The Bewilderness

All to play for!

MEPs have debated and agreed a bank resolution scheme in the name of insolvency that is applicable to all 28 Member States. Starting from 2016 and achieved in a far shorter time than Solvency 2, the insolvency regime wipes out bondholders before savers. Moral hazard continues and is sliced and diced between debtors and depositholders. Such is the shibboleth of consumer protection.

There was also an exploration on the scenario for Brexit. Surprisingly, it showed greater willingness for repatriation of powers than previously considered as the Eurozone fractures and subsidiarity acquires teeth. Cameron's strategy could become more realistic if stagnation grinds on and poilitical volatility amongst the Member States increases. Of concern is the view of some Member States that this is an opportunity to undermine Britain's advantages and block access to the Single Market. The ploy was French in the scenario but one could consider such a play is the goal of a blocking majority. All to play for!

Anglosphere trumps the Eurosphere

It is a hearty perennial that the European Commission despairs of changing. That would be the blocking majority in the United Kingdom that would always vote in favour of withdrawal from the European Union. The latest poll was conducted only a few day ago.

The results remain the same. A majority wishes to leave and they do not identify with their continental neighbours but with the daughter nations. The Anglosphere trumps the Eurosphere!

 

 

A word used out of place

It is hard to see where Michael Adebolajo is going with his testimony. He denies murder (presumably as a soldier is not a victim). He cites qualities of honour and courage, but ran his victim down and then tried to cut his head off (which he justified as a humane act to end Lee Rigby's pain). This man pleads "Not Guilty".

By his own account, he had no hesitation in killing a soldier and used the Islamic religion as a justification for his action. Yet, if it were not for jihad, would Michael Adebolajo have ever thought that evil actions were justified. He dared compare himself with Lee Rigby, a perverse and reverse Stockholm syndrome where moral equivalence with the murdered victim is sought to salve the crime.

Let those who agree with him (and there are many) open up in public. How can they justify his action? 

 

Is Russia's border about to march westwards?

The Ukrainians are on the streets again. They have a taste for revolution. The trigger this time was the rejection of a pact with the European Union and a fragile economy.

Russia put the screws on over the last year and the Ukrainian elites blinked. However, they now face an internal insurrection that replicates the stalemate of East versus West, the Donetsk versus the rest. 

The risk is that Russia will shift from threats to intervention. Whether Putin colours this as a 'police action' or as a merger, Ukraine's existence as an independent state in the 'near abroad' hangs in the balance.  

The Ukrainian bride is playing hard to get and wooing both parties.

Syria talks

The breakthrough in talks with Iran over the (alleged) denuclearisation of the country has further cemented the diplomatic coordination between Russia and the United States. Both Obama and Putin view the defusing of certain geopolitical frictions as a public good: the Democrats are assured of work towards stability in the Syrian civil war.

News of the announcement that diplomatic talks between the Assad regime and the mainstream opposition will commence on the 22nd January is a surprise. Both parties are squeezed by the continual stalemate in the country. Both parties are alarmed at the rise of Islamist militias, peopled by foreign jihadists, that are achieving greater military success on the battlefield. 

After atrocities and devastation, the picture of a post-Assad and more pluralistic regime is coming into play. The secular minorities fear the monad of Islamism and would prefer the devil they know. Yet there is no going back to the repressive Ba'athist dictatorship. The announcement of the dates will lead to more fighting as both sides jostle for position: some jihadist groups may peel off, desirous of a place at the table.

A truism: faced with a greater threat of instability and Al-Qaeda with power, stakeholders in the Middle East have found that their cause is not served by chaos. Even Saudi Arabia and Israel serve as silent observers at this table: waiting to see what sort of accommodation is achieved.

 

 

China's latest tests the US

The dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea has been simmering for over a year now. Occasional stories seep out over various provocations, primarily from the Chinese side (such as the aggressive use of ships and drones to scare the Japanese). That escalation has become more ferocious.

