World roundup: December 17 2020
Stories from China, Nigeria, El Salvador, and more
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Happy Hanukkah to those who are celebrating!
THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
December 16, 755: Chinese general An Lushan declares himself emperor, attempting to usurp power from the ruling Tang Dynasty. The An Lushan Rebellion lasted over seven years (long after the death of its namesake in 757), and while it failed it also badly weakened the Tang Dynasty, which strengthened the neighboring Uyghur Khaganate and the Tibetan Empire.
December 16, 1944: A major and sudden German offensive in the Ardennes Forest begins the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most important engagements on the Western Front in World War II. The battle ended on January 25, 1945, with an Allied victory. The German attack did delay the Allied advance into Germany by several weeks, but the cost was the near obliteration of whatever remained of the German military’s capacity to wage an offensive war.
December 16, 1971: The Indo-Pakistani War and Bangladesh Liberation War both end.
December 17, 1398: The Battle of Delhi
December 17, 2010: A Tunisian street vendor in Sidi Bouzid, named Mohamed Bouazizi, sets himself on fire to protest mistreatment by corrupt municipal authorities. Public outrage over Bouazizi’s case sparked the Tunisian Revolution, which in turn sparked the Arab Spring movement.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for December 17:
75,260,378 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (20,754,780 active, +721,359 since yesterday)
1,667,434 reported fatalities (+12,825 since yesterday)
The RAND Corporation’s Shelly Culbertson argues that the magnitude of the global refugee population makes it imperative that governments and institutions stop treating it as a temporary problem, and offers several suggestions for the Biden administration to lead that shift:
One solution is to put more effort into the diplomacy of conflict prevention and resolution so people are not displaced at this scale in the first place. The United States and others could also offer more types of legal, flexible visa pathways for refugees to migrate. The United States has an opportunity both to increase the numbers of refugees it accepts—as Biden has pledged to do—and to encourage other countries to take additional refugees, including in other regions, such as Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The United Nations could work with host countries to gradually close camps or lift restrictions to freedom of movement for those within the camps. If refugees are legally allowed to work, they could also be expected to pay taxes, which could help finance their own public services such as education or health care. Donor funding could be prioritized to help host countries expand existing national public services, rather than supporting parallel services run by multilaterals in perpetuity. And finally, the United States could lead an initiative with other donor countries, the United Nations, and refugee host countries to promote self-sufficiency and human capital development for refugees, by enabling better access to education, access to banking and the internet, better tools for providing identity documents, and allowing refugees to use their skills in their occupations in their host countries.
MIDDLE EAST
TURKEY
1,955,680 confirmed coronavirus cases (+27,515)
17,364 reported fatalities (+243)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on Thursday and then told reporters that they “agreed to continue our struggle against our common enemies IS, PKK, and FETO.” He may have been embellishing a bit, if only because I have no idea why the prime minister of Iraq would care one way or another about the Gülen movement. But the call may signal a renewed move to dislodge the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) from northern Iraq. Probably the Kurdistan Regional Government would appreciate that.
IRAQ
580,449 confirmed cases (+1533)
12,650 reported fatalities (+14)
The Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights is warning of an assassination campaign targeting academics, after a university professor was murdered in Maysan province on Wednesday. The killings are likely related to the series of attacks on activists that has been ongoing since last fall’s anti-government protests. Which means they’re probably being carried out by Iraqi security forces—paramilitaries with the Popular Mobilization movement being the most likely suspects.
In an effort to pare down its projected 2021 budget deficit, the Iraqi government may devalue the dinar to 1450 per US dollar. Currently the official exchange rate is 1182 dinars to the dollar (the real/black market rate is a bit higher than that). The devaluation would benefit the Iraqi treasury, which receives payment in dollars for Iraqi oil exports but pays out state salaries in dinars. It would probably not be so great for the folks receiving those salaries.
LEBANON
153,049 confirmed cases (+2116)
1248 reported fatalities (+14)
The investigation into August’s explosion at Beirut’s seaport is taking a break while the people being investigated sue to have the lead investigator fired. Judge Fadi Sawan has charged Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former cabinet ministers with negligence in connection with the blast. Two of those former ministers are now asking the Lebanese Cassation Court to remove Sawan for “violating the constitution” somehow. Until the court issues a ruling the investigation has to cease.
KUWAIT
147,192 confirmed cases (+221)
913 reported fatalities (+0)
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser al-Sabah announced Thursday that the next GCC summit will be held in Saudi Arabia on January 5. Yesterday reporting emerged that the Saudis were pushing for more time to try to resolve their diplomatic dispute with Qatar, or at least make progress toward a resolution. The Saudis want very much for Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to attend the conference (he hasn’t attended a GCC summit since the dispute began in 2017) as a demonstration of intra-Gulf comity for the incoming Biden administration, and this delay should help move things along far enough that Tamim will show up. That doesn’t mean they’re actually going to resolve the dispute’s underlying issues by then, or at any time in the near future really.
ASIA
CHINA
86,777 confirmed cases (+7) on the mainland, 7900 confirmed cases (+96) in Hong Kong
4634 reported fatalities (+0) on the mainland, 124 reported fatalities (+1) in Hong Kong
The US and China continue to find new ways to not get along with one another:
The U.S. military accused China’s People’s Liberation Army of skipping a scheduled bilateral discussion on aviation and maritime safety this week, a rare snub that comes at a sensitive moment in the soured relationship between Washington and Beijing.
In a statement issued late Wednesday, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the PLA “declined to participate” in a teleconference meeting scheduled to run from Monday to Wednesday under a regular dialogue process that the two militaries established in a 1998 pact.
The Chinese absence is “another example that China does not honor its agreements, and this should serve as a reminder to all nations as they pursue agreements with China going forward,” Adm. Phil Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in the statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin acknowledged that the meeting didn’t take place and said the “responsibility lies entirely with the U.S. side.” Speaking at a routine briefing Thursday, he said the U.S. military’s allegations were “completely untenable and also irresponsible.”
Wang didn’t explain why the responsibility lies with the US and I kind of think this was meant as a last insult to the outgoing Trump administration, though with another month before the inauguration there’s plenty of time for more insults to come.
AFRICA
NIGERIA
76,207 confirmed cases (+1145)
1201 reported fatalities (+1)
Nigerian authorities say they’ve rescued 344 students who were abducted last week from a secondary school in Katsina state. According to the official account, security forces located the children and their captors in a forest in neighboring Zamfara state and conducted the operation that freed them on Thursday. Officials say they haven’t recovered all of the boys who were abducted, but have not offered any information as to the whereabouts of the unknown number still missing. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in a still somewhat dubious audio recording released earlier this week. Earlier in the day on Thursday the group released a video recording purporting to show some of the students. Boko Haram has not previously been known to have a presence in Katsina state so there’s some reason to doubt its claims, and the video recording has not been verified.
EUROPE
EUROPEAN UNION
Back in 2013, European Union member states agreed to end overfishing in their waters by 2020. Brace yourselves, because this is going to come as a shock: they’re not going to make it. EU members agreed Thursday to 2021 fishing limits that apparently blow well past anything that could be considered sustainable. How did this impossible to foresee event come to pass, you ask? Brexit! Or at least that’s the story. EU members are likely to lose access to UK waters, or at least see that access more tightly restricted. Nervous about the political fallout from that eventuality, Brussels is trying to cushion the blow at the expense of its fish stocks by keeping quotas high. This will likely have repercussions for EU fisheries in the future, but most of the leaders making this decision will be gone by then.
BELARUS
167,731 confirmed cases (+1834)
1299 reported fatalities (+8)
The EU announced another round of sanctions on Thursday targeting Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s inner circle. This time around it’s blacklisted seven companies and 29 individuals—two oligarchs and 27 Belarusian officials—with ties to Lukashenko. Brussels has already sanctioned Lukashenko personally over Belarus’s disputed August presidential election and the government campaign to suppress protests ever since. So far these measures do not appear to have had much effect.
FRANCE
2,427,316 confirmed cases (+18,254)
59,619 reported fatalities (+258)
French President Asclepius-er, I mean Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for COVID-19. Thoughts and prayers, etc. Macron joins Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and several other world leaders who have contracted the virus, though Macron is believed to be the first self-proclaimed Olympian deity to test positive. Also he may be the first world leader to contract the virus after publicly prioritizing mask wearing and social distancing. Several of his peers—Johnson, Trump, Jair Bolsonaro—were conspicuous for flaunting such guidelines, not adhering to them.
AMERICAS
According to the International Labor Organization, the unemployment rate across Latin America and the Caribbean has risen to 10.6 percent in 2020, up 2.5 percent from last year. The pandemic, obviously, bears much of the responsibility for that. With vaccines rolling out 2021 promises to be a bit more active economically, but the ILO projects unemployment to continue rising to over 11 percent before the situation begins to improve.
COLOMBIA
1,468,795 confirmed cases (+12,196)
39,787 reported fatalities (+227)
The International Crisis Group examines the tense situation along the Colombian-Venezuelan border:
The border between Colombia and Venezuela is the site of Latin America’s most prominent inter-state standoff and its worst humanitarian emergency. More than 2,000km long, the line dividing these countries is a magnet for guerrilla groups and organised crime, particularly on the Colombian side. Poverty, corruption and booming black markets – including trade in the world’s largest concentration of coca crops – drive the creation of new armed factions and instil ferocious competition among them. But the frontier is now caught up in turbulent regional politics as well. Venezuela’s political conflict has led to a feud between the governments in Caracas and Bogotá, putting both militaries on high alert; its economic woes have forced millions of Venezuelans to flee across a Colombian border now closed due to COVID-19. Rebuilding trust between the neighbours, restoring cooperation on health and security, restarting talks between the Colombian state and the country’s last guerrillas, and ensuring that migrants receive humanitarian aid will be vital to preserving peace on the frontier.
