International Relations, Geopolitics & Foreign Policy Discussion

[Afif]

Thread dedicated to international relations, geopolitics and interstate foreign policy matters.

 

[Afif]

@Rooxbar forgot to tag you.

 

[Rooxbar]

@Rooxbar forgot to tag you.

Hey thx, wanted to post this I remembered:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-pleads-guilty-to-shipping-us-made-avionics-to-russia-violating-sanctions/

Also since these reports the traffic of visits by Israeli military committees and high-ranking officials to Russia has exploded. Seems like they're trying to appease Putin to try to block the deepening military technology ties between Iran and Russia. It's really interesting that nobody asks why Iran doesn't buy any major military equipment from either Russia and China (until very recent talks of S-400 and Su-35 after Ukr-Rus war forced clearer delineation) except missile tech which I think was transferred from Libya and North Korea and not directly from China or Russia.

Russia also has been running very smart propaganda campaigns & operations inside Israel akin to its advocacy for AfD, Fratelli d'Italia and Front National and for polarization inside several European countries which they probably calcualte might lead to break from status quo alignment with U.S, along with weakening them internally.

Shomrim, an Israeli offshoot of Center for Media and Democracy (itself an offshoot of Soros' Open Society Foundations), report here is fascinating:

Shomrim - Russia’s Influence Campaign in Israel: Creating New Party, Stoking Social Discord, Fueling Arab Discontent, and Straining Foreign Relations

Leaked documents from the company behind a Kremlin global disinformation campaign provide a rare glimpse into the shadow war that Russia is waging against Israel. According to the leaked documents, the Russians did not stop at spreading incendiary fake news; they also planned to open an office...

www.shomrim.news

It almost guarantees the same operations are being conducted in Turkey to polarize the country more and create tensions from both the Islamist and the Kemalist camp, finding fault-lines along which both can be shaken. It's another sign of decline of the U.S. intelligentsia in comparison to the cold war years, where they had a strong hold on the narratives. They have been quite passive in their handling of rising anti-Americanism in certain European demographics and in our country also. There's almost no effort.

 

[Iskander]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is in New York to attend the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Anadolu reports that the meeting between the head of state of Turkey and the president of Iran took place in Turkevi in New York.

Ərdoğan ABŞ-də Pezeşkianla görüşdü

Türkiyə Prezidenti Rəcəb Tayyib Ərdoğan İran lideri Məsud Pezeşkian ilə görüşüb. “Qafqazinfo” xarici KİV-ə istinadən xəbər verir ki, görüş Nyu-York

qafqazinfo.az

 

[Afif]

Biden offers full US support to Yunus-led interim govt

Dr Yunus-Biden meeting to help take Dhaka-Washington ties to new level, says CA's press secretary

www.tbsnews.net

The meeting was unprecedented. It is really good to have this degree of US support at this critical time. There is an incentive for going beyond diplomatic backing at the world stage or the financial grant that they just singed off. They are offering technical expertise and ready to share institutional knowledge to support the six major reform initiatives that has been undertaken. (Concerning election system, police administration, judiciary, anti-corruption commission, public administration, and the constitution.) I mean, a distinguished Bangladeshi-American Illinois university professor (who is also involved with Atlantic council) has been appointed as the head of constitution reform commission by the Interim government. I think US policy makers understood the significant of this revolution and the rare opportunity of a second Republic level reset for Bangladesh. Being able to influence that process will determine to an extent how this country operate in the future. So, they jumped right in with what they got.

Bangladesh's relevance on the world stage would increase proportionally to its economic growth. Which set to increase significantly this decade and the next. These reforms, if successful will put it right back on the track. Right now by investing directly in these mega reforms initiatives of the Revolutionary government, United States is trying to score a long term gain for their Indo-Pacific strategy. And for all of it, they couldn't ask for a better person in BD. Professor Yunus being a personal friend of Hillary Clinton and US senators helps a lot.

 

[Iskander]

President Erdogan met with Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan in Turkevi in New York

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1838676156725207176

...and gave him a book (let him study )

Pashinyan was so happy, as if Erdogan had given him not a book, but Karabakh

 

[Iskander]

“In New York, Erdogan met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The negotiations took place in the Turkic language.

...Some experts in Ankara are convinced that the election of an ethnic Azerbaijani from Tabriz as Iran’s president could become a fateful moment in the politics of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Iran.

...Judging by the fact that Pezeshkian often emphasizes his Turkic origins, and also recently announced the importance of a serious turn in Iranian-Turkish relations, this conclusion has a real basis.
But there is another group of Turkish experts, according to whom the election of Pezeshkian, conventionally called a representative of the reformist wing, will not have any significant impact on Iran’s foreign policy,” writes Haqqin az.

