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Why Egypt and Turkey finally resumed relations
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.
What's going to be the division of responsibilities in the new European Commission of Ursula von der Leyen?
Well, I think we'll get a hint of that towards the end of the week, where she is supposed to present her proposal before it goes then to the European Parliament and then eventually for ratification, be that early November, or whenever. There's a significant battle, primarily over the key economic portfolios. The Italians are demanding that their nominee, Fitto, be a minister in the government, should be given a key economic role. That's somewhat controversial, because he also will be the representative of the extreme right part of the European political spectrum. The French, needless to say, want to have their present commissioner, Breton, who’s been key with the outgoing commission, as an even more important personality. So that's going to be one of the battles. Another battle is that the Hungarians want to retain control of enlargement that will, in all probability, be refused. And then trade, financial affairs, budgets are going to be heavily contested or the focus, as well.
What's the significance of the visit of Egypt's President el-Sisi to Turkey?
Well, it is really a reconciliation after what happened in 2013 when el-Sisi staged the military coup against President Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president, who had been elected, and was heavily supported by President Erdogan, who made a jubilant visit to Cairo at the time. So, the relationship between these two important countries in eastern Mediterranean soured very considerably after 2013. And it's been a long road back to a more normal relationship that is now being established between Turkey and Egypt.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Chinese Communist Party's foreign policy chief Wang Yi during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, July 13, 2023.
Top diplomats meet in Laos to discuss Myanmar & South China Sea
On Thursday, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations met in Vientiane, Laos, to kick off a three-day summit focused on resolving Myanmar’s violent civil war and cooling tensions in the South China Sea. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are also attending – each with their own interests in mind.
In Myanmar, ASEAN nations have failed to make progress toward their “five-point consensus” unveiled in April 2021, two months after a military coup. Since then, the country has spiraled into a humanitarian crisis – with over 3 million displaced and more than 5,400 Burmese killed. ASEAN’s plan seeks an immediate cessation of violence, which has largely been ignored by junta leaders, calling into question the efficacy of the bloc amid fears of regional spillover.
This week’s talks hope to revive the much-criticized plan but are likely to face significant obstacles as competing geopolitical interests leave countries – including the US and China – supporting opposing factions.
On the South China Sea sovereignty issue, ASEAN is hoping to capitalize off the progress made on Sunday’s deal between China and the Philippines and to finalize a similar agreement of their own – a protracted code of conduct including China. Still, pessimism looms over how much these nations can achieve to ease these protracted issues in the region.
Russia's actions towards Ukraine are strengthening NATO
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on Russian escalation of Ukraine strengthening NATO, omicron and the end of COVID-19, and on the most recent military coup in West Africa — Burkina Faso:
How will Russian escalation of Ukraine strengthen NATO?
Well, NATO over the last 10, 20 years even was increasingly beset by problems. You had the US unilateralism focused more on Asia. You had the old mission of defending against the Russians less relevant. The French wanting strategic autonomy. Macron leaning into that. Now, of course, Merkel's gone, too. But the proximate reality in danger of the Russians invading Ukraine, actually, as much as the Europeans are more dependent on the Russians for their economy and their gas, they're also more concerned about Russia in terms of national security. That has driven a lot of coordination, including announcements of a lot more troops and material from being sent by NATO states to Ukraine and also to defend NATO borders, like in the Baltic states as well as Bulgaria and Romania. I would argue that what Putin's been doing so far has had no impact greater than bolstering NATO, and it's one of the reasons why I'm skeptical that a full-on invasion is something that Putin has in the cards because that would frankly do more than anything else out there to make NATO, focused on Russia, a serious and going concern.
Is omicron the end of the COVID-19 nightmare?
If you put it that way, I guess I would say yes. I think it's the end of the nightmare, because the people that have been living with the nightmare, primarily in the developed world, so many are going to be getting omicron and that's going to create a lot more natural immunity, plus most of those populations are already vaccinated. A lot of them are boosted and we've got all these therapeutics. I think that going forward, after omicron is done in relatively short order, this just feels like a very different virus for most of the countries that have been back and forth, back and forth with lockdowns. With the poorest countries in the world, very young populations, they've been living with the virus from day one. They don't have the vaccines in most. They've had to deal with it. In the case of China, that's the big question everyone knows I've been focusing on, but they're going to continue with these lockdowns, and so it hasn't been a nightmare per se, but it is going to be an economically very significant issue this year. But it's a little different than the way the question was phrased, so that's how I'll answer it.
