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Iran nuclear talks: at the Rubicon

Most eyes seem to be focussed on Brussels and the clock counting down to the impending deadline on June 30th to avoid a Greek default and possible exit from the Euro.

But there is another clock – this one in Vienna – that should be holding our attention too.

The Iran nuclear talks also have until the last day of June – this coming Tuesday – to reach a final deal on the how the framework agreement reached in early April will be implemented and verified.

The talks have made more progress than sceptics expected when they began in earnest after the election of President Rouhani two years ago. The framework deal envisages Iran restraining its ability to develop nuclear weapons for ten to fifteen years in exchange for the suspension of economic sanctions imposed both unilaterally by the US and its western allies and the United Nations over the past decade that have hit the Iranian economy badly.

Back in April, the two sides – Iran and the P5+1 i.e. the US, China, Russia, France and Britain plus Germany – agreed that by June 30th they would agree the technical details of how Tehran would cap its programme, how that would be verified and how the sanctions would be lifted, including how they would be re-imposed in the event of a breach by Tehran.

The American Secretary of State, John Kerry, and his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, who have been the key drivers of the talks arrive in Vienna tomorrow to add their weight to the final push to overcome the remaining hurdles

According to media reports these include a demand Tehran open up its non-nuclear military sites, including its missile production facilities, to inspection, and an American idea – unlikely to get Moscow’s approval – for the mechanism for re-introducing sanctions to by-pass the UN Security Council where of course Russia and China have a veto.

Both the US and Iran seem to genuinely want to do a deal, but not at any price.

There have been hints the talks, like those for the framework deal, could continue a few days past their deadline, but the possibility of failure is real and the cost of that in a region already beset by open conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen – all of which are partly driven by a proxy war between Shia Iran and its Sunni Arab rival Saudi Arabia – and the simmering tension between Israel and the Palestinians could be exorbitant.

President Obama has taken a high stakes gamble to try to reach a diplomatic solution to the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear programme. But in so doing he has stoked up already heightened/exaggerated (delete as appropriate) fears in the US over the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme – despite US intelligence concluding an attempt to develop nuclear weapons ended over a decade ago.

So if the talks fail, the political pressure on the Obama Administration from both Republicans and Democrats – watch presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton – to take alternative “tough” action will mount.

And if it is the demands of the western countries at the table that are seen to be the main cause of breakdown, Russia and China may break ranks preventing further constructive action by the UN.

This would increase the pressure on the White House still further by narrowing its options, especially its ability to emphasise the need for building consensus for a unified international response before taking unilateral action.

Then there is Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, recently re-elected and heading a new right-wing coalition, is a possible wildcard. He has made no secret of his intention to take pre-emptive action to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons which would challenge Tel Aviv’s own arsenal.

Military strategists debate whether Israel has the capability to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities effectively without support from the US. But Tehran would undoubtedly respond, either directly or via its allies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, so even an abortive Israeli attack would have unpredictable consequences in a region already wracked by war.

Talk of a widespread conflagration in the Middle East has such a long pedigree the danger now is a complacent attitude that things there will not get much worse.

But with the US moving towards a policy of confronting growing Chinese assertiveness in the South and East China Seas, if the Iran talks fail there will be voices inside the White House arguing it would be dangerous to risk escalation with Tehran as well, so it would be best to restrain Israel and stick to sanctions.

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The Pope and climate change – a pivotal intervention?

Pope Francis may not be infallible in many people’s eyes, but he is indefatigable when it comes to provoking debate on global issues that matter.

This week it has been climate change.

The Vatican has published the papal encyclical “Laudato Si” on the impact of human activity on the environment and especially the threat of climate change.

By doing so the Pope has got the world’s media talking about the single biggest challenge facing the human race – one that puts the crises in the Middle East or Ukraine in their proper context as serious geopolitical issues but not existential threats.

The letter sends a powerful message to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics – as well as Francis’s 6.3 million followers on Twitter, not all of who will be of the same faith.

That message is simple: the world faces catastrophic climate change and we need to take urgent action to prevent further global warming.

The letter is perfectly timed to raise awareness of the issue and increase pressure on political leaders as governments prepare for two landmark global conferences later in the year.

In December, the next UN climate change summit takes place in Paris and the pressure is on to agree legally-binding limits to carbon emissions to prevent average global temperatures rising more by than 2 degrees Celsius – the level above which scientists agree climate change will have a disastrous effect.

Before that in September, world leaders will gather at the UN in New York to agree on new Sustainable Development Goals, which are intended to ensure the eradication of poverty through equitable economic development, but in a way that does not damage the environment.

Climate scientists and environmental activists have been sinking into despair at their seeming inability to get across to the world’s politicians and public the scale of the threat from climate change and the need to take urgent action to reduce carbon emissions.

The message from the Pope should help raise their morale. Although, it calls for urgent action, it is clear from the encyclical the Pope believes there is still time to avert the worst effects of global warming and also – critically – that the solution lies in humanity’s hands.

