Back in April, I wrote about the Maria Miller resignation. One of the stand-out observations that struck of how David Cameron handled (or mis-handled) the whole issue, was that it gave the impression that he ruled his government as though he was a Third-world dictator (or feudal lord): rewarding loyalty above the virtue of competence.
These points have been made about how Russia is ran: corruption and mismanagement is allowed to run almost uncontrolled as long as those lower down the chain of command are loyal to the centre. With the ruthless application of Prime Ministerial privilege seen at the reshuffle this month, the same accusations have been levelled at Cameron: that he has (seemingly inexplicably) rewarded loyalty above all else and punished competence.
Ministers who have barely put a foot wrong in office (David Willetts; Owen Paterson; as well as other lesser-known figures) have been demoted or sacked, without a real reason. For some of them (such as Paterson), the only reason that makes any sense is that he was against some of Cameron's social policy (e.g. same-sex marriage). In other words, he was disloyal.
Michael Gove's demotion to Chief Whip looks like a ruthless piece of surgery. While sympathizers argue that it was right to move him from Education after becoming so unpopular with professionals, an equally-likely explanation was that Cameron never forgot (or forgave) the blistering row Gove caused with May over the "Trojan Horse" scandal. This explanation looks more likely given Cameron's reputation for never forgetting a slight or a "disloyal" remark.
Given that there was less than a year to go till the end of the parliament, and that Gove had done all the hard work with his controversial "reforms", it makes little sense to remove him. What purpose would any new figure at Education serve, given that they would quite possibly be there for less than a year? The forced change can only have a superficial effect for the rest of the parliament; which belies Cameron's superficial intent.
Winners and losers
Considering that Cameron had up until now been so reluctant to make any significant changes to his ministerial appointments, why the sudden wielding of the butcher's knife, less than a year from a general election?
Comparisons have been made to Harold Macmillan's "night of long knives", when a third of his cabinet was sacked; Macmillan himself was ousted by his own party a year later. Similarly, the mood of ruthless desperation that clouded Thatcher's ousting of Geoffrey Howe in 1989 bears some comparison with Cameron's treatment of Gove: a clearly-able (if divisive) figure in government and in the party that has been replaced by a non-entity.
By looking at the winners and losers it is possible (if difficult) to make some sense of Cameron's motivations.
The "Greybeards" (namely, Ken Clarke and Sir George Young), as well as the "Europhiles" were the main victims to Cameron's knife, losing out to a few more Euro-sceptic figures in government: the main recipient of this was Philip Hammond being promoted from Defence to the Foreign Office; however, he is also now one of the elder members of government, having replaced William Hague.
Similarly, figures who are against Cameron's social policy have been punished (such as the high-profile Owen Paterson). Following from this, it appears the best way to be rewarded in Cameron's thinking is to be a middling Euro-sceptic who is in favour of a liberal social policy. Not surprisingly, there are very few of these types of people!
At a superficial level, the main benificiaries of this reshuffle have been younger women; but again, this is clearly only at a superficial level. Given that many of the promotions are of middling rank in any case (the most high-profile being Gove's replacement, Nicky Morgan), the effect on government is truthfully meaningless.
The main purpose that these changes serve are to get politically get rid of figures that are not fully loyal to Cameron's "vision" - whatever that is. The ministers that have remained in place are the Osborne, May, Jeremy Hunt, and Iain Duncan Smith. The latter, it is worth mentioning, allegedly put up a great fight to keep his job; which just goes to show that Cameron can be as weak at one moment as he can be ruthless the next.
The fact that Hunt and IDS remain in their places says much about Cameron's value of putting loyalty (ideological as well as personal) above competence or popularity. IDS has presided over a chaotic and disgraceful welfare "reform" programme, while Jeremy Hunt's loyal (if cringe-worthy) performance during the Murdoch scandal has been rewarded with a secure place at the high table of government.
After all this, what does it tell us about what Cameron is thinking? Cameron's "vision" is as superficial and meaningless as the appointments he has made with this latest reshuffle. It tells us that Cameron simply wants to be surrounded by figures that will not intellectually or politically challenge him.
His "vision" as such is an mutually-incompatible mess of ideas: to be socially liberal towards the gay community, but harsh and uncompromising towards the welfare state; to appear Euro-sceptic on one hand, but sell off national assets to European states on the other.
It is no wonder that Ukip are holding on to a solid bloc of the electorate; they are the one party that seems absolutely sure what its main philosophy is. Judging from the meaning of this reshuffle, Cameron's only philosophy seems to be self-preservation.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The loss of MH17, Russia and the West's response: a parable of the times
The events leading up to the downing of flight MH17 have the appearance of something from a Hollywood disaster movie. Collating the various bits of information that are known (or strongly suspected, based on circumstantial evidence), the story seems to have run like this:
In the war zone that is eastern Ukraine, rebels boasted in late that June they had succeeded in gaining an advanced anti-aircraft "Buk" missile system from a Ukrainian military base. More recently, the pro-Russian rebels had in the past week acquired some new heavy weaponry, including anti-aircraft hardware. It has been suggested that this was sneaked across the porous border with Russia while Putin was in Brazil watching the world cup final. It is reasonable to assume that either the rebels were trained to use it, or someone trained how to use it was there with them (given what happened with flight MH17, the former still seems more likely - more on why later).
That was last weekend. In the next three days following that, the rebels succeeded in downing Ukrainian military aircraft, with a much higher success rate than had previously been possible.
From what is known so far, Thursday's flight MH17 left Amsterdam and passed through Ukrainian airspace at a lower-than-normal altitude (but above 32,000 feet), as the higher "lanes" were busy. Ukrainian airspace is the most common transit route for Europe-South-east Asia air carriers, as it is the most fuel-efficient. That being said, some airlines had already decided to take a different route due to safety concerns. Malaysia Airlines decided to take the route anyway, as did some others. However, rather than taking the normal, more southerly, route, due to the risk of thunderstorms, the plane took a more unusual, northerly route, passing directly over the war-zone of eastern Ukraine.
Fresh from the success of downing a number of Ukrainian aircraft in a matter of a few days, the circumstantial evidence (as well as the posting on social media, later deleted) suggests that the rebels' "Buk" radar saw a plane on its scope. Eager at the prospect of another "kill", someone pressed a button, without thinking too carefully to properly check the signature of the plane first. They assumed it was a Ukrainian military transport plane. It wasn't. Given the fact that the "someone" seems to have confused a civilian airliner with a military transport plane (or in haste, didn't bother to check), it would be unlikely that a fully-trained individual (i.e. Russian "expert") would make that horrific mistake.