Another coup is happening in West Africa. What's happening in Burkina Faso and in the region?
Yeah, it's the third coup in the region that we've seen in Mali and Guinea and now in Burkina Faso. It's this new organization that no one's heard of until yesterday that basically said it's military, the government in Burkina Faso was not doing a great job of maintaining stability and security in the country, and there've been growing attacks and influence of local Islamist extremists. That's a problem in all the countries that we've seen these military coups in recent months and, as a consequence, the Democratic elected government is no more. Former French colony, United States not doing an awful lot about it, China does most of the trade with them, but they're not engaged particularly either. So, as a consequence, it makes news and it moves on, and that's where we are.
Armenia comes close to military coup; political turmoil in Georgia
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Stockholm on Europe In 60 Seconds:
Is there a military coup ongoing in Armenia?
Well, it isn't a military coup as of yet, but it's not far from it either. This is the turmoil that is resulting from the war with Azerbaijan, which Armenia took a large death loss. What happened was that the head of the armed forces asked for the prime minister to resign. That was not quite a coup, but not very far from it. Now, the prime minister sacked the head of the armed forces, there's considerable uncertainty. Watch the space.
What's happening in Georgia?
Well, turmoil in Georgia is very much a result of the Salvador authoritarian instincts that is there in the ruling Georgia Dream coalition or party that is led by the oligarch Ivanishvili. Then there has been an escalation of confrontation and this led to the verdict by a court against the leader of the opposition. The prime minister resigned over the question of whether he should be arrested. A new hard-line prime minister was put in place and the leader of opposition has been arrested. There's a reason to be very concerned with where Georgia is heading
Quick Take: Myanmar’s military coup is nothing like the US insurrection
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. I've got your Quick Take kicking off the week. Plenty of things we could talk about, but I thought we would actually discuss Myanmar, because it's not generally something in the news. And yet just this weekend, we had a successful military coup and immediately of course you see Americans say, "Hey, that's just like what happened in the United States, could have been us." And the answer is no, no. What happened in the US was an insurrection that failed, but it was not a coup and the reason it was not a coup is because the military played absolutely no role. In fact, all of the former secretaries of defense said that Democrat and Republican, that it was a free and fair election, and that Biden was going to be president. That needed to be respected. The joint chiefs wrote their letter together saying that it was critical to stand for the constitution.
No, not only did the military not play a role in undermining the transition, it actively stood up and the professionalization and the independence of the military, ultimately reporting to the American people, serving the American nation is a big piece of why the US political system retains its resilience, despite all of the erosion of institutions, all of the delegitimacy. That is not the case in Myanmar, where until 10 years ago it was a military dictatorship. There then was a transition that was imperfect. And now we are back to military dictatorship once again, as the military took over everything. Now it's worth going back to 10 years ago, when the transition of power that, that ended up with Aung San Suu Kyi being released, the incredibly well-known opposition figure who was under house arrest and ended up being allowed to functionally run the country. That agreement was with a new constitution.
That allowed the military ... it was a compromise. It allowed them to still have a fair amount of power. So for example, they still control the security ministries directly, unlike the civilian control in the United States. And they were guaranteed 25% of all seats in parliament, no matter what. And then you have elections on top of that to determine the rest and the military can stand their political figures in those elections as well. So, despite the fact that here's a woman that had been under house arrest and was allowed to come to power and you move towards civilian rule, it wasn't full civilian rule. The military still played a very significant role. You'd call it a hybrid system and look, the economy was in horrible shape. There was hope on the part of the military that by allowing a transition, that the country would do better economically, and they could also make more money themselves and there would be some liberalization.
So, all of that is what we saw over the last 10 years, generally welcomed by the United States and the Obama, Biden administration at that point. Now a new military leader right now, who really wants to hold onto power, but had no good way to do it. they tried to reform the constitution to provide additional safeguards and benefits for the military last year, that failed. They had elections recently. They really underperformed in those elections. They said it was a fraud. They had tried to delay the elections because of coronavirus, no dice, the Supreme Court threw out the claims of fraud there. That's obviously a equivalent to what we saw in the United States in terms of the judiciary and they were threatening, if you're not willing to compromise with us in particularly let the military leader who was about to retire, become the president, or otherwise have power, that they were going to change the constitution by force.
And they were engaging in some ... you saw tanks rolling around in major cities over the last few days, that kind of thing. Well, they didn't come to a deal. And as a consequence of no deal, the military swooped in. Now, Aung San Suu Kyi is yet again being detained. She has told the people not to tolerate this, functionally to revolt. But the other leaders of her party also being detained. So too, many members of the local media has been taken over by the military. Means of communication, temporarily shut down. In other words, this was well-planned and the military is in charge of everything now. So, what are the implications of this? First point, Aung San Suu Kyi, she won the Nobel Prize. Everyone knows her. She's no hero. After being in office, you probably one of the things Myanmar also famous for aside from her is this incredible ethnic cleansing that occurred against local Rohingya.
As a consequence, you had villages that were burned to the ground. Thousands of people killed, massive numbers of refugees streaming into Bangladesh as a consequence, other places. And she supported that. She supported the ethnic cleansing. It's a nationalist position, having nothing to do with her interest in democracy away from the military. A little bit like Navalny and his Russian nationalist position against Central Asians or Ukrainians or Georgians for example. Even though he's pro democracy, not someone I think should get the Nobel Peace Prize. In the case of Myanmar, much bigger deal because she was so well-known internationally, so revered and then became such a disappointment in such a massive human rights disaster debacle. Having said that, she still is the strongest voice for democracy in the country. And so the fact that she's now being detained, absolutely falls against everything that democracies in the world should want for the future of Myanmar.
You want her released, you want the civilian government to be able to come back. There will be some demonstrations, I'm sure, but domestically nowhere near the kind of capacity to undo this military rule. Internationally, the influence is mostly China and the Chinese may not like military leadership, but they certainly aren't going to undermine it or oppose it. As long as the economic relations with China continue to be stable, as they will. Furthermore, other countries with significant economic relations with Myanmar in the region, Southeast Asian countries, Japan, they all have relations with Myanmar that are based on noninterference. So, they're not going to stand for significant US sanctions. So, if the United States is saying, "You got to let her go. They've got to do something or else." There ain't much, or else. The United States is a marginal player here. And here I think it's important for us to understand that the United States increasingly frequently in a GZero world American exceptionalism, doesn't get you very far.
So, in the United States, whether it's saying the North Koreans can't have nukes or else. Or else what? Well, they're a nuclear power and the administrations on both sides of the aisle have been unable to do anything about that. Assad must go. Or else what? The United States has marginal influence over Syria. They're engaging much more closely with the Russians, with Iran, with other countries. Obama's gone, Assad is still there. The Russians must release Navalny or else. Or else what? Navalny probably tomorrow is going to be sentenced to a long jail term. The United States will put more targeted sanctions on Russia. The Europeans will be more reluctant because they trade much more with the Russians and a lot of them are reliant on energy there. What is the United States it's going to do? Myanmar, same thing. So, the United States is on the right side of these issues, but increasingly in a more fragmented world where the Chinese, the Russians are willing to say, "Screw you, we're not paying any attention." Other countries are more aligned, particularly with China economically. It's getting harder for the Americans to do that. And it's also getting harder because the United States at home has just had this horribly contested election, that delegitimizes American efforts to tell other countries, "This is what you should be doing in terms of domestic governance." All of which is to say, it's going to be harder for Biden to pull off these sorts of statements and make them stick. It makes it more compelling for the Americans to engage multilaterally and not make these announcements themselves but have a large number of allies on board. Strength in numbers, but also coordination in terms of what values really will stick as opposed to those the Americans care about but nobody else really does. And finally, this is a problem it's likely to get worse over time.
So, that's a little bit of what I think about Myanmar. I hope everyone's well, stay safe. If you're in New York, avoid snow. Snow is kind of fun actually. But avoid people. Be good. Talk to you soon.