So the Pope’s intervention in the climate change debate has come at a critical moment and will increase pressure on climate negotiators and their political masters to make the necessary compromises and commitments at the coming global summits to ensure action is taken to prevent catastrophic global warming.

It is no accident this Pope has gone further than his predecessors in raising the alarm about the impact of economic development on the environment. On his election by his fellow cardinals in 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, chose the name Francis to acknowledge the importance to him of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology, who taught about the importance of the natural world and the need to respect it like a sister or mother.

In line with the social teachings of his namesake, Pope Francis is also alive to the need to ensure that when taking action to ensure the wellbeing of the environment, the impact does not fall disproportionately on the poor and he seems to be on the side of the developing countries which are pushing the richer, developed nations to make proportionately deeper cuts in carbon emissions and provide greater financial support to help poorer countries leapfrog to clean technologies as they develop.

The papal encyclical also notably bases its argument in the latest science on climate change demonstrating how religion and science can work hand in hand and need not be anathema to one another, as some atheists, like Richard Dawkins, argue.

It is doubtful the Pope’s intervention in the debate will prove decisive on its own, but it adds a powerful voice in favour of concerted action on climate change and should influence not only public opinion and governments, but also that other pivotal constituency – the people running carbon-emitting businesses.

 

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Ukraine – the crisis that hasn’t gone away

In case you had forgotten about it, the Ukraine conflict and the rift between Russia and the West are set to return to the headlines in the coming weeks.

A recent upsurge in fighting between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government forces with their associated nationalist militia along with the looming deadline for renewal of EU sanctions on Russia guarantee the conflict will be taking column inches from the on-going battles in different parts of the Middle East and the tensions in the South China Sea.

Overall, the conflict has been in stalemate for the past few months.

But February’s Minsk 2 agreement between Kiev, Moscow, Berlin and Paris which called for a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, prisoner releases and constitutional reform in Ukraine is now under increasing strain after rebels tried to push into territory west of their Donetsk stronghold.

The insurgents continue to receive support from Russia – both supplies and manpower. The status of the fighters may be disputed, with Moscow calling them volunteers and Kiev claiming Russian regulars are also involved, but there is no doubt Russia shows no sign of withdrawing its backing.

For its part, Kiev continues to get western backing – with American and British forces training Ukrainian troops and the EU and US maintaining their sanctions on Russia.

The sanctions have increased the pressure on the Russian economy, which has been hard hit by the fall in oil prices, but they have not had any appreciable impact on Moscow’s approach to the conflict.

Russia has returned the favour with bans on food imports from the EU and increased air and naval probing along some NATO states’ borders.

At this week’s G7 summit in Germany, there was agreement to maintain sanctions on Russia until Moscow ends its backing for the rebels, which makes it almost inevitable the EU will renew its sanctions before they expire at the end of next month despite some members showing interest in getting back to business as usual with Russia.

In Washington, there is growing pressure for the US to tighten its sanctions and start supplying weapons to Kiev – something the Europeans have opposed in the past as they believe the only difference it would make would be a worsening of the fighting.

In the event that the US does take this course, expect to hear more accusations from American officials that Moscow has returned to its old expansionist ways and breached the post 1945 consensus that European borders should not be changed by force.

But, as I wrote in March last year, the fact that NATO military action Serbia in 1999 led nine years later to major western powers engineering and recognising the secession of Kosovo had already effectively breached the 1975 Helsinki Accords.

As for Moscow, its loud condemnation of the western support for Kosovo secession looks less principled following its stance on Ukraine and support for Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

So once you strip away the hypocritical political and moralistic rhetoric, you are left with an old-fashioned power play where the West – without really knowing President Putin’s true objective – seeks to deny Russia a strategic victory in Ukraine and – in the absence of the rebels being able to carve out an economically or strategically viable territory – Moscow seems happy to keep its neighbour destabilised to prevent it restoring its economy to a semblance of health or eventually joining the EU and NATO.

All in all it is a nasty deadlock that is set to continue for the foreseeable future with the people of south-eastern Ukraine continuing to pay the price.

 

 

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On global leadership – or the lack thereof

The world’s major powers are failing when it comes to providing global leadership.

That was the refrain running through this week’s annual Chatham House London Conference where the US, China, Russia and the UK came in for varying degrees of criticism from panellists and participants.

To the apparent surprise and irritation of some Americans present, there were constant references to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and how damaging it had been, not just to the Iraqi victims, but also to the global order and the legitimacy of the US as a global leader.

I was not sure why this should have come as a surprise at a conference dedicated to discussing the crisis in global order and challenges to a rules-based international system, but there you are.

Many Americans may want to draw a line under it and move on, but despite the twelve years that have passed since the invasion, the consequences are still unfolding. Other countries committing acts of aggression use it to justify their own actions and in the region itself the political and military challenge of ISIS amply demonstrates how it remains at the root of contemporary events.