The story above is the one that the Western media agree most easily fits the bill, and given the circumstantial evidence, this is hard to refute.
Russia's defence
On the other hand, Russia's defence (though it is looking shakier by the day) is to bring up the question of motive. The question of "motive" neatly side-steps the actual circumstantial evidence (that the missile-launch was a horrible mistake). As Russia is keen to press: who gains from this? Certainly not Russia; only Ukraine.
The Kremlin's response to the disaster has been to blame Ukraine, while the West blames Russia. Meanwhile, it is faintly absurd to see leaders from both sides talk of the need for a full independent investigation, while they both squarely accuse the other.Russia talks of a conspiracy by Ukraine (with Western involvement?) to "frame" the separatists.
Put in this way, of course Ukraine would have a motive. But there is the problem of actual evidence to support it, which Russia does not have. Russian conspiracy stories have been something of a cultural tradition going back decades, if not centuries, so this is a story that is easy to "sell" to the Russian public. Riding on a wave of nationalist irridentism, Putin is enjoying high levels of popularity. It would be hard to blame him for wanting to do the same with the downing of MH17: it's a Western conspiracy; the West is encircling Russia; Russia is continually being undermined. This talk plays well in the Russian hinterland.
Putin's choice, and the West's nightmare
In some ways, while many the West emotionally blame Putin for the shooting-down of MH17, this tragedy is as much about the choices made by the West as by Putin.
Of course, it's much easier to see the link between Putin's choice to up the stakes in the war in eastern Ukraine. The consequence of giving advanced anti-aircraft systems to people who have been seen to be psychologically-unstable and morally-vacuous, is that events like what happened to MH17 are possible, even likely. Was it only a matter of time?
The West is now the spectator to how the Russia-backed separatists operate. As has been reported, the bodies of the dead were robbed of their valuables; even their credit cards were used. This behaviour was typical in the aftermath of medieval wars - opportunists quickly came to salvage valuables from the dead. Now the West knows first-hand that such behaviour happens in the 21st century as well. As this author has said before, human nature doesn't change: medieval (or feudal) thinking exists in the modern age; we simply have modern technology to mask over it.
In some ways, it almost feels like the actions of the separatists towards the many dead Westerners from the plane crash are deliberately mocking them, and the attitude of the West in general. The remains of them dead were left in the summer heat of the fields for nearly three days before being transferred to a number of train wagons. This feels like some kind of macabre public humiliation of the West's impotence: leaving the remains of rich Westerners to be looted and left to decay like the worthless, leftover corpses from a medieval battle-field; then, having them put into a train wagon, treated almost as though they were just carcasses of meat.
For the West, such behaviour may well be horribly reminiscent of the way victims were treated back in the Second World War, and a savage reminder of the cold-hearted neighbourhood that Europe now co-exists in with Russia and its proxies. This is the nightmare that the West has brought into creation through its own bankrupt morality.
As I said before, this is partially due to the choices of the West as much as Russia. By failing to with-hold to any worthwhile principles or consistency, the West has allowed itself to appear (or become) morally vacuous. In such a situation, this only encourages others to do the same.
There was a time when America and Europe idealistically used their combined moral authority to encourage the same in others; for good or ill, that "moral authority" came to be called "liberal interventionism". There was a time when it was seen as a force for good.
That time has long passed.
What remains is a morally-vacuous world where the various "players" simply do whatever they feel they can get away with. Perhaps it was always like this, and optimists were simply deluding themselves; but the realists are now the ones who are truly in charge.
People like Vladimir Putin are supreme at being ruthless opportunists, and it is people like him who are dictating events. No-one in the West is; no-one in the West has a clue what they are doing.
In the war zone that is eastern Ukraine, rebels boasted in late that June they had succeeded in gaining an advanced anti-aircraft "Buk" missile system from a Ukrainian military base. More recently, the pro-Russian rebels had in the past week acquired some new heavy weaponry, including anti-aircraft hardware. It has been suggested that this was sneaked across the porous border with Russia while Putin was in Brazil watching the world cup final. It is reasonable to assume that either the rebels were trained to use it, or someone trained how to use it was there with them (given what happened with flight MH17, the former still seems more likely - more on why later).
That was last weekend. In the next three days following that, the rebels succeeded in downing Ukrainian military aircraft, with a much higher success rate than had previously been possible.
From what is known so far, Thursday's flight MH17 left Amsterdam and passed through Ukrainian airspace at a lower-than-normal altitude (but above 32,000 feet), as the higher "lanes" were busy. Ukrainian airspace is the most common transit route for Europe-South-east Asia air carriers, as it is the most fuel-efficient. That being said, some airlines had already decided to take a different route due to safety concerns. Malaysia Airlines decided to take the route anyway, as did some others. However, rather than taking the normal, more southerly, route, due to the risk of thunderstorms, the plane took a more unusual, northerly route, passing directly over the war-zone of eastern Ukraine.
Fresh from the success of downing a number of Ukrainian aircraft in a matter of a few days, the circumstantial evidence (as well as the posting on social media, later deleted) suggests that the rebels' "Buk" radar saw a plane on its scope. Eager at the prospect of another "kill", someone pressed a button, without thinking too carefully to properly check the signature of the plane first. They assumed it was a Ukrainian military transport plane. It wasn't. Given the fact that the "someone" seems to have confused a civilian airliner with a military transport plane (or in haste, didn't bother to check), it would be unlikely that a fully-trained individual (i.e. Russian "expert") would make that horrific mistake.
The story above is the one that the Western media agree most easily fits the bill, and given the circumstantial evidence, this is hard to refute.
Russia's defence
On the other hand, Russia's defence (though it is looking shakier by the day) is to bring up the question of motive. The question of "motive" neatly side-steps the actual circumstantial evidence (that the missile-launch was a horrible mistake). As Russia is keen to press: who gains from this? Certainly not Russia; only Ukraine.
The Kremlin's response to the disaster has been to blame Ukraine, while the West blames Russia. Meanwhile, it is faintly absurd to see leaders from both sides talk of the need for a full independent investigation, while they both squarely accuse the other.Russia talks of a conspiracy by Ukraine (with Western involvement?) to "frame" the separatists.
Put in this way, of course Ukraine would have a motive. But there is the problem of actual evidence to support it, which Russia does not have. Russian conspiracy stories have been something of a cultural tradition going back decades, if not centuries, so this is a story that is easy to "sell" to the Russian public. Riding on a wave of nationalist irridentism, Putin is enjoying high levels of popularity. It would be hard to blame him for wanting to do the same with the downing of MH17: it's a Western conspiracy; the West is encircling Russia; Russia is continually being undermined. This talk plays well in the Russian hinterland.
Putin's choice, and the West's nightmare
In some ways, while many the West emotionally blame Putin for the shooting-down of MH17, this tragedy is as much about the choices made by the West as by Putin.
Of course, it's much easier to see the link between Putin's choice to up the stakes in the war in eastern Ukraine. The consequence of giving advanced anti-aircraft systems to people who have been seen to be psychologically-unstable and morally-vacuous, is that events like what happened to MH17 are possible, even likely. Was it only a matter of time?
The West is now the spectator to how the Russia-backed separatists operate. As has been reported, the bodies of the dead were robbed of their valuables; even their credit cards were used. This behaviour was typical in the aftermath of medieval wars - opportunists quickly came to salvage valuables from the dead. Now the West knows first-hand that such behaviour happens in the 21st century as well. As this author has said before, human nature doesn't change: medieval (or feudal) thinking exists in the modern age; we simply have modern technology to mask over it.
In some ways, it almost feels like the actions of the separatists towards the many dead Westerners from the plane crash are deliberately mocking them, and the attitude of the West in general. The remains of them dead were left in the summer heat of the fields for nearly three days before being transferred to a number of train wagons. This feels like some kind of macabre public humiliation of the West's impotence: leaving the remains of rich Westerners to be looted and left to decay like the worthless, leftover corpses from a medieval battle-field; then, having them put into a train wagon, treated almost as though they were just carcasses of meat.
For the West, such behaviour may well be horribly reminiscent of the way victims were treated back in the Second World War, and a savage reminder of the cold-hearted neighbourhood that Europe now co-exists in with Russia and its proxies. This is the nightmare that the West has brought into creation through its own bankrupt morality.
As I said before, this is partially due to the choices of the West as much as Russia. By failing to with-hold to any worthwhile principles or consistency, the West has allowed itself to appear (or become) morally vacuous. In such a situation, this only encourages others to do the same.
There was a time when America and Europe idealistically used their combined moral authority to encourage the same in others; for good or ill, that "moral authority" came to be called "liberal interventionism". There was a time when it was seen as a force for good.
That time has long passed.
What remains is a morally-vacuous world where the various "players" simply do whatever they feel they can get away with. Perhaps it was always like this, and optimists were simply deluding themselves; but the realists are now the ones who are truly in charge.
People like Vladimir Putin are supreme at being ruthless opportunists, and it is people like him who are dictating events. No-one in the West is; no-one in the West has a clue what they are doing.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Britain's "establishment": why it is corrupt.
Corruption takes many forms in society: the most famous is bribery, but there are many other forms that corruption takes. In the modern world, because bribery has become one in the same as "corruption", there has been a tendency to ignore its many other forms.
The recent coming to light of a potentially-horrifying child abuse scandal going to the heart of Britain's establishment is another sign of this.
It has been a very bad time for the Conservative government recently: with many key government figures being part-and-parcel of the establishment itself, their very lifestyle and approach to life is being questioned as it has never been before.
The appointment of Baroness Butler-Sloss as the head of the inquiry has been questioned by many. More cynically-minded observers have called it an "inside job" and setting the stalls for a government whitewash, like the Hutton inquiry did into the death of David Kelly ten years ago.
More objectively-speaking, and disregarding of any sinister motives, there is already evidence that in previous investigations she was involved in (that also involved the "establishment" in on way or another) she deliberately decided not to "rock the boat" and ignored allegations and evidence of child abuse. This all doesn't even mention the fact she is the sister of the avocate-general who was in charge when the allegations of abuse first came out thirty years ago.
The baroness herself strongly denies any willful ignorance on her part, and also vehemently denies any conflict of interest regarding her brother. But who is she to say so? As a judge herself, she surely should realise the problem of adjudicating over something that her brother previously looked at - otherwise, it would make her an appallingly-ignorant servant of justice.
What this all adds up to is not so much an "establishment" that is "sinister", but protective; in fact, institutionally-protective. In other words, corrupt.
Power for the sake of power
The establishment as an institution has existed for centuries, and has become masterful as its own self-preservation. The inevitable result of this system is corruption, and the inevitable growth (and acceptance) of immoral behaviour within the system. When the purpose of a system becomes simply its own self-preservation above all else, the inevitable result is to tolerate evil deeds for the sake of "the system".
It is easy to make some comparisons.
The author has written previously about the growth of Islamic extremism. While of course the comparison is very far from similar, the moral degradation of "the system" shows the same characteristics. In the case of Islam, the silence of moderates has allowed the amoral extremists to dominate the narrative and turn Islam into a creed of hate and violence.
In Britain's establishment, the reason why the child abuse scandal was allowed to continue for so long was simple: the "normals" within the system were too scared for their own fate, or too worried about the fate of "the system" to bring the "abnormals" with the system to proper justice. In other words, by turning a blind eye, they allowed evil to continue and grow. This kind of environment is that which allows amoral behaviour to thrive without restraint.
No wonder there seem to have been a disproportionately-large number of "abnormal" people within Britain's establishment - the security of being within "the system" would have only encouraged them even more...
Former politicians like Norman Tebbitt are coming out and admitting that this behaviour may well have gone on for years. No-one did anything because no-one wanted to risk harming the system.
Even so (and as just as likely an explanation), in such a system, even "normals" that had heard about rumours of amoral behaviour by "abnormals" may have become so wrapped-up in the establishment's own propaganda that they would not have believed such behaviour was possible. Put in this light, after years of being educated into being fed the "line" that the establishment was the best thing for Britain and what kept Britain going, many insiders genuinely believed it. It represents the self-delusional thinking of members of a closed society, perpetuating the lie and passing it on from one generation to the next - like in any corrupt system of power.
A select committee interview with the Home Office's chief civil servant was equally (if not more) damning. It was clear that the head civil servant had no idea how hundreds of files relating to child abuse allegations had "disappeared" (ha ha). Similarly, he had no idea what the investigator he had hired to look into the issue was actually investigating. In fact, it looked like the Home Office's chief civil servant know very little about anything.
In this case, it looked like it was better for an "establishment" figure to look like a fool than a rat.
Cloak and dagger
What is Britain's "establishment" actually for? Those in the system defend it as being part of Britain's culture, as defending Britain's symbols and way of life. In practical terms, though, the "establishment" equates its own interests with Britain's interests. In that sense, it may even be compared to some elements of how Franco's regime in Spain ran the country.
While Britain lauds itself as a modern democracy, it is the most feudalistic developed state in the West: with a House Of Lords, and a "LibLabCon" consensus that lives in its own Westminster bubble, separate from the concerns of normal Britain.
Apart from the "closed" system of the establishment, with the many cover-ups that preserve its system, advances in modern technology have made Britain into near-total surveillance state, where the intelligence community routinely records what people are doing online and on their phones. Why? Most "normal" people in the establishment talk of only the best motives to protect people, but its also clear that the more sinister members of the "establishment" also use information for another reason: blackmail.
So this is how the establishment protects itself - through cover-up and blackmail. Having an "Oxbridge" education simply means you speak in tongues while doing so, and thus sound all the more innocuous and harmless to your intended "victim". Both methods go hand-in-hand with a system of corruption. Which begs the question: what "system" does Britain's establishment believe in?
Surely it is simply "corruption" by any other name.
Britain can have its "democracy", as long as Britain's establishment is free to do what it does best.
The recent coming to light of a potentially-horrifying child abuse scandal going to the heart of Britain's establishment is another sign of this.
It has been a very bad time for the Conservative government recently: with many key government figures being part-and-parcel of the establishment itself, their very lifestyle and approach to life is being questioned as it has never been before.
The appointment of Baroness Butler-Sloss as the head of the inquiry has been questioned by many. More cynically-minded observers have called it an "inside job" and setting the stalls for a government whitewash, like the Hutton inquiry did into the death of David Kelly ten years ago.
More objectively-speaking, and disregarding of any sinister motives, there is already evidence that in previous investigations she was involved in (that also involved the "establishment" in on way or another) she deliberately decided not to "rock the boat" and ignored allegations and evidence of child abuse. This all doesn't even mention the fact she is the sister of the avocate-general who was in charge when the allegations of abuse first came out thirty years ago.
The baroness herself strongly denies any willful ignorance on her part, and also vehemently denies any conflict of interest regarding her brother. But who is she to say so? As a judge herself, she surely should realise the problem of adjudicating over something that her brother previously looked at - otherwise, it would make her an appallingly-ignorant servant of justice.
What this all adds up to is not so much an "establishment" that is "sinister", but protective; in fact, institutionally-protective. In other words, corrupt.
Power for the sake of power
The establishment as an institution has existed for centuries, and has become masterful as its own self-preservation. The inevitable result of this system is corruption, and the inevitable growth (and acceptance) of immoral behaviour within the system. When the purpose of a system becomes simply its own self-preservation above all else, the inevitable result is to tolerate evil deeds for the sake of "the system".
It is easy to make some comparisons.
The author has written previously about the growth of Islamic extremism. While of course the comparison is very far from similar, the moral degradation of "the system" shows the same characteristics. In the case of Islam, the silence of moderates has allowed the amoral extremists to dominate the narrative and turn Islam into a creed of hate and violence.
In Britain's establishment, the reason why the child abuse scandal was allowed to continue for so long was simple: the "normals" within the system were too scared for their own fate, or too worried about the fate of "the system" to bring the "abnormals" with the system to proper justice. In other words, by turning a blind eye, they allowed evil to continue and grow. This kind of environment is that which allows amoral behaviour to thrive without restraint.
No wonder there seem to have been a disproportionately-large number of "abnormal" people within Britain's establishment - the security of being within "the system" would have only encouraged them even more...
Former politicians like Norman Tebbitt are coming out and admitting that this behaviour may well have gone on for years. No-one did anything because no-one wanted to risk harming the system.
Even so (and as just as likely an explanation), in such a system, even "normals" that had heard about rumours of amoral behaviour by "abnormals" may have become so wrapped-up in the establishment's own propaganda that they would not have believed such behaviour was possible. Put in this light, after years of being educated into being fed the "line" that the establishment was the best thing for Britain and what kept Britain going, many insiders genuinely believed it. It represents the self-delusional thinking of members of a closed society, perpetuating the lie and passing it on from one generation to the next - like in any corrupt system of power.
A select committee interview with the Home Office's chief civil servant was equally (if not more) damning. It was clear that the head civil servant had no idea how hundreds of files relating to child abuse allegations had "disappeared" (ha ha). Similarly, he had no idea what the investigator he had hired to look into the issue was actually investigating. In fact, it looked like the Home Office's chief civil servant know very little about anything.
In this case, it looked like it was better for an "establishment" figure to look like a fool than a rat.
Cloak and dagger
What is Britain's "establishment" actually for? Those in the system defend it as being part of Britain's culture, as defending Britain's symbols and way of life. In practical terms, though, the "establishment" equates its own interests with Britain's interests. In that sense, it may even be compared to some elements of how Franco's regime in Spain ran the country.
While Britain lauds itself as a modern democracy, it is the most feudalistic developed state in the West: with a House Of Lords, and a "LibLabCon" consensus that lives in its own Westminster bubble, separate from the concerns of normal Britain.
Apart from the "closed" system of the establishment, with the many cover-ups that preserve its system, advances in modern technology have made Britain into near-total surveillance state, where the intelligence community routinely records what people are doing online and on their phones. Why? Most "normal" people in the establishment talk of only the best motives to protect people, but its also clear that the more sinister members of the "establishment" also use information for another reason: blackmail.
So this is how the establishment protects itself - through cover-up and blackmail. Having an "Oxbridge" education simply means you speak in tongues while doing so, and thus sound all the more innocuous and harmless to your intended "victim". Both methods go hand-in-hand with a system of corruption. Which begs the question: what "system" does Britain's establishment believe in?
Surely it is simply "corruption" by any other name.
Britain can have its "democracy", as long as Britain's establishment is free to do what it does best.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
A real-life "Game Of Thrones": The Multi-polar world of the 21st century
Events of the last five years have displayed the shift in the global centres of power.
Fifteen years ago, the USA was the unchallenged "superpower" (or as the French called it, "hyperpower") in the globe. By 1999, the USA had shown itself to be the world's supreme arbiter of justice, in the Kosovo war using the moral and military support of its NATO allies to bring an end to an attempted genocide and force about a change in government in Serbia (then still calling itself "Yugoslavia").
Today, the limits of America's power abroad are clear to be seen. The reign of George W. Bush displayed the amoral extent of US foreign policy to intervene and change governments in its own interests. The nadir of that was when, in 2003, post-war Iraq was ruled for a year by an American "viceroy", L.Paul Bremer III. In fact, for all his good intentions, Bremer was keen to emphasize his independence from Washington at the time; inadvertently declaring Iraq as his own personal domain. Such comments laid bare the ineptness and ignorance of American understanding of the world beyond its borders, and the lack of understanding of the places they were "intervening" in.
The Obama administration has gone to the other extreme, declaring a mostly "hands off" approach to foreign policy. The result has been an inconsistent application of that approach, in some ways similar to the foreign policy decisions made by Bill Clinton - intervening in some cases (such as Kosovo), in a half-hearted way in others (such as Bosnia and Somalia), and sometimes not at all (such as Rwanda). Clinton's approach could be explained as a steep learning curve, from the disaster in Somalia at the start of his tenure, to the success in Kosovo at the tail end of it.
But Obama's inconsistency has more been a victim to events and the political reality of the world around him. America is no longer able to act as the "supreme arbiter of justice" as it did at the end of Clinton administration, and much of the way through the Bush administration. Nowadays, America's power has been leeched off by other rising powers, such as China and a resurgent Russia. All its actions have to be tempered by what the reaction will be from its rivals. If the USA can intervene in Libya, then why can't Russia "intervene" in Ukraine? America's inconsistent and morally-ambiguous foreign policy is now coming back to bite it where it hurts.
In the popular TV series "Game Of Thrones", the land of Westeros is the setting for the "War Of Seven Kingdoms". In many ways, the globe can be effectively carved up into seven similar spheres of influence: The USA, China, Europe (the EU), Russia, The Arab World, Latin America, and India. Like in "Game Of Thrones", each of these centres of power is competing with the others for control, using both fair means and foul.
Going through them alphabetically, these "centres of power" can be summarised like this:
The Arab World
The "Arab World" stretches from the Straights of Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf. An excellent article and graphic by the "Economist" summarises its current status. Historically, the Arab World hasn't been united into anything approaching a coherent political entity for nearly five hundred years. The current collection of states owe their borders due to agreements and lines on a map drawn up by Europeans over the last hundred years, much of it as a result of the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, their former masters. The result is something like a squabbling group of feudalistic satraps (some of whom claim to believe in "democracy") who control varying degrees of territory, resources and population. Collectively, they belong to a loose alliance that calls itself the "Arab League". Much of the wealth in this part of the world is focused at the eastern extremity, on the oil-rich lands around the Persian Gulf.
In the years since the Arab Spring, the relative stability that occurred between these many "players" has been disturbed, and in some parts, completely destroyed. Syria and now Iraq are in a state of civil war; Libya is teetering quite close to one; Yemen likewise. Within the Arab World, different (and surprising) alliances have been formed due to the rise of Islamic extremism; the one true beneficiary of the Arab Spring.
The USA and Europe look on, trying to make sense of the confusion and fluid allegiances, and make a mess of trying to choose the "right" sort of ally (Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Qatar?). Russia looks on with interest, plotting its own allegiances with duplicitous cunning; China, like a true merchant, always follows where the money is.
China
These days, China is at its pinnacle of development and potential in world history. China has been one of the world's pre-eminent powers for the last two thousand years, the chaos and relative decline of most of 19th and 20th centuries notwithstanding.
China today is ran as a highly-organised (and efficient) hierarchical capitalist state. While the powers of the USA and Europe disapprove of its human rights record and the fact that it is not a democracy, China's internal political system tends to reward efficiency and (on the whole) punishes bad organisation and corruption. While many critics call Russia a "modern feudal state", China's hierarchy rewards efficiency above anything else; in Russia, the system rewards loyalty to the centre above anything else. As a result of this, China's population understands how to get on; a simple work ethic is rewarded. It may not look pretty to Western eyes, but it works. China's government is popular with its people for the simple fact that living standards and a Chinese person's way of life has changed beyond imagining in the last twenty years; for example, China's thriving middle class is the same size as the entire population of Europe, or the USA or the Arab World. Words like "democracy" are meaningless in such a context. China has always been a strong state, and will continue to be so.
China's attitude to the abroad seems very straightforward: what it can get out of it. Like any great power, what China looks for above all is one thing: security. Having a natural merchant's mindset, China sees security in money, trade and resources. It is for this reason that it has gained larger economic control over some the resource-heavy parts of Africa, as well as a larger stake in the energy market in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Its "String Of Pearls" policy may look like an act of aggression to Western eyes, but this tells us more about Western insecurity about the USA and Europe's relative decline. Angry rhetoric about its claims over the South and East China Seas may also be a combination of nationalism at home and territorial security of its "near abroad". In this sense, it looks somewhat comparable with Russia, but minus the psychological insecurity.
Europe (The EU)
Like the Arab World, Europe is a collection of states; the difference is that most of them sit together as part of a super-national entity that has legal and economic authority over them, called the EU. Most of the EU shares the same currency, which is effectively controlled by Germany, the EU's biggest economic power. In many ways, the modern-day EU shares the same characteristics of the former European empire, Austria-Hungary: as a multi-national super-state with a parliament full of different languages, ruled by a unaccountable and essentially autocratic government that struggles to adapt to changing circumstances.
While the individual states of the EU are all recognised as democracies (though some far from perfect), the legal authority in Brussels that rules over them and dictates law to them, is not a democratic entity in the real sense of the word. Its "government" is appointed through opaque negotiation, while the "parliament" has little real control on the executive. In essence, the various nation-states that are part of the EU have given up many of their legal powers to a centralised European autocracy.
The contradiction here is that while the many nation-states of Europe have willingly surrendered power over their internal affairs to the EU, these nation-states still have almost complete independence in foreign affairs. While this works fine for the likes of Germany, it makes smaller countries look ridiculous on the world stage when they have to balance their commitments; rather like how the original Thirteen Colonies that made up the USA after their independence all had their own foreign affairs between gaining independence in 1783, and becoming a proper federal state, in 1789.
Of course, the EU does have its own foreign policy (and foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, since 2009), but when it has tried to create a combined front (such as over Ukraine), it has not taken long for the individual states' whims to take over, or be manipulated by outside "players". Just like with the Arab League.
India
In many ways, India is the polar opposite to China. While India is the "world power" with easily the second-biggest population, it is a democracy compared to China's one-party state. The other major difference is that while China is a highly-organised, centralised state, India is a highly corrupt, disorganised state. While in China, everyone knows who is in control, in India, it often appears that no-one is in control. The culture of corruption that infiltrates all levels of the government means that it is almost impossible to get things done. While China has leapt forward economically in the last twenty years, India's pace of growth has been far more modest; and that is down to a combination of corruption and inefficiency. While India's middle class has been growing in an impressive manner, without reforms in the basics of how the state is governed, this is simply a detail.
The talk of India becoming one of the "big players" on the world stage (as the USA would like to see) still looks like a far-off pipe-dream. There's being a democracy, and then there's "democracy" that paralyzes the decision-making process. This, combined with corruption and inefficiency, is what is keeping India on the lower rankings of the "players" on the world stage.
This compares to, say, Turkey: a nation with a population many times smaller than India, but has an efficiently-organised economy and a very well-structured government agenda that has allowed Turkey far greater influence with other (bigger) world powers than would have been thought possible.
India's "foreign policy", if it can be seriously called that, seems an incoherent tangle of ideas. Different politicians from the main parties have contradictory ideas about the future direction of the country; without a coherent sense of purpose, India will be going nowhere quickly, and will be prey to the designs of other, more powerful, rivals.
Latin America
Within Latin America (the American continent south of the Rio Grande), Brazil is by far the biggest power. Brazil's rise in the past ten years has been impressive, and has been helped with its growing energy market. Like India, Latin America is a "rising power", not a "risen power" like China, or to a much lesser extent, Russia. The main advantage that LatAm (primarily a result of Brazil's success, and to a lesser extent, Mexico's economic growth) has over India is that LatAm's foundations are firmer.
Brazil as the largest power in the region has recently started to tap into its potential: using its growing oil sector, and wealth, it has begun to build its economic independence on assertive foreign relations. The USA once considered LatAm to be its backyard, and historically claimed rights to the Western hemisphere. That changed with the more assertive Socialist government of "Lula" DaSilva a decade ago, and has continued with his successor, Dilma Rousseff.
This realignment of LatAm relations (essentially an assertion of independence) coincided with the first years of the Bush administration. A rising China was seen as a useful partner, LatAm welcomed China's hands-off approach, and a new economic alliance was born. By the end of the decade - and coinciding with the financial crisis - Brazil's oil independence meant that it had also become more assertive. This meant that Brazil became one of China's main rivals for influence and resources in sub-Saharan Africa.
With Europe consumed with its own economic problems, and the new Obama administration taking a more hands-off approach to some areas of foreign relations, much of Africa's resources were effectively up for grabs. Some African nations looked to Brazil as a more "European-like" partner to deal with, with the advantage of being geographically closer than Europe itself or China.
In other areas, LatAm's foreign policy has generally been to go against whatever the USA (or Europe) were doing. This explains the economic closeness to China, as well as healthy relations with Russia. In a primitive sense, some voices in the West would see LatAm as going from being on the side of the "good guys" to that of the "bad guys".
Russia
The author has spoken before about Russia's place in the world: its mentality is due to a combination of geography and history. It has been called a "modern-day feudal state" by some (although that term can be used about many places in the world). Historically, it has always been a "resource exporter": a hundred years ago and more, it was a grain exporter; now it is an oil and gas exporter. In many ways, the Kremlin is one of the archetypal "courts" of world power, as it has been for centuries. The fact that the current resident is not a "tsar" but there by popular will is a historical detail.
Russia has always been a country needed to be ruled by will-power. Its greatest time of weakness, in the late 16th and early 17th century (called the "Time Of Troubles"), was when the country was overrun by foreign powers, eventually leading to the rise of the Romanov family, who ruled the empire for the next three hundred years. The 1990s are seen by contemporary Russians in something of a similar light: a time of weakness and anarchy. Vladimir Putin changed all that.
Russia's foreign policy has always been to defend its interests in whatever way it can: if it means siding with butchers, so be it. Is the USA so very different, in spite of its claim to the highest motives? From Chechnya to Syria, Russia's interests are the Kremlin's interests, and vice versa.
Russia's historic antipathy towards the USA, and pragmatism elsewhere, have meant that Russia has made allies of China and Latin America, while following a policy of divide-and-rule in the Arab World and Europe. This has left the USA at perhaps its weakest moment in foreign relations in decades, perhaps since the start of the Second World War.
The USA
The USA's geo-political situation is well-known, as summarised at the start of the article. The USA's internal situation is akin to being divided between two factions (red and blue), managed by an kleptocratic elite - calling the USA a properly-functioning democracy is a bad joke. While productive and rich, the "empire" is going through a period of introspection, not seen since before the Second World War. Tired after fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for thirteen years, the American people now see that war abroad creates more problems than solutions. As I write, Iraq is effectively divided in three by sectarian and ethnic divisions, and Afghanistan looks like it may go the same way, de facto divided into a north and south along ethnic lines after a disputed presidential election. Karzai was the "strongman" that held the US-occupied country together; with him gone, the motivation to stay together becomes tenuous.
This would be the nightmare scenario for American foreign policy makers and military planners, with so much blood and treasure poured into a bottomless pit of chaos.
To be fair, I have omitted Japan, which is a huge oversight considering its economic might (if negligible military might). Somehow, Japan appears to carry less obvious geo-political influence over its neighbours than, say, Germany has over the rest of Europe. This has more to do with Japan's reliance on the USA as a military ally, lending itself to being a "pygmy" on the military round-table. Even in this globalised world of economics, military spending and prestige count for a lot. And while Germany's military spending is also modest, it has a lot more economic muscle it can leverage when it needs to; with huge China facing it across the sea, Japan's economic power can only be compared in respects to its neighbourhood. The behemoth of China dwarfs even the advanced economy of Japan.
These are the "players" in the game of global power. Right now, things bear a worrying similarity to things a hundred years ago, when Europe was divided into a variety of alliances.
More specifically, the Middle East looks like it has the most spontaneous likelihood to explode into a regional war. And no-one can predict where that could lead...
Fifteen years ago, the USA was the unchallenged "superpower" (or as the French called it, "hyperpower") in the globe. By 1999, the USA had shown itself to be the world's supreme arbiter of justice, in the Kosovo war using the moral and military support of its NATO allies to bring an end to an attempted genocide and force about a change in government in Serbia (then still calling itself "Yugoslavia").
Today, the limits of America's power abroad are clear to be seen. The reign of George W. Bush displayed the amoral extent of US foreign policy to intervene and change governments in its own interests. The nadir of that was when, in 2003, post-war Iraq was ruled for a year by an American "viceroy", L.Paul Bremer III. In fact, for all his good intentions, Bremer was keen to emphasize his independence from Washington at the time; inadvertently declaring Iraq as his own personal domain. Such comments laid bare the ineptness and ignorance of American understanding of the world beyond its borders, and the lack of understanding of the places they were "intervening" in.
The Obama administration has gone to the other extreme, declaring a mostly "hands off" approach to foreign policy. The result has been an inconsistent application of that approach, in some ways similar to the foreign policy decisions made by Bill Clinton - intervening in some cases (such as Kosovo), in a half-hearted way in others (such as Bosnia and Somalia), and sometimes not at all (such as Rwanda). Clinton's approach could be explained as a steep learning curve, from the disaster in Somalia at the start of his tenure, to the success in Kosovo at the tail end of it.
But Obama's inconsistency has more been a victim to events and the political reality of the world around him. America is no longer able to act as the "supreme arbiter of justice" as it did at the end of Clinton administration, and much of the way through the Bush administration. Nowadays, America's power has been leeched off by other rising powers, such as China and a resurgent Russia. All its actions have to be tempered by what the reaction will be from its rivals. If the USA can intervene in Libya, then why can't Russia "intervene" in Ukraine? America's inconsistent and morally-ambiguous foreign policy is now coming back to bite it where it hurts.
In the popular TV series "Game Of Thrones", the land of Westeros is the setting for the "War Of Seven Kingdoms". In many ways, the globe can be effectively carved up into seven similar spheres of influence: The USA, China, Europe (the EU), Russia, The Arab World, Latin America, and India. Like in "Game Of Thrones", each of these centres of power is competing with the others for control, using both fair means and foul.
Going through them alphabetically, these "centres of power" can be summarised like this:
The Arab World
The "Arab World" stretches from the Straights of Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf. An excellent article and graphic by the "Economist" summarises its current status. Historically, the Arab World hasn't been united into anything approaching a coherent political entity for nearly five hundred years. The current collection of states owe their borders due to agreements and lines on a map drawn up by Europeans over the last hundred years, much of it as a result of the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, their former masters. The result is something like a squabbling group of feudalistic satraps (some of whom claim to believe in "democracy") who control varying degrees of territory, resources and population. Collectively, they belong to a loose alliance that calls itself the "Arab League". Much of the wealth in this part of the world is focused at the eastern extremity, on the oil-rich lands around the Persian Gulf.
In the years since the Arab Spring, the relative stability that occurred between these many "players" has been disturbed, and in some parts, completely destroyed. Syria and now Iraq are in a state of civil war; Libya is teetering quite close to one; Yemen likewise. Within the Arab World, different (and surprising) alliances have been formed due to the rise of Islamic extremism; the one true beneficiary of the Arab Spring.
The USA and Europe look on, trying to make sense of the confusion and fluid allegiances, and make a mess of trying to choose the "right" sort of ally (Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Qatar?). Russia looks on with interest, plotting its own allegiances with duplicitous cunning; China, like a true merchant, always follows where the money is.
China
These days, China is at its pinnacle of development and potential in world history. China has been one of the world's pre-eminent powers for the last two thousand years, the chaos and relative decline of most of 19th and 20th centuries notwithstanding.
China today is ran as a highly-organised (and efficient) hierarchical capitalist state. While the powers of the USA and Europe disapprove of its human rights record and the fact that it is not a democracy, China's internal political system tends to reward efficiency and (on the whole) punishes bad organisation and corruption. While many critics call Russia a "modern feudal state", China's hierarchy rewards efficiency above anything else; in Russia, the system rewards loyalty to the centre above anything else. As a result of this, China's population understands how to get on; a simple work ethic is rewarded. It may not look pretty to Western eyes, but it works. China's government is popular with its people for the simple fact that living standards and a Chinese person's way of life has changed beyond imagining in the last twenty years; for example, China's thriving middle class is the same size as the entire population of Europe, or the USA or the Arab World. Words like "democracy" are meaningless in such a context. China has always been a strong state, and will continue to be so.
China's attitude to the abroad seems very straightforward: what it can get out of it. Like any great power, what China looks for above all is one thing: security. Having a natural merchant's mindset, China sees security in money, trade and resources. It is for this reason that it has gained larger economic control over some the resource-heavy parts of Africa, as well as a larger stake in the energy market in Central Asia and the Middle East.
Its "String Of Pearls" policy may look like an act of aggression to Western eyes, but this tells us more about Western insecurity about the USA and Europe's relative decline. Angry rhetoric about its claims over the South and East China Seas may also be a combination of nationalism at home and territorial security of its "near abroad". In this sense, it looks somewhat comparable with Russia, but minus the psychological insecurity.
Europe (The EU)
Like the Arab World, Europe is a collection of states; the difference is that most of them sit together as part of a super-national entity that has legal and economic authority over them, called the EU. Most of the EU shares the same currency, which is effectively controlled by Germany, the EU's biggest economic power. In many ways, the modern-day EU shares the same characteristics of the former European empire, Austria-Hungary: as a multi-national super-state with a parliament full of different languages, ruled by a unaccountable and essentially autocratic government that struggles to adapt to changing circumstances.
While the individual states of the EU are all recognised as democracies (though some far from perfect), the legal authority in Brussels that rules over them and dictates law to them, is not a democratic entity in the real sense of the word. Its "government" is appointed through opaque negotiation, while the "parliament" has little real control on the executive. In essence, the various nation-states that are part of the EU have given up many of their legal powers to a centralised European autocracy.
The contradiction here is that while the many nation-states of Europe have willingly surrendered power over their internal affairs to the EU, these nation-states still have almost complete independence in foreign affairs. While this works fine for the likes of Germany, it makes smaller countries look ridiculous on the world stage when they have to balance their commitments; rather like how the original Thirteen Colonies that made up the USA after their independence all had their own foreign affairs between gaining independence in 1783, and becoming a proper federal state, in 1789.
