Russia is now clearly a state sponsor of terror
The collective gasp heard around the world after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is a recognition that what just happened is different. Civilian casualties in war zones are, unfortunately, all too common, sometimes outpacing the deaths of combatants. But this wanton act of shooting down a civilian airliner falls under a whole new category of terror.
What is it that has changed? Russia.
The international community has a name for the type of state that Russia has become under Vladimir Putin’s reign: A state sponsor of terror. (read more)
Iraq, Syria Need National Saviors More Than U.S. Intervention
China and Russia are fighting a heated war with the United States. It is an intense battle of words and ideas fought between state-sponsored broadcasters, on the airwaves and online.
In 2011, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said straightforwardly that the U.S. is “engaged in an information war.” She concluded her analysis to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations by saying that in the fight against emerging international broadcasters, “we are losing that war.” (read more)
Monarchs are ananchronisms but also have their place
The just-announced abdication of Juan Carlos of Spain is reigniting the question of the role of kings in that modern constitutional monarchy and around the world. (read more)
The End of America’s ‘Big Stick’ Policy
My wife comes from a large family and her father would always make a point when the kids fought. He would give them each a stick from the ground and ask them to break it. Snapping the singular twig in half was never a problem. (read more)
North Korean dreams, Japanese nightmares
Heads of state are sometimes treated to fireworks displays when visiting overseas. North Korea promised more than that during President Barack Obama’s recent swing through Asia. It threatened to detonate a nuclear device during his visit to South Korea.
Just 35 miles downwind from the North Korean border, Obama was being taunted by an aggrieved, impoverished and rogue nuclear power. It was a dark fantasy scenario reminiscent of a James Bond plot. Thankfully, the threat remained only that, with no accidental or intended explosions. (read more)
Popes and presidents can make a powerful team
St. Peter’s Square teemed last weekend with believers witnessing the extraordinary canonization of two contemporary popes, John XXIII and John Paul II.
Americans who are critical of the church, its failings and even the sanctification process focus on recent scandals and exclusionary practices. Without minimizing these criticisms, there should also be a secular recognition of these two past popes’ international achievements, remembering that they both partnered with U.S. presidents to positively change the course of global events. (read more)
Warm water, cold reality, new frontier for exploiting resources
Big-screen “Noah,” the box office hit, presents the Biblical story of near apocalypse and indifference to God’s warnings. Small-screen NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, regularly warns of impending man-made environmental doom on its climate.gov website.
Whether one is more susceptible to religious parables or scientific findings, the very real effects of contemporary climate change are happening at a stunning pace. (read more)
A question of Turkey and NATO
There is plenty to say about Turkey these days, although not on Twitter or YouTube. Both are frequently blacked out in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. Erdogan says he wants to “wipe out Twitter.” As a result, critically important voices regarding Turkey’s strategic importance and democratic evolution are harder to hear.
My voice, too, is often discounted. My Greek name usually prevents me from writing about Turkey because it is dismissed as biased.
Though I was born and reared in California, my ethnic origin labels me hostile to Turkey. The reason? Greece and Turkey have ongoing disputes regarding territorial waters, airspace, islands, the future exploitation of continental shelf hydrocarbons and the matter of Turkish troop-occupied Cyprus.
But here’s the reality: I know and love Turkey. I have traveled the country multiple times, learned a bit of the language and even got married there.
Looking at the geopolitics of that nation-state, all I see is a Western-aligned country unjustly denied European Union association years ago, back when Erdogan was still interested in Europe. What is never stated in the official EU affiliation postponements and negotiations, however, is what is heard in the German and French streets – Turkey will never be a European Union nation because Turkey is not a European nation; because it is Muslim. (read more)
Punish Putin by opening door to Russia's best and brightest
Immigration policy was the first weapon used to punish Vladimir Putin and his cronies following their Crimean consumption.
A dominant line considers a Putin who is nostalgic for the Soviet empire and with a deep-seated desire to reconstruct a modern, greater Russia.
While he may have broader irredentist goals and be willing to throw the dice on Ukraine to this end, his calculation of the costs of invading Crimea needs also to be understood as a move for his personal political survival.
When looking to history, the Russian military moves in Ukraine may resemble Hitler’s “Anschluss” – the German annexation of Austria leading up to WWII – but the real effect is for this to be Putin’s “Tiananmen Square.” (read more)
Putin’s push into Ukraine could be his Tiananmen Square
Most analysts of the Ukraine crisis ask why Russian President Vladimir Putin would risk international condemnation – and potential military confrontation – with his aggressive military moves in Crimea.
