 as of today, the sad story this morning was how a man's wife and daughter were recovered from rubble, only to die basically immediately. Survivors are still being dug out of buildings. (We felt it in Osaka quite a bit, but as far as I know there was no real damage here.)

Day 2 two planes collided in Haneda, the airport closest to Narita in Tokyo. Everyone (edit: in the commercial airliner) was evacuated and survived, though the videos are harrowing. The commercial craft collided with a Coast Guard craft that, from what I understand, was on its way to assist the previously mentioned earthquake.

This has, for the time being, taken a bit of heat off PM Kishida and the slush fund scandal, and probably will for the time being.

So far no conspiracy theories that Kishida purposefully caused the earthquake.

Edit; I changed the link of the video from what turned out to be an NBC clip to something more local.

Day 2 two planes collided in Haneda, the airport closest to Narita in Tokyo. Everyone was evacuated and survived, though the videos are harrowing. The commercial craft collided with a Coast Guard craft that, from what I understand, was on its way to assist the previously mentioned earthquake.

Everyone on the commercial craft survived. Five of the six crew on the Coast Guard craft died.

Thanks for the correction.

What is the general consensus about the war in Ukraine? I had a sense things were going very badly until I read Anders' post here:

https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/world-war-2-could-learn-something

The argument is that the situation was always awful, but if you compare what happened in Ukraine to the Nazi invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, things went far better because of the semi-illegibility of everybody's strategy against Russia:

"For Ukraine it is of course a catastrophe to be invaded by Russia and an even worse catastrophe to capitulate after a long and ruinous defense. Just as it was an unmitigated disaster for Poland to be invaded and occupied by Germany in 1939.

But for the world the only thing that matters is that the aggressor loses more from military action than they gain. This is certainly true for the Ukraine War. The war might have been a disaster for Ukraine, but it is also a disaster for Russia. Even if the Russians eke out a win in the end they will be weaker at the war's end than at its start. Not only does this limit Russia's abilities to invade other countries, it also serves as a signal to other potential aggressors to think twice before they act.

This is undoubtedly a win for the international community."

... Anatoly Karlin tweeted "The war is substantially enabled by couch observers who fantasize about 10:1 ratios and believe the last pigger/orc is about to croak any any day now."

https://twitter.com/powerfultakes/status/1742557887472316916#m what do you think about this? Looks like kill ratio is not far from 1:1

That Substack article’s conclusions are only valid if you assume Ukraine is going to basically get out of this with their country intact, and if you take the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense casualty statistics at face value. The causality statistics that haven’t moved or updated since June 2022. There’s a good chance the Ukrainian army is being bled white and will soon face a 1918 German style collapse that will allow Russia to take all the territory east of Dnieper river, and possibly more. What would happen if that occurs, I don’t know. It’s possible that Russia has also taken very heavy casualties and that the war will have sufficiently deterred them from taking further aggressive action against Poland or the Baltic states, but that’s not guaranteed. If Russia’s casualties are much lower than advertised we are probably in for a rough ride.

Things are still going very badly. What's "a win for the international community"? If the war ends with Russia exhausted and Ukraine [ruined](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin_(Ukrainian_history)), what will be the lesson other countries will draw from it? "Unless a smaller country is in a literal defensive pact with the hegemon, they will treat it as a disposable bear trap. This will deter rational aggressors, but won't deter batshit insane ones." More specifically, if you're a smaller country, it's better to surrender if the aggressor is acting batshit insane: the end result will be the same for you. If you're a large aggressive country, it's better to behave irrationally to convince everyone that you are ready and willing to march into the trap, sacrifice your economy, but win despite the heavy costs.

It's in a bit of a lull in terms of battlefield developments. In the first half of 2024 for Ukraine we are looking into how the aid situation develops with two 50 billion dollar aid packages being held up in both Europe and America respectively, and the effect of the arrival and deployment of F16 aircraft. Right now we are in a holding pattern with not much going on, but situationally Russia is at the advantage both in terms of resources and battlefield capacity for the time being.

Even if the Russians eke out a win in the end they will be weaker at the war's end than at its start.

There are a lot of bald statements in this article that he never really goes on to support; this one is also kind of contradicted by his discussion of Poland... in which Germany loses quite a number of troops (making them weaker, duh) but comes out with valuable territory and a more experienced army/MIC.

I'm not seeing the difference here, long-term -- other than that (unlike Hitler) Putin shows no actual sign of having plans to dominate Europe -- so that's a win for the international community I guess, but not one for which the West can take much credit.

Do you have an account at substack? I'd be interested to see how the author of that article would respond to what you're saying here.

I do, but I prefer to separate it from this one -- feel free to put the point to him, but my prediction is that any response one might receive will be a disappointment in terms of intellectual engagement.

