Author: g.marki

Exactly 25 years ago, I came back to my home country on behalf of my employer. After more than a decade, influenced by the teaching of German liberals, socialized in civic and Christian values, I met a country only a few years after the Soviets left. However, the economic elite heirs of the communists under the false hat of liberalism still had enough strength to usurp power. A beloved method of that “spiritual elite” to grab and keep the power was and is the theory of the so-called “false consciousness” that the average person often does not recognize what is good for them thus who recognizes it should steer them in the right direction. [2] A country that was at times one of the largest in Europe and whose inhabitants have suffered Islam and the horrors of the Ottoman occupation on behalf of the rest of Europe for 150 years. Nevertheless, this country was a multi-ethnic state and later as a dual monarchy well known for its culture and talented people. In which the citizens of the Jewish faith, up to the occupation by Nazi Germany and the shameful cooperation of their blinded local supporters, could achieve careers up to the defense minister, and which have repeatedly fertilized western culture. What exactly was the reason? Tolerance. We are talking about Hungary. According to Marion Countess Dönhoff[3]

The historical root of liberalism lies in the enlightenment, which is why tolerance is its symbol – or at least it should be.

Before we can answer the question of where liberalism is going, one should consider where liberalism is coming from. Without delving deeply into the emergence of liberalism, which significantly wiser and more experienced scientists have made long before me, I dare to say that an essential reason lies in education. Traditionalism and liberalism have shaped the different educational systems of the two geographical hemispheres, the East and the West. In the East, the Prussian spirit of traditionalism has taken root, while in the West, the different social order has led to the growth of more liberal ideas. Liberalism is not liberalism. In the unfortunate part of Europe that had to live in a totalitarian system for long decades after WW2, the liberals were the “better placed” who could secure economic advantages. The teachings of western politicians about freedom and justice sound almost a mockery for these countries. In a book[4], received from a young liberal politician in Germany years ago I read a fitting quote from Karl Popper

 While differing is widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.

Very often in the past three decades, I have seen how a larger state or company wants to teach and dominate the smaller one how something works. It did not work. Not for German. Not for the US. And the rising star European Union is behaving like that and is trying to teach member states how the liberal world order works. The UK did not want to go with them. Murray illustrates in his The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity the devastating effects of liberalism through British society, which could serve for Central Europeans as a warning. Now “bad boys” Hungary and Poland are in the penalty corner for standing up for their rights. As Nye et al[5] opines

Leadership is not the same as domination and Washington’s role in helping stabilize the world and underwrite its continued progress maybe even more important now than ever. Americans and others may not notice the security and prosperity that the liberal order provides until they are gone—but by then, it may be too late.

I hope it is not too late to save good liberalism. I wish it for the young German liberal. He is my son.

 

[1] “Whither thou goest”: Thomas Nelson Publishers. 2011. King James Study Bible. Ruth 1:16-17

[2] Mansfeld, Harvey. 2015. “Our Parties, Part One”. City Journal. https://www.city-journal.org/html/our-parties-part-one-13700.html.

[3] Ring Politischer Jugend Sachsen e.V. und Jungliberale Aktion Sachsen 2014. Liberales Lesebüchlein. 2nd ed. Dresden, p. 38.

[4] Ring Politischer Jugend Sachsen e.V. und Jungliberale Aktion Sachsen 2014. Liberales Lesebüchlein. 2nd ed. Dresden, p.1.

[5] Nye Jr., Joseph S. “Will the Liberal Order Survive?” Foreign Affairs, vol. 96, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 10–16. EBSCOhost.

Fear? Spanish born philosopher Seneca[1] formulated it, more than 2000 years ago. Banks, de Nevers, and Wallerstein[2] put it somewhat more cautiously

It is not known to what extent the policy choices in combating terrorism are driven by the fear of a terrorist threat rather than by terrorism itself.

Perhaps the greatest of all motivations are love and fear. I wrote about love in a previous blog. As far as cyberthreats are concerned, not only this but the complexity of the question is terrifying too. Mandel describes en detail seven attributes of each of the cyber attackers and the cyber targets. One might think that just as much caution is required in traditional warfare. However, the conflict takes place in and around the virtual space and thus motives and consequences can only be assessed with conventional methods to a limited extent. And if you don’t know where the danger comes from and what it aims at, you should heed the advice from Mandel’s book[3]:

As a result, public and private cybersecurity decision-makers must strive to resist the temptation of giving in to calls for immediate drastic retaliation in response to any cyber intrusion and instead prudently and dispassionately assess what should be done to promote global restraint.

