Stratfor Vice President of Global Analysis Reva Bhalla and Global Energy Analyst Matt Bey discuss highlights of an upcoming series on the geopolitical impact of oil below $90 a barrel.
The US wants to spread democratic values. It can start by cleaning up its act at home.
From Christian Caryl:
Larry Diamond, one of America’s leading scholars on global democracy, brought it up in a rousing speech at a recent conference here in Washington. He noted, with admirable frankness, that “we can’t be credible and effective in promoting democracy abroad if we don’t reform and improve its functioning at home.” He used to make this point, he said, as one of his last pieces of advice to Americans who aim to offer assistance to would-be democrats abroad. Now, he said, “it needs to be the first.” He quoted the old Greek proverb: “Physician, heal thyself.”
He’s not the only one. Just about everyone you meet in the “democracy bureaucracy” these days says the same. There’s a general awareness that democracy is experiencing dark times around the world, and that the attraction of Western models is waning fueled also by Europe’s continuing financial woes and political inertia….
REad more at The Beacon Dims.
Why bees are disappearing at the rate of 30% a year
Why bees are disappearing at the rate of 30% a year http://t.co/XZ2EIpM8xx
— Colin Twiggs (@Colin_Twiggs) November 1, 2014
Poland Prepares for Russian Invasion | The XX Committee
A top Polish MoD official, a man of “sober and strongly pro-American views” opines about Barack Obama and his national security staff:
“…You have no idea how many promises we’ve been given, even by the President himself, but there’s never any follow-up, it’s all talk. He thinks he’s on Oprah.” When I asked if he thought America would come to Poland’s aid in a crisis, he said laconically, “I’d flip a coin.”
Read more at Poland Prepares for Russian Invasion | The XX Committee.
China Advisory Body Boots Hong Kong Lawmaker James Tien – WSJ – WSJ
From Isabella Steger and Fiona Law in Hong Kong and
Chun Han Wong in Beijing:
A leading Hong Kong politician was stripped of his seat on China’s main advisory body after contradicting Beijing’s views, in another step to quiet dissent during month-long protests in the former British colony.
The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference voted Wednesday to boot Hong Kong lawmaker and businessman James Tien, who last week called on the city’s chief executive to resign over his handling of demonstrations seeking freer elections.
Mr. Tien, the head of Hong Kong’s pro-business Liberal Party, was removed over “improper remarks,” according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency.
A telltale sign of a leader about to crash and burn: when they sack advisers who speak out and question the official party line.
Read more at China Advisory Body Boots Hong Kong Lawmaker James Tien – WSJ – WSJ.
Get Ready for Iraq War IV
Retired army officer John A. Nagl writes:
The United States is now at war in Iraq for the third time in my lifetime, and after being in the middle of the first two I’m planning to sit this one out.
The first Iraq war was necessary and conducted well, as wars go; the second was unnecessary and conducted poorly at first, but ended up in a reasonable place given what a fiasco it had been at the start. This third war was entirely preventable, caused by a premature departure of U.S. troops after the second. Although it’s too soon to say how it will turn out, it is not too early to say that unless we get the endgame right, the United States will fight yet another war in Iraq before too long.
Read more at Get Ready for Iraq War IV.
In Milan, Germany’s leader strikes the right note on Russian sanctions | Washington Post
Opinion from the Washington Post:
To her credit, Ms. Merkel is staking out a firm position, perhaps because she has spent more time than any other Western leader talking to Mr. Putin about Ukraine. On Monday she said, “There’s a long way to a cease-fire, unfortunately,” and added that Russia would have to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity “not just on paper” before sanctions could be lifted. That added weight to comments last week by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who — even as he tried to promote U.S.-Russian cooperation on other issues — said Russia would have to withdraw “heavy equipment” and allow its border with Ukraine “to be properly monitored and secured” to win sanctions relief.
Mr. Putin is unlikely ever to meet those terms. To do so would doom Novorossiya, which can’t survive without military and material support from Russia. As the sanctions bite, he is as liable to escalate his aggression as to offer concessions….
Further escalation is not likely — it’s inevitable. Decisive action now will save much pain later. Read Putin’s Coup, Ben Judah’s piece on how Vladimir Putin has consolidated his hold on power. The parallels with Germany’s NSDAP in the 1930s are chilling — using fear to quell dissent.
Read more at In Milan, Germany’s leader strikes the right note on Russian sanctions | The Washington Post.
The Islamic State: Linking extremism to ill-treatment of women
From David Rothkopf:
Each year, the World Economic Forum produces a Global Gender Gap report. In 2013, it tracked 136 countries on the education, economic empowerment, health, and political empowerment of women. Consider the world’s hot spots for extremism. Some, like Somalia, Libya, and Afghanistan, don’t even make the list. But of those that do, Nigeria ranks 106, Bahrain is 112, Qatar is 115, Kuwait is 116, Jordan is 119, Turkey is 120, Algeria is 124, Egypt is 125, Saudi Arabia is 127, Mali is 128, Morocco is 129, Iran is 130, Syria is 133, Pakistan is 135, and Yemen is dead last at 136……
Not only do countries that treat women badly do badly economically, politically, and socially, but countries in which extremist ideologies have taken root frequently treat women worst of all. In each case they have twisted their religious and cultural inheritances to promote practices that are abhorrent and indefensible, or they simply fail to recognize the rights or the promise of the women and girls among them. This has been taken to extraordinary extremes by groups like the Islamic State. In its slickly produced online English-language magazine, Dabiq, the group defends its enslavement of Yazidi girls and women and the taking of them as concubines by arguing that the practice is a “firmly established aspect of the Sharia.”
I have no doubt that extremism fosters the ill-treatment of women. The more vexing question is: what fosters extremism? Poverty, politics or religion? Fareed Zakaria suggests that the common denominator is religion.
Read more at How Malala Can Help Defeat the Islamic State.
Fareed Zakaria: Let’s be honest, Islam has a problem right now – The Washington Post
Fareed Zakaria writes:
Islam has a problem today. The places that have trouble accommodating themselves to the modern world are disproportionately Muslim.
In 2013, of the top 10 groups that perpetrated terrorist attacks, seven were Muslim. Of the top 10 countries where terrorist attacks took place, seven were Muslim-majority. The Pew Research Center rates countries on the level of restrictions that governments impose on the free exercise of religion. Of the 24 most restrictive countries, 19 are Muslim-majority. Of the 21 countries that have laws against apostasy, all have Muslim majorities.
There is a cancer of extremism within Islam today….
Read more at Fareed Zakaria: Let’s be honest, Islam has a problem right now – The Washington Post.
Masculinity and terror: the missing conversation
Prof. David Plummer argues that social changes have left a power vacuum that is open to exploitation:
Boys are spending more time in the sole company of their peers: on street corners, in shopping malls and in their cars.
Instead of growing up with the role models and standards of older, more experienced men, most of their role modelling comes from peer groups. In the absence of alternatives, these groups resort to raw physical masculinity as the yardstick for what masculinity should look like, how boys should behave and who should dominate.
They also develop their own rituals to admit members, some of which are extreme, anti-social and high-risk. It is a willingness to take risks that is considered the hallmark of a “real man”.
Read more at Masculinity and terror: the missing conversation.