The whole article boils down to cope, and (non-Ukrainian) people who care enough about Ukraine to be engaging in cope are highly unlikely to have thought matters through in any coherent way.

Wars tend to be quite bad from the perspective of the people who are actually taking part in them.

I don't really consider this to be a win for the international community either. What we've really done is expose ourselves to a lot of economic damage in service of having more dead Russians, which is not really something I care about.

Do you consider it worth the lesson to Putin and other belligerent world leaders that war is something you generally shouldn't start, because it leaves you weaker - in terms of your reputation among your own people, in terms of your economy, in terms of your population, relative to the value of the territories you gain - than you would have been had you just stayed home?

(I admit that I'm not just asking a rhetorical question, here. The US spent $7.7x10^10 on teaching a lesson to a handful of misbehaving despots that any grade school teacher will tell the same number of misbehaving kids for $4x10^5)

I guess it depends on how much other people will go "lol, Russians were totally incompetent unlike our glorious empire".

Though maybe there will be some learning from that? But I would not describe as worth having, at most it is better then Russia clearly wining and lesson being "you can invade country in Europe and nothing bad will happen for you".

If the Ukraine war is in fact, The Last War, I will concede the point. But more likely, people will simply reach the conclusion that the Russians are just not very competent. Just as the Iraq War, which left the US weaker for nebulous gain, did not teach the world that war was never acceptable.

*interestingly, I've read that the Chinese, great students of the Soviet collapse, were strongly influenced by the failure of the Soviets in Afghanistan. Which is why they're so peaceful today.

Maybe I'm not understanding you, but this feels like two contradictory ideas. I grant that onlookers may just see Russia as inept, but if the Chinese were influenced by the failure of the Soviets in Afghanistan, wouldn't various aggressive powers also tend to be influenced by the failure of Russia today?

I was being sarcastic about China being peaceful. They are currently plotting to invade Taiwan and have been for many years.

What is the counterfactual we are comparing to, though? The case is easier to make that 2024 Russia lost something compared to 2021 Russia (and even more so compared to 2013 Russia), though by no means clear cut; but the more interesting case is comparing 2024 Russia to a counterfactual 2024 Russia that stood by and did nothing, or even more interestingly the 2030 continuations of either scenario. If states only optimised their own absolute, or even relative to other states, power, we would observe a lot fewer wars in general.

I didn't write the article, so I'm only answering for myself, here. But the counterfactuals are:

  1. A history in which Ukraine's allies, particularly the US but also European countries, did basically nothing to help Ukraine, or even negotiated peace with Russia on favorable terms right as the war was starting.

  2. A history in which Ukraine's allies, particularly the US but also European countries, immediately declared war on Russia as the war was starting in Ukraine.

Under 1, if Russia could have eaten Ukraine with little effort, that would have given their war machine practice, it would have boosted rather than ground down Russian morale, and it would have given them the strategic and material advantages of their new territory without much in the way of costs. It would have basically taught Russia and everybody else that war works, thus encouraging more war in the future.

Under 2, if Russia had been opposed at the outset, Putin would have been virtually forced to retaliate with nuclear weapons, given the speech he made promising consequences like those the world had never seen. And (though this may seem like a trivial by-the-way) it would have given other belligerent powers across the world the green light to declare wars of their own if they had been thinking about it.

These counterfactuals seem worse, and far worse, than the actual history we're living in.

Note that Russia blustered before about consequences so in case (2) use of nuclear weapons is not guaranteed. Though "declare war on Russia" does not look like a good strategy to US and EU in this case.

Note that another option, with much wider and large scale support also was possible (and still is). Delivering long range missiles, starting to train Ukrainian pilots immediately after Ukraine turned out to not collapse. Shot down Russian missiles travelling through NATO airspace or in its direction.

That's not applying the counterfactual at the decision point that I thought we were looking at - surely to assess how bad or good the decision to go to war was for Russia, and by extension what this means for future nations deciding whether or not to go to war somewhere, we should be looking at counterfactuals where Russia decided to not go to war. If the verdict is that Russia was on track to be completely screwed and came out slightly less screwed by attacking Ukraine, then the signal is in favour of invasions, despite reality looking like Russia is getting screwed.

Ethiopia has been saber rattling lately to get sea access. The straight forward decision of invading Erithrea had its own mess. So they decided instead to piss off Somalia which is the forever failed state.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/1/4/ambiguous-ethiopia-port-deal-fuels-uncertainty-over-somaliland-statehood

On Monday, an agreement signed in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Muse Bihi Abdi of the breakaway republic of Somaliland preceded a shocking announcement that has already set the tone for interstate relations in the Horn of Africa this year. The memorandum of understanding was for the leasing of 20km (12 miles) of Somaliland’s sea coast to landlocked Ethiopia. In exchange, Somaliland will receive shares in its neighbour’s flagship carrier, Ethiopian Airlines – and receive formal recognition as a sovereign state. International recognition has been a long-sought goal for Somaliland, a region in northern Somalia that has enjoyed de facto independence since 1991. But the groundbreaking agreement has created shockwaves in the region and fury in Somalia, which views it as a hostile violation of Somalia’s sovereignty.