There was also criticism of the Obama Administration for overcompensating for Iraq and failing to provide leadership when it is needed– leading some to complain Washington can’t win and to cite the “damned if you, damned if you don’t” syndrome.

Russia also came in for castigation with Moscow characterised as having gone rogue in the international system. American and European participants made constant passing references to “Russian aggression” and there was no doubt whose side they are on in the Ukraine conflict.

The criticism of Britain was of a gentler sort with many wondering whether London is disengaging from the world as it debates its future in – or out of – the European Union and cuts its defence budget to such an extent the US government, in the words of the British Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, has started openly lobbying London to boost its military spending.

Then there is China. The Chinese panellists were pushed on several occasions by Japanese and other participants to justify Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea where tensions have risen in recent weeks following the US decision to challenge China’s territorial claims by sailing and flying close to the artificial islands China has been constructing in disputed waters.

What stood out was the way the Chinese responded.

Ambassador Wu Jianmin robustly defended his country’s conduct in the South China Sea by pointing out freedom of navigation is essential for China as well as other countries given how much if its trade passes through it. He said the installations being created would also serve a humanitarian purpose for disaster relief operations and pointed out that other countries had started building artificial islands before China without attracting any criticism, so, he asked, why is Beijing being singled out.

But Ambassador Wu was also on a mission to explain what his government calls its “win-win” approach to international relations. He pointed to the newly established and China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, AIIB, which the US unsuccessfully tried to persuade its allies not to join, as an example of this approach. He emphasised how Chinese investment abroad benefits both China and countries where it is investing. And indeed a World Bank official, Dr Vera Songwe, endorsed this argument by pointing to Africa where Chinese infrastructure investment has helped the continent grow and become more integrated into the global economy.

Responding to complaints that China’s extraordinary economic growth and its re-emergence as a great power had taken advantage of the rules-based international system put in place by the US in the wake of the Second World War – the term “free-rider” was used – Professor Wu Xinbo argued that China is now providing international public goods, such as the AIIB.

He was sitting next to Professor Joe Nye who was arguing the US will remain the predominant power in the world for the foreseeable future and will not be overtaken by China, and at one point it seemed the two were almost competing to show which country does the most for the international community.

A far cry from Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy maxim of “keep a low profile and try to accomplish something”.

We have also come a long way from a decade ago when the then US Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, called on China – in somewhat patronising language – to be a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system.

The consensus among conference participants seemed to be that despite current turbulence in the South China Sea, Beijing does not want to undermine the established global order, but it does want to be accorded its due weight in that order.

This means the US and the Europeans will have to accede to such things as greater Chinese clout in international bodies such as the IMF. If they don’t, the former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd pointed out, China’s creation of the AIIB shows Beijing will go round the system if it thinks it is being blocked.

So paradoxically, if the rules-based system with the UN and the growing canon of international conventions and law at its heart is to be maintained and strengthened, the leadership required of the US at this point is to truly accept it is no longer the paramount leader.

The key to a stable world is for the West to make good on its rhetoric and make room at the top table for China – and other emerging powers such as India and Brazil – or we could well be in for a bleak beggar-thy-neighbour future.

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Britain’s self-defeating approach to EU talks

Fresh from his election victory, Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, has embarked on his tour of EU capitals trying to persuade his counterparts to agree to his ideas for reforming the Union and Britain’s place in it, so he can campaign for a vote to remain a member in the referendum to be held in the next two years.

At the same time, his Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, an overt Eurosceptic, has been telling the UK media that if London does not get what it wants it will vote to leave the EU.

Mr Hammond’s comments reminded me of the scene in Mel Brooks’ western parody “Blazing Saddles” where the sheriff holds himself hostage and threatens to shoot himself to avoid being lynched by the townsfolk. In the movie the trick worked, but Britain’s EU partners won’t be so easily fooled.

The comments also expose the weakness at the heart of the British government’s approach to these negotiations.

In order to get the changes Mr Cameron says he wants involves getting agreement to change some fundamental EU tenets, such as introducing some restriction on freedom of movement, as well as agreement from Britain’s partners to give preferential treatment to key UK interests, such as London’s financial markets.

But by opening the talks by threatening to walk away if you don’t get what you want, the danger is your negotiating partners have no incentive to offer concessions because you are offering none of your own.

You also risk provoking an equally stubborn reaction in return – I can imagine the French for one turning to one another, giving a Gallic shrug and saying if the Brits want to leave, they know where the exit is.

The British government has put itself in a bind with its twin track policy of negotiating changes and holding a referendum because politically the two processes are not hermetically sealed and do not neatly follow one after the other.

Ideally, you would want to negotiate the changes and then present them to the electorate and ask for endorsement, but things do not work like that.

The campaign for the referendum has effectively already started because the Eurosceptics inside and outside the Conservative Party and their cheerleaders in much of the press are watching every move in the negotiations and will portray any concessions Mr Cameron makes as proof of a bad deal which should be rejected on referendum day.