Of course, the EU does have its own foreign policy (and foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, since 2009), but when it has tried to create a combined front (such as over Ukraine), it has not taken long for the individual states' whims to take over, or be manipulated by outside "players". Just like with the Arab League.
India
In many ways, India is the polar opposite to China. While India is the "world power" with easily the second-biggest population, it is a democracy compared to China's one-party state. The other major difference is that while China is a highly-organised, centralised state, India is a highly corrupt, disorganised state. While in China, everyone knows who is in control, in India, it often appears that no-one is in control. The culture of corruption that infiltrates all levels of the government means that it is almost impossible to get things done. While China has leapt forward economically in the last twenty years, India's pace of growth has been far more modest; and that is down to a combination of corruption and inefficiency. While India's middle class has been growing in an impressive manner, without reforms in the basics of how the state is governed, this is simply a detail.
The talk of India becoming one of the "big players" on the world stage (as the USA would like to see) still looks like a far-off pipe-dream. There's being a democracy, and then there's "democracy" that paralyzes the decision-making process. This, combined with corruption and inefficiency, is what is keeping India on the lower rankings of the "players" on the world stage.
This compares to, say, Turkey: a nation with a population many times smaller than India, but has an efficiently-organised economy and a very well-structured government agenda that has allowed Turkey far greater influence with other (bigger) world powers than would have been thought possible.
India's "foreign policy", if it can be seriously called that, seems an incoherent tangle of ideas. Different politicians from the main parties have contradictory ideas about the future direction of the country; without a coherent sense of purpose, India will be going nowhere quickly, and will be prey to the designs of other, more powerful, rivals.
Latin America
Within Latin America (the American continent south of the Rio Grande), Brazil is by far the biggest power. Brazil's rise in the past ten years has been impressive, and has been helped with its growing energy market. Like India, Latin America is a "rising power", not a "risen power" like China, or to a much lesser extent, Russia. The main advantage that LatAm (primarily a result of Brazil's success, and to a lesser extent, Mexico's economic growth) has over India is that LatAm's foundations are firmer.
Brazil as the largest power in the region has recently started to tap into its potential: using its growing oil sector, and wealth, it has begun to build its economic independence on assertive foreign relations. The USA once considered LatAm to be its backyard, and historically claimed rights to the Western hemisphere. That changed with the more assertive Socialist government of "Lula" DaSilva a decade ago, and has continued with his successor, Dilma Rousseff.
This realignment of LatAm relations (essentially an assertion of independence) coincided with the first years of the Bush administration. A rising China was seen as a useful partner, LatAm welcomed China's hands-off approach, and a new economic alliance was born. By the end of the decade - and coinciding with the financial crisis - Brazil's oil independence meant that it had also become more assertive. This meant that Brazil became one of China's main rivals for influence and resources in sub-Saharan Africa.
With Europe consumed with its own economic problems, and the new Obama administration taking a more hands-off approach to some areas of foreign relations, much of Africa's resources were effectively up for grabs. Some African nations looked to Brazil as a more "European-like" partner to deal with, with the advantage of being geographically closer than Europe itself or China.
In other areas, LatAm's foreign policy has generally been to go against whatever the USA (or Europe) were doing. This explains the economic closeness to China, as well as healthy relations with Russia. In a primitive sense, some voices in the West would see LatAm as going from being on the side of the "good guys" to that of the "bad guys".
Russia
The author has spoken before about Russia's place in the world: its mentality is due to a combination of geography and history. It has been called a "modern-day feudal state" by some (although that term can be used about many places in the world). Historically, it has always been a "resource exporter": a hundred years ago and more, it was a grain exporter; now it is an oil and gas exporter. In many ways, the Kremlin is one of the archetypal "courts" of world power, as it has been for centuries. The fact that the current resident is not a "tsar" but there by popular will is a historical detail.
Russia has always been a country needed to be ruled by will-power. Its greatest time of weakness, in the late 16th and early 17th century (called the "Time Of Troubles"), was when the country was overrun by foreign powers, eventually leading to the rise of the Romanov family, who ruled the empire for the next three hundred years. The 1990s are seen by contemporary Russians in something of a similar light: a time of weakness and anarchy. Vladimir Putin changed all that.
Russia's foreign policy has always been to defend its interests in whatever way it can: if it means siding with butchers, so be it. Is the USA so very different, in spite of its claim to the highest motives? From Chechnya to Syria, Russia's interests are the Kremlin's interests, and vice versa.
Russia's historic antipathy towards the USA, and pragmatism elsewhere, have meant that Russia has made allies of China and Latin America, while following a policy of divide-and-rule in the Arab World and Europe. This has left the USA at perhaps its weakest moment in foreign relations in decades, perhaps since the start of the Second World War.
The USA
The USA's geo-political situation is well-known, as summarised at the start of the article. The USA's internal situation is akin to being divided between two factions (red and blue), managed by an kleptocratic elite - calling the USA a properly-functioning democracy is a bad joke. While productive and rich, the "empire" is going through a period of introspection, not seen since before the Second World War. Tired after fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for thirteen years, the American people now see that war abroad creates more problems than solutions. As I write, Iraq is effectively divided in three by sectarian and ethnic divisions, and Afghanistan looks like it may go the same way, de facto divided into a north and south along ethnic lines after a disputed presidential election. Karzai was the "strongman" that held the US-occupied country together; with him gone, the motivation to stay together becomes tenuous.
This would be the nightmare scenario for American foreign policy makers and military planners, with so much blood and treasure poured into a bottomless pit of chaos.
To be fair, I have omitted Japan, which is a huge oversight considering its economic might (if negligible military might). Somehow, Japan appears to carry less obvious geo-political influence over its neighbours than, say, Germany has over the rest of Europe. This has more to do with Japan's reliance on the USA as a military ally, lending itself to being a "pygmy" on the military round-table. Even in this globalised world of economics, military spending and prestige count for a lot. And while Germany's military spending is also modest, it has a lot more economic muscle it can leverage when it needs to; with huge China facing it across the sea, Japan's economic power can only be compared in respects to its neighbourhood. The behemoth of China dwarfs even the advanced economy of Japan.
These are the "players" in the game of global power. Right now, things bear a worrying similarity to things a hundred years ago, when Europe was divided into a variety of alliances.
More specifically, the Middle East looks like it has the most spontaneous likelihood to explode into a regional war. And no-one can predict where that could lead...
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