There is precious little Somalia could do to prevent the deal and statehood of Somaliland (and I guess eventual Anschluss with Ethiopia), so I think that a potentially hot situation just got quite colder.

Given that Somaliland is one of tue few parts of Somalia that has its shit together, I can only welcome this. As far as I know, there's a generally accepted unsaid agreement between postcolonial African states that they don't challenge post-independence borders, which explains why no one has recognized Somaliland and Puntland yet, but Ethiopia isn't a postcolonial nation. Plus, there's the precedent of South Sudan.

Iran

A major terrorist attack occurred at General Qasem Soleimanis tomb on the fourth anniversary of his assassination by the US. Over a hundred people have been killed so far. Iranian investigators have claimed the top suspects are suicide bombers, but it remains completely unclear who exactly is responsible. It would be extraordinarily unlikely for the US to be directly implicated, but coming at a time when direct fighting between American soldiers and Iranian militias in Iraq has been ratcheting up (the US just airstruck the PMF headquarters today and killed a top official), it’s not fantastic to also re-open this wound that brought our countries the closest they’ve come to direct conflict.

Update:

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack

The interesting twist here is that the haste with which Iran propaganda blamed Israel for that forced them then to claim that ISIS is actually working for Israel and the US, which is beyond hilarious.

This isn't some new conspiracy, it's not "beyond hilarious" to anyone familiar. ISIS ties to Israel and the US are quite well known.

Looks like Iran is saying there was an "Israeli-Tajik" involved in this case, which would be unsurprising. https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/iran/2024/01/11/iran-claims-israeli-tajik-was-one-of-two-suicide-bombers-in-kerman-attack/

The Red Sea

Things have been unfortunately escalating in the Red Sea with Houthis opening fire on allied ships and western forces sinking Houthi vessels in response. The Operation Prosperity Guardian has issued a statement of willingness to escalate if the Houthis don’t withdraw, which they likely will not.

The United States and 12 allies issued what amounted to a final warning to Houthi rebels on Wednesday to cease their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea or face potential targeted military action.

The Yemen-based militants have carried out at least 23 attacks in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza since Dec. 19…

The statement was signed by the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Separately, the U.S. called on the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to take action against the Houthis and warned their financier Iran that it has a choice to make about continuing to provide support to the rebels.

With conflicts between American soldiers and Iranian militias in Iraq, everyone is of course worried about being drawn into a regional war. Whatever action is chosen here, that remains a possibility.

“As the President has made clear, the United States does not seek conflict with any nation or actor in the Middle East, nor do we want to see the war between Israel and Hamas widen in the region,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “But neither will we shrink from the task of defending ourselves, our interests, our partners, or the free flow of international commerce.”

The official said any potential action against the Houthis will be done in a “very smart way that does not potentially draw us in deep to a situation” with Iran and its proxy groups.

Korea

A few days ago there was an assassination attempt against the leader of the Korean opposition, the Democratic Party (which included the previous president Moon Jae-In). The current leader and 2022 Presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung, was apparently stabbed in the neck on a trip to Busan, Korea’s second largest city. Fortunately he has survived. There is no information about motives or the background of the assassin yet.

Also, the Korean Supreme Court has ruled yet again to re-open the issue of reparations owed by Japan. I did a little writeup on the history here, but basically Japan paid reparations to the country, which they gave to the dictator Park Chung Hee who supposedly mostly spent in on industrial policy. But the courts later ruled that individuals should have the right to sue, which re-opened a seemingly settled matter of compensation. Only one person is even still alive from the original individual lawsuits that started this.

For now, both the Japanese and Korean governments seem to be ignoring it and hoping it’ll go away. Both Kishida and Yoon have extremely low popularity and patching up relations with each other is one of the only big successes they both have, so I’d imagine they don’t want to jeopardize relations.

Ethiopia & Somalia

Most people here likely know, but Somalia is a divided country. The northern, formerly British administered section is a breakaway state that has been functionally independent since the Somali Democratic Republic collapsed in 91. Nobody recognizes Somaliland, and Somalia proper claims the whole territory, but really only governs the fractious and unstable southern part, formerly administered by the Italians. Somaliland is much more functional and has no interest in reuniting with its anarchic former partner, but any country making direct diplomatic or trade deals with Somaliland is highly controversial, especially in Africa where many other nation states also have secessionist groups or provinces.

So imagine the outrage now that Ethiopia has signed a memorandum of understanding recognizing Somaliland and giving them a stake in an Ethiopia airline if the latter country grants them use of one of the Somali ports and military bases. Obviously this is a little dicey for Ethiopia considering they are always dealing with secessionist groups, including with ethnic Somalis in their eastern Ogaden region. However, the deal fulfills their longstanding goal of regaining their landlocked country a path to the ocean, lost after the secession of Eritrea. Abiy has been talking about the whole path to the ocean thing for a while and his neighbors interpreted it as him signaling willingness to invade them to gain that path, so honestly this is probably the best possible outcome.

However, Somalia is of course furious about it and has categorically rejected the deal (isn’t there somebody you forgot to ask?) Ethiopia has not exactly been building good will with its neighbors lately, recently failing to establish a deal on water use over their GERD dam with Egypt and Sudan, so it’ll be interesting to see what the coming months bring.

Venezuela

Britain has now sent a warship to the Guyanese coast for “routine purposes” and to “conduct training drills,” but realistically to protect them from potential invasion. Venezuela meanwhile has started hosting military drills of over 5000 soldiers, possibly implying that the whole annexing-Guyana thing wasn’t just to get the people going. Brazil has been sweating nervously the whole time, caught nervously between their friendships with both countries.

I maintain that likely no conflict will really erupt. The territory in Guyana right over the Venezuelan border is so rugged and jungle-y that direct invasion is hard, and Brazil isn’t going to let Venezuela move troops through its territory. Still, it’s unfortunate seeing things seemingly escalate.

In other remarkable news País reports that that Maduro himself has been unclear on whether he will run in the upcoming election or pick a different candidate instead. His popularity is sub 20% (why don’t they just fake these numbers?) and overwhelmingly the country wants something different. Oil exports have actually risen significantly, by as much as 12% since sanctions were eased, but the economy is still wrecked and the opposition candidate Machado apparently dominates in polls with a projected 70%+ of the vote. It’s hard to imagine him stepping down voluntarily; we’ll see. Possible alternatives include Maduro’s VP, the head of parliament, and the governors of Carabobo and Miranda states.

Venezuela meanwhile has started hosting military drills of over 5000 soldiers, possibly implying that the whole annexing-Guyana thing wasn’t just to get the people going.

If there’s any lesson to learn from the Ukraine war, it’s that 5000 soldiers in a war between second world countries isn’t enough to secure a football field. This raises my estimates of it being saber rattling significantly.

If it was 500,000 troops I’d be worried, but I don’t think even Maduro is dumb enough to try anything with less than that.

In fairness it’s more than double Guyana’s whole military, but agreed it likely won’t turn into anything real.

Argentina

Milei has withdrawn (really just not finalized Argentina’s entry into) the growing BRICS collective. If you think BRICS is a relevant counterweight to western alliances / institutions (I don’t particularly) then this is a win for the latter. Either way, it solidifies Milei in the western camp.

Supposedly the IMF and Argentina are very close to finalizing their review of their $44 billion loan from 2022. If everything is squared away it’ll “unlock” another $3+ billion sent to Argentina. Tightening things up here with the IMF is basically a necessity if Milei wants to qualify for sufficient financing to undergo dollarization.

Speaking of his agenda, the recent turbo-deregulation decree has now been suspended by the National Chamber of Labor Appeals following a challenge by the General Trade Confederation. Separately, Milei is trying to pass a huge omnibus bill through Congress that would achieve much the same goals, apparently in case the decree is held up indefinitely.

Ireland

Another fire at a building (believed to be) earmarked for asylum accomodation. A vacant pub in Dublin which was also the site of anti-migrant protests last year was set alight during the night, but the government and homeless charities are saying that it was ultimately going to be used for homeless families and not asylum seeker accomodation.

An angry crowd of masked men was out at a building in Finglas, Dublin last night so I guess that's the next probable target.

the government and homeless charities are saying that it was ultimately going to be used for homeless families and not asylum seeker accomodation.

Surely these are substantially overlapping groups? In any case, the people that don't want "asylum seekers" (what an incredibly dishonest euphemism this is) in their neighborhoods probably aren't all that excited about moving bums in either, regardless of whether they're Travellers or from parts unknown.

Surely these are substantially overlapping groups?

I'm not sure actually. The definition of 'homelessness' is fairly expansive in Ireland. These numbers are from the start of last year:Just under 30% of homeless are children, around half are single adults, 61% of them are Irish and only 17% were from outside the European Economic Area. There's nearly 12,000 people in emergency accomodation being counted as homeless while the rough sleeper count in Dublin is at something like 150.

They probably weren't going to be majority non-European single men, maybe they'd be Roma or Irish gypsies, but it seems like normal but poor Irish families is a very plausible scenario too. I'll have to look into whether homeless families in particular is an actual category for who gets allowed into these types of places or whether homeless families are just the most sympathetic group to bring up in the news.

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