EL SALVADOR
42,397 confirmed cases (+0)
1227 reported fatalities (+8)
At War on the Rocks, the ICG’s Ivan Briscoe and Tiziano Breda discuss the potential pros and cons for Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in turning his (alleged) covert interactions with Salvadoran criminal gangs into a formal negotiation:
Given all the challenges, would Bukele really be willing to engage in a slippery, treacherous, and unpopular process like talking openly with gangs?
The potential rewards are undoubtedly great, and Bukele is uniquely positioned to carry out such a process, in part because of his communication skills and ability to mold public opinion. When earlier this year his government ordered military personnel into the Legislative Assembly’s chamber to strong-arm deputies into approving a loan for his security plan, his move sparked rebukes from foreign governments and civil society. Yet four out of five Salvadorans said it was the right thing to do. The likely victory of his Nuevas Ideas party in the 2021 elections will give him more legislative leeway, as they could fill public institutions with mostly faithful and loyal candidates. As jail intelligence documents mentioned in the El Faro report show, some of these candidates may have links to gangs. Whether this leads to greater sympathy with poor communities and support for negotiations or simply deepens criminal penetration of political life is hard to predict.
At the same time, the risks are huge. The odds of success in reaching a peace settlement are slender and, while the public may be more willing to give Bukele a chance than any other leader in recent memory, he will still invariably face a barrage of tough questions, should he seek to mount a process.
UNITED STATES
17,626,770 confirmed cases (+230,982)
317,928 reported fatalities (+3277)
POLITICO is claiming that the sprawling and months-long hack into multiple US government systems that was reported earlier this week penetrated systems at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. If true this means they penetrated networks controlling the US nuclear weapons stockpile. The DOE insists that the hack only compromised “business networks” and “has not impacted the mission essential national security functions of the department,” though from the way some officials have talked about this cyberattack I’m not sure they really know for certain yet what was and was not affected. I suppose the fact that the United States hasn’t consumed human civilization in a nuclear fireball could be taken as evidence that the worst case scenario was averted. But even if the weapons weren’t compromised, POLITICO reports that the hackers may have been able to collect information about vulnerabilities in the national power grid. Oh goodie!
Finally, the friendly folks at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies have put together a brand new report defending their favorite things in the whole wide world: the unceasing expansion of American Empire and the unending wars that accompany that expansion. They’re good people. I’ll spare you a direct link to this trash and instead share a summary from The New Republic’s Jacob Silverman:
“History, unfortunately, is a forever war,” according to Clifford D. May and Bradley Bowman, who seem never to have encountered a war they don’t like. This faux profundity comes midway through an essay in a collection published earlier this week by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank notorious for lobbying for war against Iran. If a quote like that one didn’t give the game away, then the title of the publication will: “Defending Forward: Securing America by Projecting Military Power Abroad.”
Don’t be fooled by the oxymoronic title: The overall thrust of this 116-page, clinically bloodthirsty document, which brings together hawkish chin-scratchers largely from the right wing of American political life, is to articulate a remarkable appetite for continued American war-making overseas. Invoking the usual array of bogeymen—Iran, North Korea, jihadist terrorists, along with the “revisionist powers” China and Russia—one section’s introduction warns that “some Americans are tempted to restrain American power abroad—infatuated with the superficially appealing hope that if the U.S. withdraws, threats will subside and not follow Americans home.”
Just don’t call it war. That is the purpose of “Defending Forward”: to contort the English language to convince a war-weary public that there is no alternative but to continue the status quo of “forward defense-in-depth military deployments,” as Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and defense secretary, euphemistically calls them. But the FDD publication succeeds only in reminding us that, after 19 years of a catastrophic, immoral, illegal war on terror, America’s hawks are simply out of answers.
Sounds like a fun read! And if I may say, “forward defense-in-depth military deployments” is one of the finest euphemisms I’ve ever seen, so kudos for that. Weirdly, though, FDD’s ideas for making America’s good wars into America’s great wars don’t seem to have swayed the Quincy Institute’s Andrew Bacevich:
The prescriptions contained in “Defending Forward” tend to be tiresome, derivative, inflammatory, and at times simply dishonest. Proponents of a more restrained approach to policy, one contributor writes, “believe that an overly powerful United States is the principal cause of the world’s problems.” He offers no evidence to support this charge.
Another contributor poses the faux question: “What happens after the United States goes home?” In fact, Americans have never gone home in any meaningful sense, choosing even before independence to engage the world in various ways, some successful, others less so. The imagery of cowering citizens hunkered down in their basements while the Gestapo bangs on the door substitutes fear mongering for reasoned analysis.
Presumably, FDD timed the release of this brief volume with expectations that it might prove useful to the incoming Biden administration as it assesses its approach to U.S. national security policy. Note to the Biden transition team: Save yourself the trouble; you’ve got more important things to do than to read this drivel.
fuck the fdd