Knowing this and wanting to avoid having to look over its shoulder while it negotiates, the Government has clearly decided it needs to communicate the message to its British audience that it is fighting hard for their interests from the off – hence Mr Hammond coming out of the blocks this week with fighting talk.

But it is not just a British audience that hears this message and the danger is the hard-line bleeds into the negotiations.

While Mr Cameron’s fellow leaders understand political debate in the UK is often more raucous, they may still react to British rhetoric negatively and the response this week of Mr Hammond’s French counterpart, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, is a case in point. He said the referendum is a big risk and, indicating Paris is in no mood for major changes, he said Britain had joined a football club and cannot decide in the middle of the match they want to play rugby.

Even the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, Europe’s most powerful leader and one London sees as a key ally, has said freedom of movement is a “red line”.

Ms Merkel also said she would work with Britain on reform, but it is clear David Cameron will not get a deal without some compromises and it is unwise to use maximalist rhetoric which builds up an expectation back home he will get all the reforms on his wish list.

So if Mr Cameron means what he says and wants Britain to stay in a reformed EU, he needs to find a way of toning down the rhetoric for domestic consumption far enough that he can have constructive talks with the other heads of government, but not so far that the vocal Eurosceptic lobby can portray him as going soft and backtracking.

It is a very difficult balancing act and his track record in EU diplomacy over the past five years does not convince that he has the wherewithal to pull it off.

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Does US intervention have a hope of turning the tide against IS?

A week is not only a long time in politics.

Seven days ago the US officer in charge of the military campaign against Islamic State, Brigadier General Weidley, insisted the group had been forced onto the defensive in Syria and Iraq.

Now his words are ringing hollow with IS taking the strategic city of Ramadi less than 100 miles from Baghdad and capturing the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra from government troops – it is estimated Islamic State now controls half of Syria.

The optimism that followed the defeat of IS forces at the Syrian border town of Kobane at the end of January and the Iraqi city of Tikrit two months ago seems to have dissipated with both the Iraqi and Syrian armies unable to withstand new ISIS offensives.

So what now?

Both those IS defeats were eventually achieved by a combination of ground forces and intense air strikes – at Kobane Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish fighters on the ground were supported by more than 700 air strikes while at Tikrit Iraqi forces and Shia militias only turned the tide when the US – and Iran – joined in from the air.

From the beginning of the US-led intervention last summer many analysts have been arguing that to defeat IS, air strikes alone are not enough and ground forces are essential if the organisation’s territorial gains are to be rolled back.

The size of the challenge this presents is made stark by the fact that contrary to what President Obama boasted to Congress in his State of the Union speech in January, since the campaign against IS began last August, the Islamist fighters have expanded the territory they control, especially in eastern Syria.

IS has also succeeded in gained allies beyond Syria and Iraq. Islamists in Egypt and Libya who have affiliated themselves to Islamic State have carried out large-scale attacks. The group is also reported to have established links with the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. And in Nigeria, the Islamist militants of Boko Haram have also pledged allegiance to the State but there is little evidence this has moved beyond rhetoric.

Following the taking of Kobane, the US-led coalition, which includes the air forces of several western and Arab states, as well as the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, said it was turning its sights on Mosul.

It was the fall of Mosul almost a year ago that galvanised Washington to intervene again in the region following the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq at the end of 2011.

If the city could be recaptured, it would represent a much bigger blow to IS than Tikrit or Kobane. But Mosul is a much tougher proposition and since the fall of Kobane talk of an assault on Mosel has faded.

IS has consolidated its control of the city – Iraq’s second largest – and the remaining population is largely Sunni Arab, many of whom may prefer the rule, however harsh, of IS to the return of rule by the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad.

It is also doubtful the Iraqi army, which collapsed in the face of the IS offensive last summer, is yet in a fit state to launch a large-scale ground offensive against Mosul – as the apparently chaotic retreat from Ramadi shows all too clearly.

The Americans and other western countries have been training and rearming Iraqi forces, but the corruption that is blamed for their cave-in to IS will take time to root out, if indeed it can be.

The lack of an ally with powerful enough ground forces is even more acute in Syria. Since the uprising against President Assad began four years ago, IS and the al Qaeda-associated al Nusra Front, have come to dominate the rebel forces.

American efforts to train rebel bands fighting with the Free Syrian Army, which the US regard as moderate, have been beset with difficulties.

Many rebel commanders have been deemed unreliable by the CIA and have reportedly had their training terminated. Some rebels have returned to Syria only to defect to the Islamist forces which are better financed and armed.

The most powerful potential ally in Syria is of course the government of President Assad and some prominent voices, including Ryan Crocker, former US Ambassador to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have long called on Washington to re-engage with Damascus.

In Iraq, the US is tacitly allied with its long time enemy Iran, which has also sent arms, trainers and special forces and launched air strikes to support the fight against IS. But working openly with the Syrian armed forces would be much more fraught with political difficulty.