About a week ago, Japan confirmed that Chinese drones overflying the islands would be shot down. In more than a tit-for-tat, the Chinese have designated a new air-defence zone that extends halfway to the Japanese islands and incorporates the disputed islets. Yet this is now a provocation for the United States as well as the Japanese. The zone lies directly across the route between Okinawa and South Korea. The United States could fly round this designated zone; perhaps this will be the US response.

So far, the United States has not responded to the Chinese ratchet. Stay silent on this latest extension and the next may be Taiwan. 

 

 

 

 

Threats to the High Frontier

Strategic argumnents on the high frontier have been smothered by the decade of war that exposed the underbelly of the West. Hunkered down in the Muslim world left the United States distracted whilst China built up its confidence and began to dominate its periphery, through the development of "core interests". These have now expanded to the South China Sea and the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands: an aggressive approach designed to create facts on the ground: a Chinese presence that counteracts the rhetoric of Obama's pivot to the Pacific (described by its security critics in South East Asia as more of a useless pirouette).

China, as yet, is unable to challenge US military dominance in a straight fight. Therefore, they rely on asymmetric skills to leverage their power. The use of hacking, aggression against poorer neighbours and a desire to dominate space. To this end, they have set their sites on establishing a new space race with the United States and developing satellite weapons that could seriously damage America's capability to make war.

More worrying are the cultural differences between China and the West in regards to deterrence. China defines deterrent actions as a form of coercion: designed to compel an opponent to submit through a an escalating strategy of force stopping short of war. The West's traditional vision of deterrence is a chess game: an open strategy designed to avoid compulsion or any form of action: reinforcing the status quo. The potential misunderstanding between a revisionist and a stationary power are clear.

There is no doubt that Chinese dominance of the high frontier would radically alter the international system and undermine the rules based liberal order promoted by the West. Such actions need to be deterred as pre-emption will not be viewed as an order to submit by the United States. 

From NATO to neutrality: Mitteleuropa's path in the 21st century

Germany's actions become more contorted in their reaction to the revelations of spying. It appears that the British embassy has undertaken surveillance of Berlin. No doubt this has been taking place since the beginning of the Cold War with various permutations. As the Telegraph article notes, the Russian embassy is only one street away (and I wonder where the French embassy is).

The German Foreign Ministry has called in British embassy staff in Berlin for an explanation. If they do extend this path of displeasure and create further difficulties with the 'Five Eyes', this will represent a further turn towards neutrality in Mitteleuropa; a turn noted in Atlanticist capitals and a further reminder that NATO remains in form, but that trust in collective action must further diminish. 

Cashing In

Douglas Carswell MP has noted the growing demands of the House of Commons in holding the executive to account. Supine arselickers are no longer sauce of the day on the green benches. Yet the government still remains contemptuous of such demands. 

Cameron's Euroscepticism is a tour de farce in execution: dragged licking and screaming into the ligh as the latest victim of Brussels syndrome. His persobal penchant for compromise with the EU is highlighted by his latest ambassador to the Union: Ivan Rogers who has worked for the Europhiles, Leon Brittan and Ken Clark. That will raise eyebrows in the drier elements of the Tory party.

Such a combination of parliemantary scrutiny and EU scepticism marry in Bill Cash, chairman of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Commitee. The Committee's wish to speak to Ivan Rogers was rebuffed by William Hague, Foreign Secretary, on the grounds that the appointee was a diplomat. With such powers, the Committee is more than a little disgruntled with such executive highhandedness. 

This is just not good enough....and further evidence that Cameron is not to be trusted on Europe.

Zimwatch 2013: Another free and fair election

Robert Mugabe is confident of victory for Zanu-PF in his "free and fair" elections. Let's be fair. All Zimbabwean voters were free to vote for whomever they liked, but it was only fair that if they voted for the MDC, then their vote was not counted by the unbiased Zanu-PF supervisors or unaccountably got lost in the fire out in the bush.

The storyteller is confident in his own victory because everyone feely voted for him. Of course.