This opinion piece confirms my joy on the positive side of Brexit and UK remaining an island at a distance from influencing foreign and military policy of the EU.
○ After Brexit: Transatlantic Opportunity for Europe’s Neutrality by Oui @BooMan on June 30th, 2016
Hurrah! Hurrah!
Little Britain: Trump, Brexit push out UK | Deutsche Welle |
A Trump presidency could reset the UK’s “special relationship” with the US. But a post-Brexit Britain could also result in the EU and the US turning their backs, as Cristina Burack reports from London.
Trade talk
Though the Brexit vote expressed the frustrations of many British citizens toward globalization, Prime Minister Theresa May ‘s post-Brexit policy remains committed to liberalization and open trade. With Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson at the helm, the UK has embarked on a quixotic quest for access to the European single market without participation in the European customs union and freedom of movement.
○ Brexit: 1 million EU citizens in Britain ‘could be at risk of deportation’ | The Guardian |
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Uncertain foreign policyA Trump presidency also raises uncertainties on future foreign policy collaboration. Featherstone sees Trump as more oriented toward the United Kingdom than the Pacific-focused Obama. “Trump knows Britain better than other places and he may be open to British flattery,” Featherstone said. “But Trump puts at risk a cornerstone of British foreign policy: NATO.”
Additionally, Trump’s overtures to Vladimir Putin could shift existing US-UK military coalition alliances. Trump’s suggestions that as president he would align the US with Russia on action in Syria threatens to undermine British military involvement in the region against the Islamic State.Alternately, a decision to decrease US involvement abroad would leave a power vacuum on the world stage. Despite Brexit-supporters’ promised image of an increasingly-prominent “Global Britain,” Featherstone does not think the UK could fill the international void left by an isolationist US.
○ Crimea crisis: Russian President Putin’s speech annotated | BBC News – March 2014 |
“Post-Iraq, and reinforced by the experience of Libya, UK public opinion is wary of further security adventures. London lacks the will and capability to be a separate military power…. Britain has often followed Washington, but it can’t lead separately from it.”
In a past era, the UK might have become a go-between Washington and Brussels. Raines notes that the UK historically played this role, but it depended on Britain exerting influence on the EU from within as a member.
Featherstone also does not believe that London can be the link across the Atlantic and the Channel. “The world of diplomacy has changed,” he said. “A UK government cannot offer enough to either [the EU or the US] and neither will actually need a bridge via London.”
Tim Bales, politics professor at Queen Mary University in London and an expert on the Conservative party, has a similar view.
“The UK has always harbored the illusion that it could be a bridge between the US and the EU,” he told DW. “But it’s precisely that – an illusion. The US doesn’t need the UK to talk to the EU… The same goes for the EU. The UK from now on is likely to be pretty much what we in the UK call a ‘third wheel’ in any US-Europe relationship.”
Vladimir Putin says ‘we are ready to cooperate’ with Trump administration | The Guardian |
Vladimir Putin has softened his rhetoric about the United States in an annual speech, expressing a desire to mend ties and work together in Syria once Donald Trump takes office.
“We are ready to cooperate with the new American administration,” the Russian president said in his state of the nation address to an assembly of lawmakers and officials. “It’s important to normalise and start to develop our bilateral relations on an equal and mutually beneficial basis.”
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Putin made a few jibes at his opponents in the west, saying that “unlike some foreign colleagues”, Russia was looking for friends rather than enemies. But he was less strident in his criticism than in past addresses. In 2014, he accused the west of trying to contain and weaken Russia for decades. In 2015, he lashed out at western meddling and regime change in the Middle East.In this year’s speech, Putin said the United States and Russia had a “shared responsibility” to ensure international security and nuclear nonproliferation, noting that “attempts to break strategic parity are extremely dangerous”.
Ahead of the hundredth anniversary of the October Revolution next year, Putin warned against similar actions to create “schisms, animosity, resentments” in the national unity. He said Russia cannot grow with a “weak government and a pliant regime directed from outside”.
Russia has contacted Trump’s team about Syria, diplomat says | Boston Globe |
- ○ NATO Allies Oppose Bush on Georgia and Ukraine | NY Times – April 2008 |
○ US gives way on NATO for Georgia and Ukraine | FT – Nov. 27, 2008 |
○ NATO split on message to send Georgia on membership hopes | Reuters – Nov. 27, 2015 |
Where the “illiterate” president George Bush failed in aggression towards Russia over a closer NATO alliance with Ukraine and Georgia, the “literate” president Obama succeeded in pushing for a united front of East- and West European states for a new Cold War stance to confront Russia. Obama and his advisors even got European member states to agree to double their military investment over the coming years (Made in USA). See the NY Times article on the Bucharest Summit of April 2008. Quite a telling story about eight years of foreign policy under a Democratic president.
There is a lot of chatter on the European air waves of “experts” hired to do the “NATO is indispensable” slogan and warn of Trump’s campaign statement: NATO is an obsolete institution. I understand all policy documents written at NATO HQ in Brussels ahead of November 8th, refers to the 45th US president as a she, not a he.
The plague of global terrorism | The Economist – Nov. 2015 |
The appalling attacks in Paris on November 13th are a brutal reminder of the danger of terrorism to the West, mainly from Jihadist groups such as Islamic State (IS). Yet terrorism is a threat everywhere. The day before the atrocities in Paris, two bomb blasts killed 37 people in Beirut. On November 17th a suicide bomber blew up a market in northern Nigeria, leaving at least 36 people dead. Last year 32,700 people were killed in attacks worldwide, nearly twice as many as in 2013. And this year the toll may turn out to be even higher.
Global deaths from terrorism – see the indiscernable thin line representing Western nations
« click for index / database
BBC – France presidency: Francois Hollande decides not to run again
The biggest disappointments among early 21st century politicians will keep historians busy for some time to come.
He inherited a Party that had, like other Socialist Democratic Parties in Europe, become lost.
Mitterand retreated in ’81, and seduced the French left into liberalism. It is a story told all throughout Europe, from Labour to the Socialists in France to the SDP in Germany.
The simple truth is a socialism that does not nationalize the means of production struggles. It morphed into defenders of the Welfare State, and the victories won were real.
But those victories become harder to defend in a world defined globalization.
The simple unabashed truth is no one on the left has figured out how to defend the Welfare State against the forces of globalization work with one exception. And unless you figure out a way to make Mercedes Benz’s, you wind up where Hollande did.
And Gordon Brown.
And the Democrats.
The Dutch are doing quite well due to the essence of social democracy.
After 9/11 and Bush’s War on Terror (copied from Ariel Sharon and Likud leaders in Israel), the Islamophobia of fear pushed politics towards the right. From there on and the inevitable years of economic recession that follows major expenditures on the waste of a war effort, the populists and nationalists now carry the torch of capitalism and globalisation forward.
Too bad most citizens are blinded by rhetoric of politicians and don’t see the poor leadership of the presidency and US Congress, or parliaments throughout the “democratic” West.
Hopefully the strong individualisering of society will cause a backlash and no more appetite for adventurism in overthrowing foreign regimes.
So many parallels in general with global affairs 100 years ago. Important difference, after the great wars democracy made an upswing as colonialism died out. Today, the content of democracy is under attack and with nationalism one gets the rise of dictators, power centered in a single figurehead.
The “pitch fork” rebellion has started … let the social-democratic revolution begin! (Sanders)
It morphed into defenders of the Welfare State…
Sounds like capitalist/corporate/rightwing speak. A perversion of the concept of socialism. Reduced to the soundbite of “tax the rich to give to the poor” that is easily opposed by almost all of those not poor.
Socialism is about government producing and selling stuff. It’s public ownership, operation/management, and/or protection of the “commons” for the use and/or benefit of all. What constitutes the “commons” will vary by time, place, government financial resources, and public agreements as to needs and wants.
For personal transportation satisfying the prime criteria of public good and/or benefit that is open to all, public transit and public roads qualifies. Building and selling Mercedes Benz or any automobile doesn’t. Schools, because we collectively agreed that everyone should be literate, is part of the “commons.” Basic old age security income, an insurance product, falls into the “commons” because we agreed that it was a benefit to all.
As the consumer base for public goods and services is huge and the capital value of assets publicly held in trust can become very high, it is, of course, a prize for the profit seeking, anti-socialists, and they will do whatever they can to get it at wholesale. Giving it to them it the crux of neoliberalism.