A dominant line considers a Putin who is nostalgic for the Soviet empire and with a deep-seated desire to reconstruct a modern, greater Russia.
While he may have broader irredentist goals and be willing to throw the dice on Ukraine to this end, his calculation of the costs of invading Crimea needs also to be understood as a move for his personal political survival.
When looking to history, the Russian military moves in Ukraine may resemble Hitler’s “Anschluss” – the German annexation of Austria leading up to WWII – but the real effect is for this to be Putin’s “Tiananmen Square.” (read more)
Open Cuba; close Guantanamo
Bang! That’s how the Cuban Revolution began. Fidel Castro’s “permanent revolution” is now on the verge of going out with a whimper.
As importantly, America’s historic lapse on Cuban soil is also about to disappear.
American polls show new support for normalizing relations with Cuba. Leading U.S. politicians such as Florida’s Charlie Crist and major media now advocate for change in the adversarial half-century policy that pits the United States against the tiny island nation. President Barack Obama’s recent handshake with Cuban President Raul Castro became a thawing gesture felt round the world.
The inevitability of normalized relations is just a question of timing. Will it come prior to the 2016 presidential elections? Or will it just take the passing of 87-year-old Fidel Castro, now more reclusive in his twilight? (read more)
Good Ship USA – a remembrance of Ambassador Shirley Temple Black
I’m a Shirley Temple fan. Not a big fan of her movies; they seemed more suited for my sister. I’m a fan of her diplomacy in Czechoslovakia. I was a Newsweek reporter living in Prague between the 1989 “Velvet Revolution” and 1991 when I saw up close how Ambassador Shirley Temple Black worked it. That’s how I became a fan. (Disclosure: I like ambassadors, my wife was U.S. ambassador to Hungary 2010-13.)
America has had many notable diplomats dealing with Czechoslovakia, or the more modern Czech Republic, a country split from Slovakia in 1993 following a “Velvet Divorce.”
But Shirley Temple Black’s watch came at a seminal moment in modern Czechoslovak history and she was, perhaps unexpectedly, the right person at the right time. (read more)
Hoffman, heroin and the war in Afghanistan
In the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Philip Seymour Hoffman played a CIA officer determined to help Afghans win back their country from occupying Soviets in the 1980s. The helicopter-killing missiles that Hoffman’s character promoted for mujahedeen fighters – and procured with Charlie Wilson’s congressional support – were decisive in turning the tide against the Soviet Red Army.
But there is a cruel twist of ironic fate in the drug-addicted Hoffman’s recent heroin overdose death. Most of the world’s heroin – about 80 percent – is currently produced in the country where the United States has fought its longest war: Afghanistan. (read more)
The reality about water and the rest of the world
A decade ago, I would represent Gov. Gray Davis at some Sacramento meetings with international dignitaries when the governor was out of town. In my role as vice chairman of the California State World Trade Commission, I once met with a young African prime minister at a business hotel near the majestically flowing Sacramento River. As per protocol, I asked what California could offer the prime minister’s country, Cape Verde, in terms of trade and commerce. His response that evening still takes me aback.
Were Capo Verdians interested in Silicon Valley technology? How about introductions to the entertainment industry, where his country’s Cesaria Evora sang and swayed her way to international success? Surely, increased educational opportunities and exchanges for their youth must be of interest? Prime Minister José Maria Neves looked me in the eye intently. His answer in Portuguese was unequivocal and needed no interpretation:
"Agua"
Dennis Rodman and sports diplomacy gone awry
HE can still dunk like a butterfly, but in the personally tragic case of former basketball pro Dennis Rodman in North Korea, the embrace of Kim Jong Un and his policies sting like a bee. Rodman is the most recent example of sports diplomacy gone awry. With the Sochi Olympics starting, a new cadre of unpredictable athlete diplomats will likely take the stage.
It is a time-honored tradition to use athletes as diplomats. They are some of the most recognizable global personages whose participation can lead to substantial bilateral benefits. In the 1970s, for example, U.S. President Nixon successfully promoted a team of American pingpong players to open up a dialogue with Mao Zedong’s China.
When sports diplomacy goes wrong, however, it can go very wrong. (read more)