The US, its western and Arab allies, have long been saying Mr Assad must stand down, so they would have to eat a lot of very public humble pie if they were to work openly with him now.

The Syrian armed forces have also been accused by western states and human rights organisations of committing war crimes, including the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and the continued use of chemical weapons.

There has been speculation that there is a tacit alliance in Syria between President Assad’s forces and the anti-IS coalition.

But just to show how complex the situation is, there have also been allegations, especially in Sunni Arab capitals, that Mr Assad has concentrated his forces against so- called moderate rebels, rather than his Islamist opponents, in order to allow the latter to appear more of threat so he can present himself to the world as a bulwark against extremism.

Mr Obama’s critics say the reliance on air strikes and refusal to send American combat troops into action shows the president is half-hearted.

The air campaign, known as Operation Inherent Resolve, has now lasted longer than the operation to topple the Taliban in Kabul following the September 11th attacks and the air strikes against Serbia in 1999 that forced its withdrawal from Kosovo.

But there is another example from the Balkan wars of the 1990s supporters of the current campaign could point to as evidence that a strategy of air strikes plus training and arming allies to fight a ground war can work – even if it takes time.

That is the successful Croatian army campaign in 1995 which destroyed the Croatian Serb statelet of Krajina, drove on into Bosnia and, in combination with NATO air strikes, brought the Serbs to the negotiating table at Dayton and ended the Bosnian war.

In the year before the Croatian offensive, its armed forces were re-organised and trained by former American military personnel working for a private security subcontractor. It is thought a proxy was used to get round a UN arms embargo on the former Yugoslav states that was still in effect. When that embargo was lifted in late 1994, US support for Zagreb became more open and arms supplies flowed in.

In Iraq and Syria, the search for such allies has yielded mixed results so far. At Kobane, Syrian and Iraqi Kurds showed they could succeed on Kurdish territory, but to roll IS back, the most eligible ground ally, the Iraqi army, will need to be reformed and reorganised, a task which could well take many more months, if not years.

And even military success will not guarantee a return to stability in either Iraq or Syria – that will require a long-term political solution and progress on that remains as elusive as ever.

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US set to escalate tensions with Beijing in the South China Sea

If reports this week are anything to go by, the US is sending strong signals it is about to take a more aggressive approach to China in the South China Sea – and if it does send its warships and aircraft to challenge China’s maritime claims, it can only mean at best a deterioration in relations and at worst a dangerous escalation of tension with Beijing.

It is probably no coincidence these media reports came just before US Secretary of State, John Kerry, arrives in China for talks with his team promising a tough line over Beijing’s actions in the Sea, though Kerry can also expect intense questioning over his country’s intentions there.

In the past few years, China has upped the assertion of its extensive maritime claims in the South China Sea – defined by the “nine-dash line” first established by Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalist state in 1947.

Beijing has historical claims to some of the islands and with the growth of the Chinese economy it needs to guarantee the security of its energy imports from the Middle East through the Sea and also has the means to do so as it can afford to build up its navy, coast guard and air force.

This has led to confrontation with the Philippines and Vietnam, which lay claim to some of the same islands and coral reefs.

Since President Obama initiated his pivot – or rebalancing – to Asia in 2011, the focus has seemed to be on ensuring strengthened US economic integration in the world’s most dynamic region with Washington concentrating on expanding and sealing the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal.

So far the pivot has had a relatively modest military component with plans to establish a base for marines in Australia and the recent agreement to deepen defence cooperation with Japan.

But we have also seen opportunistic diplomatic and military support for Manila and Hanoi who – in what is something of a diplomatic setback to China – have looked to Washington for help in their disputes with Beijing.

These American moves, added to the exclusion of China from the proposed TPP, have led many in China to suspect the US of trying to contain Beijing – much as the US had confronted the Soviet Union with its containment policy during the Cold War.

So if the US does now adopt a more aggressive policy by using its own ships and aircraft to directly challenge Beijing’s claims by sailing or flying right up to the twelve mile nautical limit around Chinese controlled islands, this will confirm those suspicions and strengthen the hand of those Chinese policy-makers who advocate a tougher approach to Washington.

The reports that the US is “considering” using its own military to challenge China’s claims follows a plethora of reports in the media that Beijing is building artificial islands on coral reefs to support airfields and docks in the Spratly Islands near the Philippines.

Importantly, under international maritime law territorial claims can be based on the area around islands but not coral reefs, which are submerged much of the time.

The apparent leaking by the Pentagon of its strategic thinking may in itself be intended to deter China, but if it is, then judging by Beijing’s reaction so far it has been counterproductive.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday: “China will stay firm in safeguarding territorial sovereignty. We urge parties concerned to be discreet in words and actions, (and) avoid taking any risky and provocative actions…”

So how will China respond if US does more than say it is considering taking action?