In short, it is clear that nothing is clear yet.

However, it is indisputable that a rapprochement between these two states will seriously affect not only Middle Eastern, but also global geopolitics.

После встречи Эрдогана с Пезешкианом Иран сдаст позиции Турции? - наша корреспонденция+комментарий Хасана Октая; все еще актуально

m.haqqin.az

 

[Afif]

Turkey and Central Asia are riding together again

The Organisation of Turkic States is a counterweight to Russia

www.economist.com

@Sanchez @what @Saithan @dBSPL @Rooxbar et al.

 

[Saithan]

The western media is going to be angling the increase cooperation of Turkic states as something counter to Russia/China. Even if we have common heritage it's difficult to see it anything but a cooperation that will help the involved countries grow and develop into their own sphere.

The huge geography it's spanning over can have extreme economic reach and benefits to the involved parties.

Of course countries that are interested in being the big boi in the neighbourhood wouldn't want any of their neighbours becoming strong and independent.

Look at the size of Kazakhstan and with a small population of 20 million it's a wonder that they're able to protect their own lands from the big fuckers in the neighbourhood. I think it's because they've been ignored until now. But that won't continue.

So increasing cooperation and helping each other and being open about these things will make it that much more difficult for western media to manipulate what is going on.

They will angle it, and spread fake news and promote their own angling and suppress the right answers, but that is war just as much as using real weapons.

Having Satellite coverage and spreading our own news network would be best answer to this kind of war.

 

[Rooxbar]

Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor

Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions

www.theguardian.com

From 14 years ago:

Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor​

This article is more than 14 years old
Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions

Rajeev Syal
Sun 13 Dec 2009 01.05 CET
Share


Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

This will raise questions about crime's influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. "In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor," he said.
Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.
"Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way." Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.
"That was the moment [last year] when the system was basically paralysed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. The progressive liquidisation to the system and the progressive improvement by some banks of their share values [has meant that] the problem [of illegal money] has become much less serious than it was," he said.
The IMF estimated that large US and European banks lost more than $1tn on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009 and more than 200 mortgage lenders went bankrupt. Many major institutions either failed, were acquired under duress, or were subject to government takeover.
Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.
British bankers would want to see any evidence that Costa has to back his claims. A British Bankers' Association spokesman said: "We have not been party to any regulatory dialogue that would support a theory of this kind. There was clearly a lack of liquidity in the system and to a large degree this was filled by the intervention of central banks."

 

[Rooxbar]

The Real Purpose of a U.S.-Saudi Security Agreement

A deal could reduce direct American intervention in the Middle East.

www.foreignaffairs.com

Such comical pipe dreams.

 

[Iskander]

Germany and Britain are set to sign a historic defense pact.

The Times reports that Britain, Germany and France — Europe's largest militaries — are currently discussing how they can take on more responsibility in NATO amid concerns that the United States will scale back its role in the alliance if Republican Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

Russian fear has gripped old Europe
Europeans can't beat up Asians forever
Now it's their turn

Britain and Germany to sign historic defence pact

John Healey hails the most significant bilateral deal since 2010, paving the way for joint military operations that will ensure troops stay a step ahead of any Russian threat in Europe

www.thetimes.com

 

[Jammer]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1848299469399609523

 

[Afif]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1848299469399609523

@Nilgiri thoughts? PRC will play it nice from now on?

They probably realized two fronts confrontation is not strategically wise for their cause.

 

[Nilgiri]

@Nilgiri thoughts? PRC will play it nice from now on?

They probably realized two fronts confrontation is not strategically wise for their cause.

We will have to see, i.e give it a few years and see what the various situations are on the ground in relation to these agreements.

 

[Rooxbar]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/miriam-adelson-gives-100-million-to-trump-campaign-making-good-on-reported-pledge/

Excerpt:

A major funder of pro-Israel politics and a prolific donor to Jewish causes, Adelson, 79, is carrying on a legacy she built with her late husband, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The Adelson family has long been one of the largest sources of campaign money for Republican candidates and has backed Trump during each of the last three general elections. ... Her contribution was the largest in an array of new big money disclosures on Tuesday, eclipsing the $75 million contributed by Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and head of Tesla and SpaceX, to his own pro-Trump super PAC (political action committee).

The Brass Ring

A multibillionaire’s relentless quest for global influence.

www.newyorker.com

Excerpt:

Adelson referred to another Iranian dissident at the conference, Amir Abbas Fakhravar, whom he said he would like to support, saying, “I like Fakhravar because he says that, if we attack, the Iranian people will be ecstatic.” Dayanim said that when he disputed that assumption Adelson responded, “I really don’t care what happens to Iran. I am for Israel.”