Is cyberterrorism perhaps less bloody or costly than the RAF or ETA, which is at least well known to Europeans? Hope is deceptive. As to details released by Downing Street on Wednesday[4], the defense budget will receive £ 16.5 billion in additional funding over the next four years, in addition to the plans in last year’s ruling Conservative Party election program. The British Ministry of Defense currently has an annual budget of £ 40 billion, so defense spending will increase by around 10 percent a year over the four-year program. A substantial part goes into the fight against cyber terrorism. Some European states have also pushed through massive increases in their defense budget, not entirely independent of the perceived American threat of troop withdrawal.

Fear… The proliferation of the use of artificial intelligence in the military (and other armed services) is less about competition between the great powers, but rather a lucrative global project for the corporate and government elites to maintain control over the restless population at home and abroad. And there he comes again: Big Brother.  On the other hand, cyber and robotic systems can also have the advantage of being able to subtract human cruelty from the calculation: say, subtracting people from targeting decisions and programming ethical constraints on robots, for example, to prevent unnecessary attacks on hospitals and schools. Unfortunately, there have been plenty of cold-headed massacres throughout history, and there can be no doubt that there will be people who can override robots. W. Singer[5], a political scientist at the New America Foundation who specializes in 21st-century warfare, believes that only machines operating with non-lethal weapons should be automated.

With a bit of an outlook on world politics, it’s also interesting if Mr. Biden insists on a policy of “democracy exports” in the post-Soviet region, the confrontation between Washington and Moscow could deepen, or Mr. Putin could commit himself to desperate steps until a new president is inaugurated. And we have already seen what Russian trolls can do.

Fear! A horrifying example is the 2017 short film Slaughterbots, made by civilians worried about the future of human life: in this, terrorists massacre a school with small smart drones controlled by a remote control next to a van.

[1] “Peior est bello timor ipse belli”

[2] William C. Banks, Renée de Nevers, and Mitchel B. Wallerstein, Combating Terrorism: Strategies and Approaches, Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008, Chps. 1&2 (pp. 1-62)

[3] Robert Mandel, Optimizing Cyberdeterrence: A Comprehensive Strategy for Preventing Foreign Cyberattacks, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017, Chapter 8

[4] Beale, Jonathan. 2020. “Defence Funding Boost ‘Extends British Influence’, Says PM”. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54988870.

[5] Singer, Peter Warren. 2010. Wired For War. New York: Penguin Books.

Secrets put people in harm’s way.

Have you ever come across The Blacklist series? Netflix´s hit is the purest treasure trove for quotes, and this one fits exactly to the topic of nuclear proliferation. If you watch season 2, you realize that it is not always just the states who can play the villain, but also people or a multinational group (“The Cabal” in the film) who can influence governments. Which makes one nervous, but later to that. So, what role relatively small states can play against world powers like the USA, China, or Russia? As Correra puts it briefly and aptly in the epilogue of his book about A.Q Khan [1] the most worrying question is

how much of the previously secret, tightly held knowledge on nuclear technology may now be circulating on the market?

The US has stated that it supports the nuclear ambitions of any state in the Middle East as long as it does not seek to develop a full fuel cycle, and the Obama administration set the treaty with the Emirates as an example to follow for other countries. But what was that with nuclear cooperation with Vietnam? (By the way a reliable ally, and as American know a formidable enemy.) The clear example of double standard means that nuclear proliferation in Asia is not as dangerous as in the Middle East? And the UAE as an example? And why should Japan and South Korea comply with IAEA regulations in the light of North Korea’s or Myanmar´s nuclear program?

Is it really about nuclear proliferation or more about the relations between the great powers and their vassal states?  “The Cabal” quoted at the beginning was a “shadowy multinational group that holds positions of influence in government”[2]  A.Q. Khan was for decades the most dangerous black-market dealer in nuclear technology. And Hydra is a multi-headed monster in Greek mythology.

 

[1] Corera, Gordon. Shopping for Bombs : Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network. Oxford University Press, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blacklist_(season_2)

This claim and the danger of an (again) Third World War is not a horror film scriptwriter´s mind spring. It can be attributed to the Israeli Settlement Minister Tzachi Hanegbi. The TV interview of the Likud politician from the Party of Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that

If Biden stays with that policy, there will, in the end, be a violent confrontation between Israel and Iran

was quoted by several media worldwide, among them The Jerusalem Post[1].

Whether or not the pithy statements of the Likud politician are true; if one asks the Israelis or many Arabic states, there is an increased state of mind to be observed. Not without any reason. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal which was, diplomatically said, rejected by the Trump administration, is now to be dusted again, according to Mr. Bidens’ earlier statements. But is it still America after 4 years of Mr. Trump that determines something on the international stage or does it all depend more on the unity of its allies? We know, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, or according to Wallerstein[2], and more related to security policy

In the future, the United States is likely to fight in coalitions whose CP-defense readiness will be limited to some degree by the capabilities of its least prepared member.

Another question is whether we are dealing here with states or with some dictators and, as Sagan puts it

Such dictators often weaken their state institutions by prizing loyalty over professionalism in military and scientific organizations, thus impeding their nuclear ambitions[3]

And how will a Catholic democrat like Biden prepare for a dialogue with dictators (a “personalist regime”)? It seems Egypt, Syria, and Turkey are all in the pool and Saudi Arabia is well positioned too. How smart again from the Israeli to sign with them that deal…[4]

On the 45^th Birthday of the “Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention” (BTWC), the first international treaty to eliminate a complete category of weapons of mass destruction we should commemorate these ancient weapons as well. It’s only a little reassuring that the nuclear danger is just one of many other dangers that, alongside COVID-19, threaten our civilization.  The use of bacteria, viruses, and other active organic compounds, such as poisons or various drugs, during wars was a common practice already thousands of years ago. Infecting drinking wells with corpses, or even using human and animal feces on cold weapons.

So, we may look optimistically into the future and hope that even after the 45^th President of the USA leaves the White House in an undefined time, no other tough man will find the red button in his office. We can destroy our world also without nukes so efficiently, can´t we?

[1] https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/israeli-minister-warns-of-war-if-biden-returns-to-iran-deal-648097

[2] Mitchel B. Wallerstein, “The Origins and Evolution of the Defense Counterproliferation Initiative,” in: Countering the Proliferation and Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Peter L. Hayes, Vincent J. Jodoin, and Alan R. Van Tassel, eds., New York: McGraw-Hill Co, 1998, Chp. 2 (pp. 21-36)

[3] Scott D. Sagan, “Armed and Dangerous: When Dictators Get the Bomb,” Foreign Affairs, (Vol. 97, No. 6) November/December 2018, pp. 35-43

[4] ibid.

No, “Mad” or “Rabid Dog” this time doesn’t describe Gen. Mattis, and “Tyrant” not the yet 45^th President of the United States.[1]

Rabid dogs like Baiden [sic] can hurt lots of people if they are allowed to run about. They must be beaten to death with a stick before it is too late. Doing so will be beneficial for the U.S. also.[2]

This is how Kim Jong Un called FRM Vice President Biden and Biden called his North Korean offender a Tyrant. It seems these two are not friends.

In just two days Americans will decide who will be the 46^th President of the United States- and who will take the duty to deal with a country which built the largest vehicle-launched ballistic missile the world has ever seen. Should Mr. Biden take the Oval Office, however, they must overcome the animosity they put on display during the last weeks,

North Korea and its “Tyrant” as Biden said managed one thing for sure: to mislead practically the entire world and become under our very nose a nuclear power with more than 100 missiles. The 2018 visit of Trump and 2019 hopes to close the sad chapter of the Korean-Korean conflict seem now to be a staged theater play without a happy end.

But if not with talks like Trump how could Biden deal with North Korea? The commercial or military threat would not work. North Korea is already isolated and sanctioned. Probably the only country, which keeps the ties is China, and who would risk a military confrontation?

First of all, one cannot reach real results with inconsequent actions. As Stanton et al[3] suggest in “How to Hit Pyongyang Where It Hurts ”

The United States should begin fining and sanctioning the Chinese banks that illegally maintain relationships with North Korean banks and fail to report suspicious North Korean transactions to the U.S. Treasury Department.

It seems Mr. Biden will not want to deal directly with the Dictator from Pyongyang but it also seems that he has either an idea what to do. And North Korea keeps poking the bear, recently with the presentation of the monstrous nuclear rocket. It is like in Kindergarten; when you can’t impress with the old toys you need to have a bigger one and show it to everyone.

The solution of the conflict seems to be somewhere between Beijing and Washington, and between Washington and Pyongyang and it seems very much that the wisdom quoted by Yang et al[4] proves true

all roads to Pyongyang have to go through Beijing first.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-calls-biden-a-rabid-dog-who-deserves-to-be-beaten-to-death/2019/11/14/09583e84-0748-11ea-b388-434b5c1d7dd8_story.html

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-calls-biden-a-rabid-dog-who-deserves-to-be-beaten-to-death/2019/11/14/09583e84-0748-11ea-b388-434b5c1d7dd8_story.html

[3] Joshua Stanton, Sung-Yoon Lee, and Bruce Klinger, “Getting Tough on North Korea: How to Hit Pyongyang Where it Hurts, Foreign Affairs (Vol. 96, No. 3), May/June 2017, pp. 65-74

[4] Xiangfeng Yang, “China’s Clear and Present Conundrum on the Korean Peninsula: stuck between the past and the future,” International Affairs, Vol. 94, No. 3 (May 2018), pp. 595-611

October 23rd is a very serious day in history, at least if you were born Hungarian: the day in 1956 when Hungarians rose against the Soviet yoke. The uprising was brutally suppressed and the show at the international level was initially “stolen” as the Israeli Army marched into Egypt on its way to the Suez Canal on October 29, 1956. On the same day, 64 years later, Israel once again filled the press with the signing of the peace agreement with Sudan. According to the BBC

The Sudan deal comes weeks after similar moves by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain. The two Gulf states became the first in the Middle East to recognize Israel in 26 years.

So, this is great news. And again, I was reminded of the words of the German-American Philosopher Hannah Arendt[2] “Violence begins where speech ends”. The same words circled in my head while ducking with about 15 others in the air-raid cellar of our house in Tel Aviv in July 2014, waiting for the all-clear signal from a rocket Red Alert. I was a diplomat then and it was the beginning of Operation Protective Edge (Tzuk-Eitan), the 50-day war in the Israel-Gaza conflict.[3]  It was on that very evening in Tel Aviv that I understood the real meaning of Arendt´s words and how strongly all this is intertwined with communication or the lack of it.

So, violence ends where speech begins? Or is this “sudden love” rather motivated by fear in the form of Turkey? As we see, in addition to dreaded Iran, there is another major threat on the horizon. With Ankara’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and poking Saudi Arabia since 2016 with its military engagement in Qatar and Kuwait, Ankara entered a field that gathered seemingly impossible partners under one hat. Let us hope that this “love” will not be just a “love affair”

According to the Sanskrit proverb

the enemy of my enemy is my friend,

it seems logical that Israel and the Gulf States unite against Iran which supports Hezbollah and Turkey which supports Hamas.  Additionally, more and more Arabic countries believe less and less in the chaotic Palestinian Authority and in an independent Palestinian state.

By the way, something similar happened when the United States joined forces with Saddam Hussein against Iran in 1979… Of course, we could think about the words of another one who told[4]:

Whoever is not against us, is for us.

And this is the problem in my eyes in the long run. All these states were against Israel and joining now forces. Remember Iraq. As much I wish the peace in the Middle East, I am not a believer in reaching it very soon. The reason is not that I would not grant Mr. Trump his Nobel Peace Prize, or that I take my Israeli friends far too seriously who say that if there is not a war every two years then something is wrong in the Middle East. Rather, I believe Mara Karlin [5], who put it two years ago as follows:

The next conflict will also probably be fought within Lebanon, although it will likely go beyond southern Lebanon into Beirut. It will also, given the Dahiya Doctrine, involve the destruction of much more than just alleged Hezbollah military targets-the IDF could easily destroy Lebanese state infrastructure and military sites as well… When it does happen, it will be ugly and will almost surely drag in external actors, willingly or not.

[1] Lennon, John, and Paul McCartney. 1967. Love Is All You Need. Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xMfIp-irg&ab_channel=TheBeatles-Topic.

[2] Hannah Arendt: “Understanding and Politics”, Partisan Review, XX/4, 1954

[3] Márki, Gábor. 2018. “Essay”, Baruch College, CUNY, 2018.

[4] Luke 9:50; Mark 9:40

[5] Karlin, Mara. “Israel’s Coming War with Hezbollah: A New Conflict May Be Inevitable.” Foreign Affairs online, 21 Feb. 2018. www.foreignaffairs.com.

An important idea in ancient Greek philosophy was the principle of mass conservation. This millennium-old knowledge of the ancient Greeks spat in my head when I was thinking about the regional threats in Iran, Syria, and the Gulf. Each of us learned in school about the principle. Described by many others, a famous scholar, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī put it that way around the 13th century AD:

A body of matter cannot disappear completely. It only changes its form, condition, composition, color, and other properties and turns into a different complex or elementary matter”.^[8]

A morbid example of this would be the journalist Khashoggi, then living in exile in the US, who went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to pick up papers for his wedding and never came out. But where is the connection between Iran, al-Tusi, and Syria? Other than al-Tusi was Persian himself, it is that simple: 100 years after the creation of the artificial lands in the Middle-East by the British-French Sykes-Picot Agreement,[1] the victory over ISIS just seemed to end one of the darkest periods in human history in December 2017. The focus of conflict is still glowing in other places. Like cancer and the metastases[2].

We remember how through the “spillover effect” from Syria, the Civil Wars in Iraq and Syria were deeply intertwined, and how the elimination of national borders has created a multinational war-theater. The Iraqi Civil War escalated in January 2014 from the Iraqi insurgency. After U.S. troops left the destabilized country in 2011, armed conflicts with the central government and between sectarian groups emerged.

Although I am trying to avoid to quote the president turned French investment banker Emmanuel Macron, according to him Turkey has deployed Syrian militias in the disputed Caucasus territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, supporting Azerbaijan in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Should Syrian jihadists appear in the conflict, the region could become an Islamist nest. As Ford[3] aptly put it in his closing remarks about “The Syrian Civil War “

Forestalling recruitment by extremist elements among dispirited refugee communities will be a related challenge as well.

Exactly that happened and is happening now. According to a report by the German news agency dpa, the financial incentive for mostly Turkmen fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh is about $1500-2000. These fighters, like the Sultan Murad Brigade, which lost fifty members in the fights, are backed by Turkey.  We are not talking about single cases but several thousand, according to the sources up to 2,000 fighters (!). The Guardian[4] is writing about three- and six-month contracts with a monthly salary of 700-1000 British pounds.

Whoever thought the Syrian conflict would be over, should think about the old the principle of mass conservation and al-Tusi just in a modified form:

Conflict changes form, but never disappears.

[1] Scott Anderson, “The Disintegration of the Iraqi State Has Its Roots in World War I”, Smithsonian, June 19, 2014, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/disintegration-iraqi-state-has-its-roots-world-war-i-180951793/#KXgsrOWpUKhdzTCJ.99

[2] Interestingly, at around the same time, the imposed Treaty of Trianon was signed, which created many successor states, of which only Hungary exists today in the same form. The country that was pinned by the treaty. 100 years later in Yugoslavia, the multi-ethnic state also culminated in bloodshed across national boundaries.

[3] Ford, Robert S. “The Syrian Civil War: A New Stage, but Is It the Final One?” Policy Paper 2019-8. Middle East Institute, Apr. 2019. www.mei.edu.

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/28/syrian-rebel-fighters-prepare-to-deploy-to-azerbaijan-in-sign-of-turkeys-ambition

In medias res: maybe one of the biggest problems of the UN is anchored in its structure and legitimacy, which is a hostage of national interests of the Security Council (SC) Members and it will not change until every member state will receive a vote with the same value.

As a former auditor, I was used to analyzing the efficiency of organizations based on processes and selected case studies. Taking the example of the Iraq wars: Iraq became a collateral of conflicting US-Russian agendas in the Middle-East[1] and of the Syrian “spillover effect”. Efforts were made to avoid an open US-Russian military clash, but the inherited structural weakness of the SC fueled the proxy war in Iraq.[2]  An important reason is that the war became a regional and multinational conflict, has grown out of the horizon of the UN, and UN diplomacy was unable to deal with those challenges. The world has changed – but not the UN. This is a problem of an organization that was unable to adapt to the dynamic of real politics. According to Autessere[3]

But in fact, UN peacekeepers too often fail to meet their most basic objectives. On many deployments, they end up watching helplessly while war rages.

 Another dazzling example of an obvious failure of the UN (and the SC) was the refusal to grant expedited refugee status to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) of minorities. This was for the UN a convenient “legal fig-leaf” for the ongoing shame. Thus, at the same time, both the US and Russia had the chance to keep the status quo and not to openly confront the issue. UN´s “religion-blind” aid policy is a shortcoming, a process failure, and cannot be undone. It ignores religious minorities due to its norms and the possible “violation of humanitarian principles” and results in paradoxical developments, such as the settlement of families of former ISIS fighters in the Christian villages of northern Iraq.[4]

Internal inefficiency and lack of communication within the UN are well described by the fact that former Secretary-General (SG) Ban-Ki Moon (and his successor António Guterres) prepared more than 30 “Secretary-General´s Reports” to the SC with detailed intelligence about “Yazidi, Christian and Shabak minorities, who fled for fear of genocide.”[5] but no resolution included a declaration that ISIS has been committing genocide and had no consequent results. This is a joint failure of SG and SC to raise the attention and act against the genocide.

UN´s former Undersecretary-General of the Office of Internal Oversight Services[6] summarized referring to Sec-Gen. Ban Ki-Moon:

There is no transparency, there is a lack of accountability. Rather than supporting the internal oversight which is the sign of strong leadership and good governance, you have strived to control it which is to undermine its position.  I do not see any signs of reform in the Organization.

To evaluate the leadership of SG Guterres is too early. The former UNHCR High Commissioner might pay more attention to the topic.

The excessive use of veto right is an inherited institutional weakness of the SC. Russia had always a vital interest in stabilizing the Middle-East as her “backyard”. As a logical consequence, Russia vetoed every western motivated UNSC draft resolution on Syria since 2011, on the whole, 12 times[7]. It seems not realistic that any of the permanent members would ever renounce its veto right. A closed circle.

And while the other permanent members were involved in the power play, China successfully “infiltrated” the Iraq energy market. 60% of the electricity in Baghdad is produced by Chinese companies.[8] For reconstruction and economic development, energy is a key factor, and China has already manifested positions for the post-war period.

Finally, funding is the main concern. Financial contributions and political influence in the UN are diverging. Germany donated almost one-third of the total UNAMI budget and twice the amount of the USA. Together with Japan, it pays more to the UN budget than any permanent member except the USA, but is not on par with permanent members and have little to say.[9]

The reasons why and since when the UN lost path are various. After all, one tends to give a frustrated “yes” as an answer to T.G. Weiss´s provocative question “Would the World Be Better Without the UN?”[10] However, the recent Noble prize nomination for WFP – also one of the largest logistic enterprises of the world (with 100 airplanes, 6,000 trucks,  over 50 ships) shows that the UN and most of its agencies are an essential part of our world order. As Weiss formulates[11]

If the UN did not exist, we would have to invent it.

[1] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, “Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East” Global Research, November 18, 2006, https://www.globalresearch.ca/plans-for-redrawing-the-middle-east-the-project-for-a-new-middle-east/3882

[2] A visible exception was the downing of a Russian fighter jet by the Turkish air defense on the Syria-Turkey border on November 24^th, 2015. (Author)

[3] Autesserre, Séverine. “The Crisis of Peacekeeping: Why the UN Can’t End Wars.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 98, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 101–116. EBSCOhost.

[4] Art. 44 Iraqi Constitution Article 44, 2^nd states that: “No Iraqi may be exiled, displaced, or deprived of returning to the homeland”. WIPO “Iraq Constitution” http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=230001 (on November 11, 2018)

[5] United Nations, Security Council, “First report of the Secretary-General submitted pursuant to paragraph 6 of resolution 2169 (2014)” S/2014/774, October 31, 2014, https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7b65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7d/s_2014_774.pdf

[6] Colum Lynch, “Departing U.N. official calls Ban’s leadership ‘deplorable’ in 50-page memo“ Washington Post, July 20, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071904734.html

[7] RTÉ News, “Russia’s 12 UN vetoes on Syria” April 11, 2018, https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/0411/953637-russia-syria-un-veto/

[8] Richard Wachman, “China pushes for bigger role in Iraqi reconstruction”, Arab News, November 12, 2018, http://www.arabnews.com/node/1257811/business-economy

[9] Germany condemned the 2003 US-invasion in Iraq and fell out of favor with the US as a candidate for a permanent seat.

[10] Weiss, Thomas G. “Would the World Be Better without the UN?” Journal of International Affairs, vol. 70, no. 2, Summer 2017, pp. 29–38. EBSCOhost.

[11] “Ban Ki moon’s Thankless Position,” New York Times, 1June 2016.

It must be said that the author is not a shrewd expert on American-Chinese security relations, and even less has the foolishness to prove the opposite within a short blog. Nonetheless, on or around China´s 71^st National Day it is worth thinking about what exactly can make a rising state like China a foe or friend of a slowly but surely declining world power like the USA.

For a long time, the USA believed that it could maintain the upper hand and control, as in almost all regions of the world, and that it could enforce this with a mixture of reward and threat, in China as well. As Campbell et al[1] formulated it very aptly:

Neither carrots nor sticks have swayed China as predicted. Diplomatic and commercial engagement have not brought political and economic openness. Neither U.S. military power nor regional balancing has stopped Beijing from seeking to displace core components of the U.S.-led system. And the liberal international order has failed to lure or bind China as powerfully es expected.

Nixon´s visit to China in 1972 was a milestone to reformulate the relationship and opening America to a communist country that was isolated from the world. Sidelining the Soviet Union and China’s circumvention was a coup of the Nixon and Kissinger duo. With this, the policy of Strategic Engagement has started and the integration of China into the “American World Order”, economically and through international institutions. Not surprisingly, it was not human rights but the Cold War that defined the guiding principles. Common interests were dictated by trade and security. Hard facts were more important than the community of values of democracies. Note: trade and security against democracy.

More simply: American capital and consumption and Chinese production became increasingly inseparable. The triangle is now being completed by Africa which shall serve as a resource for raw materials. China was already a dominant empire in the eastern part of the world, and Africa was already the supplier of an even more important resource in the history of a current great power: human power.

The policy has not changed much after 1989: with the Soviet Union’s fading glory, the United States became the prima donna on the stage of world politics. And the US did believe to have the license, the absolute power, and the resources to guide and lead the world towards a happier and more democratic order. But did she? Being raised in a Soviet country I am painfully reminded and challenged to quote here Francis Fukuyama[2]

We remain at the end of history because there is only one system that will continue to dominate world politics, that of the liberal-democratic West.

Meaning that the mixture of capitalism and liberal democracy is the logical endpoint of human development? Without going into philosophical depth: it is not. And for sure not for China.

After 9/11 the American focus shifted more than ever to the Middle East – and the wars of the greatest democracy of the world in the Middle East were largely financed by Chinese loans. In exchange human-rights problems of China not only became marginal but some western states even managed to stamp Uyghurs as terrorists.[3]

So, sticks or carrots? How could a potential change in the White House influence Chinese-America relations? According to my earlier blog, I assume that Biden would take over some elements of the Trumpian policy. Yet, there is an important difference. It is significant whether Washington will be able to build a strong international coalition against China as the Obama administration tried. It could affect China more than Trump’s aggressive but by times inconsequent alliance policy.

[1] Kurt M. Campbell and Eloy Ratner, “The China Reckoning: How Beijing Defied American Expectations,” Foreign Affairs, (Vol. 96, No. 2) March/April 2018, pp. 60-70

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1002238464542684520

[3] Interestingly, Uyghurs have a strong sympathy for Hungarians which they esteem to be their big western brother.