If Beijing’s approach to its dispute with Tokyo over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is a guide, you can expect to see Chinese ships and aircraft intercepting their American counterparts which will increase the chances of an accidental clash – it has happened before when a US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter off Hainan in 2001 killing the Chinese pilot and forcing the American plane to land in China where it was dismantled for its secrets before being returned in boxes.

But this is 14 years later and Beijing’s new leadership under President Xi Jinping is much more prepared to assert what they see as China’s key interests – added to which China’s military capabilities are much greater than they were then.

So the Americans would be playing a dangerous game. It is also a puzzling one given the recent US push to improve military to military communication and understanding with Beijing.

With the crises in the Middle East and Ukraine pulling the US back into the regions it was hoping to disengage from, the Obama Administration has struggled to maintain its focus on Asia and how to engage with China. But it now seems the hawks may be winning the argument in Washington, in which case the legacy of Obama’s Asia Pivot may end up being escalating confrontation with Beijing.

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Will Cameron mk2 mean a diminished Britain?

Foreign policy received little mention during Britain’s long election campaign, but the surprise victory of David Cameron’s Conservative Party portends lasting significance for the country’s role in the world.

Why this is so lies in the future of two unions – the European Union and the United Kingdom itself.

Cameron’s return to No. 10 Downing Street has increased the odds that the UK could leave the EU, and the landslide victory of the Scottish National Party in Scotland, SNP, means the chances the UK itself could break up have also risen. A country that leaves one of the world’s major economic blocs and cannot hold itself together is not one that will continue to carry the same weight in the world.

The Conservatives went into the election promising to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU and then hold a referendum on continuing membership by the end of 2017.

Cameron has said that if he gets the changes he wants to the EU, especially tightening freedom of movement and the ability of people from other countries to claim welfare benefits in Britain, he will campaign for a vote to stay in.

There are powerful forces ranged against Britain’s threatened exit from the EU, what the media call “Brexit.” Big business is dead-set against leaving the world’s largest marketplace and has already started to lobby. In parliament, the two next largest parties, Labour and the SNP, need no convincing. Both are strongly pro-EU and despite the anti-EU, United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP, gaining almost 13 percent of the vote nationally, it only returned one MP to the House of Commons; its public face, Nigel Farage, lost re-election.

So on the face of it, Cameron would have plenty of support if he campaigns to stay in and if his renegotiation is successful and the referendum won, it may well settle the long-running debate in Britain on Europe, and anchor the country in the EU for the foreseeable future.

But, despite opinion polls suggesting more support for staying than leaving, there is no guarantee Britain will vote to stay.

Prime Minister Cameron may well convince Britain’s partners to agree to changes restricting the right of EU citizens to claim welfare benefits in other member states. But on his demand to restrict the right of people from other countries to stay in the UK if they do not have a job, he has little support in other countries, particularly Germany and Poland, which embrace the free movement of people as a keystone of the EU. If the British prime minister must compromise on this, he may find it difficult to argue he has negotiated enough changes to justify campaigning for a vote to stay in.

The other complicating factor is – ironically – the fact the Conservative leader confounded the pollsters, media commentators, and maybe even himself, by winning a narrow overall majority.

This means backbench Conservative MPs will have more influence on the government than during the past five years of coalition. Up to a third of them are strongly Eurosceptic and will keep the pressure on Cameron to drive a hard bargain in negotiations, making the necessary compromises more difficult. They will also make a lot of noise if they think the prime minister has only managed to secure agreement for partial changes.

Indeed, within hours of the election, one of the most influential Eurosceptics, the former cabinet minister John Redwood said “the British people will leave the EU unless there is a sensible offer on the table” and sensible for him includes “the need to regain control of our borders.”

Cameron is also facing a phalanx of right-wing newspapers, implacably hostile to the EU, cheering on the skeptics. And if their track record is anything to go, by these papers will campaign vociferously with scant regard for the facts.

Traditionally, the pro-EU forces have a much lower profile than their opponents and have based their arguments on pragmatic economic arguments, but the stagnation of the eurozone since the economic crisis now makes such a positive case support more difficult.

If the British do vote to leave the EU, it would threaten the future of that other Union – the UK – almost certainly triggering another referendum on Scottish independence with a likely majority willing to quit the United Kingdom this time.

Polls on the EU consistently show more support for membership in Scotland than in England meaning the EU referendum could see a majority of Scots voting to stay in while a majority in the UK votes to leave. And although SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, says its landslide win in last week’s election, where it won 50 percent of the vote and 95 percent of the seats in Scotland, is not a mandate to hold another vote on independence, she has vowed to seek another independence referendum so Scotland could remain in the EU in the event of a UK vote to leave the union.

And it’s not just the EU referendum that makes eventual Scottish independence more likely – the way Cameron fought the election also exacerbated the divide between England and Scotland because he used the specter of the Scots calling the shots with a minority Labour government to scare English voters into supporting his party at the election. The tactic may have worked well with English voters, but it was divisive and probably helped boost support for the SNP.

A UK out of the EU, shorn of Scotland, would consolidate the perception in the world’s major capitals that Cameron is taking the country down an isolationist path.

The economic crisis and the austerity of Cameron’s first term have already diminished London’s appetite for international engagement, most notably in 2013 when MPs voted against military intervention in Syria. And the Conservatives are committed to further cuts, some of which will probably fall on the diplomatic service and the armed forces. US officials have already expressed concern Britain will not honor its NATO pledge to spend 2 percent of GDP on defence.

The notable exception to this retrenchment has been foreign aid, which has been protected from cuts with Cameron honoring the commitment to spend 0.7 percent of GDP. This means Britain could end up playing a role more like Japan since 1945 – funding international development, but playing a much less active diplomatic and military role.

This aid has brought Britain a lot of goodwill from around the world.  But the other instruments of British soft power have not fared so well. The BBC World Service, widely seen as key to British influence around the world, is now funded out of the public levy that pays for other BBC services, rather than directly by the government. The Conservatives are likely to freeze the levy or even reduce it when the current agreement on funding comes to end next year – and that will almost certainly mean more cuts to the BBC’s international services.

With the means to project its influence around the world facing straitened times and the increased likelihood it could end up outside the EU without Scotland, the UK’s global significance and authority is set for further decline – a puzzle for a country that still has the world’s fifth largest economy, a nuclear-armed military and a prized seat at the UN Security Council.

Read the original of this article at Yale Global 

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May 7th 2015: another step on the road to Scottish independence?

Last September’s Scottish independence referendum was meant to give a definitive answer to the Scottish Question.

At least that was the hope of opponents of an independent Scotland.

If anyone needed proof, the campaign for the UK general election has shown that was a false hope with the Scottish National Party set to become the third largest party at Westminster and hold the balance of power there.

Not only that, but the way the main UK parties have fought the campaign in Scotland and the possible outcomes of the election will edge the country further on down the road to independence.

Over the past few weeks, the Conservatives have portrayed the SNP – and by implication their voters – as thieves in order to try to appeal to English resentment of their supposed subsidy of Scotland.

As for Labour, in order to blunt Tory accusations that a Prime Mininster Miliband would be in the SNP’s pocket, it says it would not do any deals with the Nationalists even if they do hold the balance at Westminister.

Insulting people or implying their votes can be disregarded if they are cast for the ‘wrong’ party is likely to alienate even many who voted “No” last autumn.

With next Thursday’s election highly unlikely to yield any party an overall majority, its messy aftermath will also bolster the factors making Scotland’s eventual independence more likely, whoever ends up in Downing St – be it Ed Miliband or David Cameron.

If Labour emerge as the largest party – the bookies’ current favourite scernario – it will almost certainly need the support of SNP MPs to survive in office.

So far Mr Miliband has ruled out any deals, largely to try neutralise Conservative accusations that he would be a hostage to the Scottish Nationalists.

He has rejected offers to join forces to keep David Cameron out of Downing Street from SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, who has proved a formidable campaigner and debater and – given she is an incumbent First Minister – has impressed by increasing her already considerable personal popularity ratings.

But if the choice lies between taking office and making concessions to the SNP, will Ed Miliband really risk passing on the opportunity to be Prime Minister and give Mr Cameron a chance to form a government?

Some commentators have argued SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has weakened her leverage over Labour by ruling out supporting David Cameron.

However, if Mr Miliband refused any concessions, he would risk losing even more support in Scotland and he knows that to have a hope of winning a majority at Westminster ever again his party needs to win back its former voters there – especially in its old heartland in and around Glasgow.

As Scotland’s biggest city Glasgow – and its surrounding towns – has been the key to the tilt towards independence and the SNP’s current popularity there should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about Scottish politics.

The Party has gradually been eroding Labour’s hold on the city for many years and last September it was one of the few areas where a majority voted for independence.

Many Labour voters were disgusted their party joined with the Conservatives to oppose independence and are in no mood to forgive so they have moved over to the SNP, which not only advocates independence, but is also a left of centre party opposing cuts to health and welfare spending – seemingly more sincerely than Labour.

This fundamental shift in the political landscape could take on the proportions of continental drift if a large cohort of SNP MPs is returned to Westminster and the main parties refuse to talk to them.

It is very possible Scottish voters would conclude that despite the plans to give greater powers to the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, their votes are looked on as worth less than those of people in the rest of the UK.

So how does this help moves to independence given Ms Sturgeon has said this election is not about getting a mandate for a second referendum?

One course would be to continue the momentum set since 1999 of the gradual accretion of more powers for the Scottish Parliament which – according to proposals agreed by all parties after the referendum – is about to gain more say over tax and spending.

If Holyrood were to end up with de facto control over all domestic affairs and show it could manage just fine, it would take away a lot of the risk that deterred many from opting for independence last September.