 

[Iskander]

Russian sources report: - "A heavy military transport aircraft C-17A Globemaster III, certified for the transportation of nuclear weapons, is flying from the United States to Turkey. This morning it was spotted in the area of the Azores. Judging by the fact that the same aircraft flew along the same route several days ago, it can be assumed that its final destination is the Turkish Incirlik Air Base. It seems that the aircraft is making a series of shuttle flights, transporting an unknown cargo. It is not difficult to guess what kind of cargo, since the air base in Turkey serves as a storage facility for American nuclear weapons. They are probably either imported to Turkey or exported. It cannot be ruled out that one type of ammunition is being replaced by another."

After the failed coup in 2016, some publications claimed that the United States was removing nuclear weapons from Turkey due to the deterioration of relations between the two countries. If the new information is true, then they are still in Turkey. This is the only thing that can be said with certainty.

 

[Rooxbar]

I'm reading into structural realism right now, although in terms of directly reading from books I've decided start more historically with Machiavelli.

I am beginning this journey with a measure of skepticism of the black-box approach to formulating a general theory of state behavior because I find it counter-intuitive to formulate arguments at a macro-level without "micro-foundations", however even in these early stages I can recognize there are obvious and good reasons why this is not done, chiefly I think this is somewhere between very difficult to impossible. I refer to the categories of structural-realist (Waltz, Mearsheimer) arguments about why this "blind-ness" is necessary like so:

1) The argument of inevitability (which you're making): that the pressures/forces of the anarchic international system force states to behave according to their "structural imperative" or optimally for their survival

2) The argument of simplicity/generalizability: that it is not sensible to attempt to account for every factor, and that one can restrict variables in order to feasibly formulate a general theory which is a sufficient approximation of state behavior to be useful as an explanatory vehicle.

What I take away from this is that the pressures of international anarchy function as constraints, but not the entirety of the variables influencing state behavior, and that in the eyes of structural realists, analyzing state behavior according to these constraints as a best approximation has explanatory power.

Looking at the world around me, I just don't see a world insulated from beliefs, and identity complexes in the political realm. Whether it is in the solidarity that countries exhibit with one another, who they choose to form deeper partnerships with, how they structure and select the multi-lateral institutions they participate in.

Would Turkey and Malaysia be signing technological co-operation agreements if not for their shared religion? Would there be an organization of turkic states, without a shared identity complex, cultural practices, and beliefs? Would the EU be possible without the same, or the general solidarity between all the Western countries be possible without the same? On the tin, I think phenomenon like these point to the influence of socio-cultural factors, however constrained by the realities of state-interests within international anarchy.

To be clear, I'm seeking a counter-argument from you oh wise Rooxbar.

Very interesting; I reply here not to derail the thread on Syria.

I agree with some assumptions and arguments of structural-realism but only as a prescriptive model not a descriptive one. Theirs is a model selection dilemma, of Occam's razor considerations on variable, i.e. parsimony. The trade-off is between both interpretability/complexity and generalisability/over-fitting. I think structural assumptions for inter-state relations as a descriptive tool fail more than not, but I see the failures as deviations from rationality. The deviations need accounting for but that's not the job of a prescriptive model. I however agree that wherever structural forces fail to give an account of state action, the action is more often than not, a rough edge than a crucial component of IR (i.e. the neorealist can claim he has foregone granularity for the sake of at least having a picture; others they will claim in their attempts at capturing details miss the forest for the trees). After all the state of anarchy comes with multiple equilibria and the freedom accorded through the various evolutionary paths towards the same power maximization outcome can look like ideological choices. This may seem like a version of defensive realism, but I find the assumptions there more problematic than the work of Mearsheimer et al.

I haven't really made up my mind about how much of this path dependency is contingent, or what degree of ideological freedom can be tolerated by the structural forces. In the field of comparative politics trying to account for state action based on internal forces, every theory put forward (domestic politics forces, pressure groups, class analysis, rational choice, organizational/institutional process, bureaucratic inertia, etc.) has some merit which means it will again all boil down to trade-offs and model selection as an amalgamation of all will just be a complicated qualitative description with little explicit predictive power. A theory of IR based on a foundation of Innenpolitiks has always seemed to me to be lacking. But me personally, I believe in anarchy within the state as well and this lack of rigidity within states (even one-party police state ones) is itself a factor in state action in international stage letting itself be moulded by international structural forces. My assumptions (which I reiterated in that post in lay terms) is derived from my understanding of history more than anything else (IR theory included) and is more due to Thucydides, Aristotle, Polybius and Machiavelli rather than Waltz, Morgenthau, Wendt or any others. It's more informed by a reading of Russo-Chinese relations during cold war or Israeli-Iranian cold conflict of aughts and 10s or books on Gladio operations and the like by Turkish authors such as Mumcu and Hablemitoğlu (there's also one by Paul Williams, not as robust). I'm sure if I go into the history of India-Pakistan (book recs appreciated), the same lessons await me there as well. What I mean to say is my conceptions came first, then came a reading of IR which on many occasions reinforced my conceptions.