At that point, the SNP could turn to the Scottish people and say: “we run our own affairs anyway, so why not take the next step and become formally independent?” It is this approach I suspect has been the SNP’s long-term strategy all along.

The other possible route to independence could open up if the Conservatives are in a position to form another coalition or minority government and it is not Ed Miliband moving into No 10, but David Cameron staying put.

This means there will be a referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU in 2017 – or even sooner if Mr Cameron has to do a deal with UKIP to stay in power.

If the result of this vote were to be to leave, but a majority of Scots had elected to stay in, the SNP is likely to argue that justifies another referendum on Scottish independence.

Nicola Sturgeon has already called on the other parties to agree that any decision to leave the EU would need to be endorsed by a majority in all four constituent nations of the UK. The Conservatives are not likely to agree to that, but would also find it hard to oppose another vote on independence if a majority of Scots had opted to stay in the EU.

Scotland has been the bright spot in a generally dull election campaign, but the result is going to be another thing altogether – we are in for a fascinating ride over the next few weeks.

The deals and decisions made – and not made – are very likely to carry us closer to the dissolution of the UK.

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A foreign free election – or is it?

You don’t win many votes for foreign policy.

In keeping with this thought the main parties had largely avoided talking about it so far in the campaign and been criticised as a result – until Ed Miliband’s speech at Chatham House yesterday.

But then he was taking advantage of another political adage.

You can lose votes for foreign policy.

Following the hundreds of deaths of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, the Labour leader clearly decided it was a good moment to attack David Cameron for the ill-thought out intervention in the north African state that helped overthrow Colonel Gaddafi in 2011 and then the subsequent failure to support efforts to prevent the country collapsing into the state of anarchy the people smugglers and migrants are taking advantage of now.

As Mr Miliband tacitly acknowledged in his speech, Labour knows how foreign policy can lose you votes when he referred to learning the lessons from the 2003 Iraq invasion more than once.

He knows many of the votes his party lost to the Liberal Democrats in 2005 and 2010 were because of Iraq.

To be fair to him, Ed Miliband did more than take a pop at David Cameron’s record.

He made a reasonable fist of his speech – he pointed out the world is not a stable place at the moment and there are a variety of problems that the world’s fifth largest economy with – despite spending cuts – some of its more capable diplomatic and military services should be doing more to help tackle.

His analysis of the complex challenges facing the world ticked most of the right boxes – and he is to be praised for emphasising the threat posed by climate change and the opportunity to do something about it at the next UN climate summit in Paris in December.

But if he does replace Mr Cameron in No 10, will he follow through on his promises?

Would a Labour government re-engage with Britain’s EU partners to make the reforms many agree are needed in the revive the Union?

Would a Prime Minister Miliband increase defence spending to meet the 2% of GDP the country committed to at the last NATO summit? He hinted strongly yesterday that his party would spend more on defence without actually saying he would.

Miliband defended his opposition to military intervention against Syria which led to the government’s defeat in parliament – a vote many commentators – reading too much into it – saw as a symptom of Britain’s increasing isolationism.

He says military action is sometimes necessary, but should be a last resort and be undertaken in alliance with others, including regional powers.

But whether the voters agree is another matter.

It is notable that when the last British troops left Afghanistan after a 13 year mission last October it was a headline for a few hours and there was very little fanfare.

Neither of the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan were very successful in their own terms and many British people don’t seem to think the casualties suffered were worth what was achieved.

While it is true that foreign policy is not something that attracts mass interest and is often the reserve of the few, the appeal of a party like UKIP seems to derive partly from a weariness with – and wariness of – international involvement.

And also to say foreign policy has been largely absent from the campaign is only true if you define it narrowly.

Several foreign policy issues are playing a prominent part.

After all, UKIP’s raison d’etre is getting out of the EU – a more significant foreign policy move for the UK is difficult to imagine – and the Conservatives are promising an in-out referendum on membership if they win.

Immigration is a concern to many voters – all the parties talk about the need to control it – whether they are basically for or against it. And though immigration is usually categorised as domestic policy area, it cannot be seen in isolation from foreign policy.

One of the reasons migration to and from Britain is quite high is that recent governments – both the last Labour administration and the current coalition – have said they want Britain to be a global hub – not just for business, but for education, culture and diplomacy too.

Another issue that has come up in the campaign and featured in the TV debates is overseas aid – a fundamental plank of foreign policy.

UKIP are calling for the aid budget to be cut and the money spent at home, but this is an area where David Cameron is not guilty of Ed Miliband’s charge of being small-minded and inward-looking as his government protected foreign aid from cuts and he is committed to the 0.7% of GDP spending target if he is returned to power.

So foreign policy is part of the warp and weft of the campaign, but what was largely lacking until yesterday’s speech was an attempt to join up the dots and spell out a role for Britain in the world.

Will David Cameron take up the challenge to give voters the Conservatives’ overall vision for foreign policy?

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