But I have to add these assumption of structural forces in neorealism is itself axiomatic and static as it involves no dynamic evolution clause in its various formulations; this is a serious flaw as politics is surface and economic and energy constraints, themselves dynamic, by underlying it, make politics even more unstable. I have been meaning to read Gourevitch and other second-image reversed approaches for sometime now, hoping there might be some answers there; haven't gotten to it yet. At least 100 more books on the reading list before we get there lol.

 

[Tabmachine]

Very interesting; I reply here not to derail the thread on Syria.

I agree with some assumptions and arguments of structural-realism but only as a prescriptive model not a descriptive one. Theirs is a model selection dilemma, of Occam's razor considerations on variable, i.e. parsimony. The trade-off is between both interpretability/complexity and generalisability/over-fitting. I think structural assumptions for inter-state relations as a descriptive tool fail more than not, but I see the failures as deviations from rationality. The deviations need accounting for but that's not the job of a prescriptive model. I however agree that wherever structural forces fail to give an account of state action, the action is more often than not, a rough edge than a crucial component of IR (i.e. the neorealist can claim he has foregone granularity for the sake of at least having a picture; others they will claim in their attempts at capturing details miss the forest for the trees). After all the state of anarchy comes with multiple equilibria and the freedom accorded through the various evolutionary paths towards the same power maximization outcome can look like ideological choices. This may seem like a version of defensive realism, but I find the assumptions there more problematic than the work of Mearsheimer et al.

I haven't really made up my mind about how much of this path dependency is contingent, or what degree of ideological freedom can be tolerated by the structural forces. In the field of comparative politics trying to account for state action based on internal forces, every theory put forward (domestic politics forces, pressure groups, class analysis, rational choice, organizational/institutional process, bureaucratic inertia, etc.) has some merit which means it will again all boil down to trade-offs and model selection as an amalgamation of all will just be a complicated qualitative description with little explicit predictive power. A theory of IR based on a foundation of Innenpolitiks has always seemed to me to be lacking. But me personally, I believe in anarchy within the state as well and this lack of rigidity within states (even one-party police state ones) is itself a factor in state action in international stage letting itself be moulded by international structural forces. My assumptions (which I reiterated in that post in lay terms) is derived from my understanding of history more than anything else (IR theory included) and is more due to Thucydides, Aristotle, Polybius and Machiavelli rather than Waltz, Morgenthau, Wendt or any others. It's more informed by a reading of Russo-Chinese relations during cold war or Israeli-Iranian cold conflict of aughts and 10s or books on Gladio operations and the like by Turkish authors such as Mumcu and Hablemitoğlu (there's also one by Paul Williams, not as robust). I'm sure if I go into the history of India-Pakistan (book recs appreciated), the same lessons await me there as well. What I mean to say is my conceptions came first, then came a reading of IR which on many occasions reinforced my conceptions.

But I have to add these assumption of structural forces in neorealism is itself axiomatic and static as it involves no dynamic evolution clause in its various formulations; this is a serious flaw as politics is surface and economic and energy constraints, themselves dynamic, by underlying it, make politics even more unstable. I have been meaning to read Gourevitch and other second-image reversed approaches for sometime now, hoping there might be some answers there; haven't gotten to it yet. At least 100 more books on the reading list before we get there lol.

Salam Rooxbar,

First off, thank you for taking the time to educate me somewhat. It's clear to me that there is much more depth and breadth to the topic than simply reading into structural realism. I'm pretty much making my first readings into any form of Political Science now, so this is a totally new domain for me.

I find both your points on the necessity of separate specialized theories, and on anarchy within the state to be agreeable. With the cumulative sum of what you have said here, I'm convinced I need to devise a different reading list. Would you be willing to suggest an approximately 3 book sequence to develop a foundation of understanding? I don't think extending beyond that length is feasible for myself at the moment, given my other learning obligations (will be starting a graduate program soon).

As well, out of curiousity, what do you do / have you studied? (generally speaking, not expecting any personally-revealing details here) DM me if you're cool to share.

 

[Rooxbar]

MUST watch: