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      Did a French Far-Right Thinker Predict 2020?

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      The year 2020 has thrown the world into disarray, with a severe pandemic creating many unforeseen challenges. The COVID-19 plague has so far infected nearly 30 million people worldwide, with the death toll climbing toward a million. With rising unemployment and sector-specific industry liquidations, economic forecasts predict a grim picture ahead, even for the affluent West. As Francis Fukuyama explains in his recent article in Foreign Affairs, major crises have major consequences.”

      It’s in this extraordinary time that the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police triggered an explosive civil rights movement. Petty criminal elements undoubtedly wasted no time in seizing the opportunity to carry out looting and to damage property. Meanwhile, the Topple the Racists movement — campaigning to remove past icons of slavery — defaced and attacked landmarks, pulling down statues of the likes of George Washington. It is against this backdrop that we can observe how social unrest in a time of a pandemic contributes to feeding the metanarratives of the radical right.

      We Told You So

      French journalist and writer Guillaume Faye contributed to forming narratives of the radical right in his role as a leading thinker of the Research and Study Group for European Civilization (GRECE), a think tank established in 1968 by the European New Right (Nouvelle Droit). How does Faye fit into this current troubled world? He fits in because of his affinity for predicting calamities. Faye envisioned a cataclysm that would lead to social collapse, hoping that this would create the space to build his fascist utopia.

      Do Faye’s ideas reflect the current pandemic and economic and social unrest? Not to the vast majority of people, but pseudo-intellectuals of the radical right may well find material to help build their case. Narratives that the radical right have so jealously guarded for decades are finally becoming sellable. It seems that the radical right can now confidently say, We told you so — look, it’s happening.

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      Faye explains his catastrophe as a result of many troubles converging to create a cataclysmic breakdown of the current system. In his scenario, demographic changes brought about by immigration lead to racism and radicalization of ethnic and religious groups. This upheaval increases when liberal democracies are weakened as a result of environmental catastrophes, biological threats such as pandemics and economic meltdowns, producing mass poverty. This is the context that would trigger what Faye called an ethnic civil war between native Europeans and immigrants, who are mainly of Afro-Maghreb origin. This is an idea well-received in far-right circles as a race war.

      To Faye, a race war is a useful catastrophe that would end the current system and pave the way for his utopian empire, for which he even created a blueprint. But Faye’s hope and longing for a useful catastrophe seems far-fetched in reality. The many immigrants who live on the periphery of society in low-paying jobs are unlikely to help the radical right topple the current system by going to war with the natives. The only candidates capable of delivering such a system-uprooting blow are massive natural disasters, which are very rare although not unthinkable, especially given the growing climate emergency.     

      Faye in Context

      Guillaume Faye’s wishful thinking may never become a reality. However, radical-right narratives do not always need reality. Faye’s ideas resonate with historical metanarratives about being conquered and overrun by invaders of different religions and cultures. These deeply ingrained metanarratives can be used to recreate a threat scenario in which immigrants would overrun the native people and attack native culture. The selective memory of such metanarratives can be aggravated by episodes of the current civil rights movement, especially incidents of looting and property damage. Specifically, the Topple the Racists campaign inadvertently bolsters the radical right’s claims that migrants pose a cultural threat.

      All these events are happening in the context of great distress. People are slowly coming out of lockdown while facing mounting death tolls in communities. The situation is already sensitive and unstable. Riots, looting and public disorder can create greater insecurity among people. Looming economic peril is another concern. History teaches us that times of great economic upheaval were always followed by social unrest, aiding the rise of the far right and reviving authoritarianism. The civil rights movement and the Topple the Racists campaign, despite being triumphs of democracy, can create opportunities for the radical right to bolster their narratives. 

      It is not a coincidence, given the impact of the pandemic, that many social scientists are predicting similar social, political and economic upheavals. However, these analyses are based on facts rather than Faye’s wishful thinking and his desire to build the next fascist empire on the ruins of the current world. As the radical right attempts to give weight to their narratives with the help of an ever-chaotic world, geopolitics has also become increasingly hostile to liberal democracies. Authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia are mounting a serious challenge to destabilize the Western liberal system, especially aiming to undermine the postwar rules-based international order.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Russia’s attempts to sow racial discord among Americans is well known. China is now eagerly jumping onto the bandwagon by running special coverage of George Floyd’s killing in the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, Global Times. The irony is that this is a regime that has rounded up the Uighur minority into detention camps and has killed prisoners for gruesome organ harvesting. Racial tension in Western liberal democracies not only helps the radical right, but will also embolden authoritarian regimes that seek to discredit democracies.   

      How does the radical right frame their narrative to include recent developments? For example, the alt-right’s Richard Spencer seems to be glad to witness the upheaval of Western civilization. Faye has also been hailed as “The man who predicted 2020.” Twitter feeds have speculated about a liberal conspiracy to start a race war. The pandemic and the civil rights movement seem to give the radical right hope in two different ways. First, at a micro level, the radical right can now give credibility to their narratives about threats to Western culture and heritage. Second, at a macro level, the radical right hopes that the instability in liberal democracies is pushing them toward a system collapse that would uproot neoliberalism, without which the radical right could not ultimately win.

      The collapse of liberal democracy is the ultimate dream of Guillaume Faye and many of his current followers. It is indeed hopeful times for the radical right and the authoritarian regimes around the world. It is unlikely that the current system will face an existential crisis any time soon. However, similar to the 1930s, the context is ripe for greater instability and economic peril that would naturally lead to protectionism and a far-right, as well as an authoritarian, renaissance.  

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.] More

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      The Tangled Maps of Greece and Turkey

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      A person sitting at a café in the small town of Kaş, on Turkey’s southern coast, where the Taurus Mountains drop precipitously into the Mediterranean, would look out upon a blue bay and a small island. If they asked the waiter, he would tell them that the island — almost unbelievably — is in another country.

      That island is Kastellorizo. It is Greek. It is far from being the only Greek island that sits close to the Turkish mainland, but it’s perhaps the most striking, since it is 78 miles from its nearest Greek neighbor, the island of Rhodes, and fully 354 miles from the capital, Athens. Indeed, landlocked Ankara, the Turkish capital in the center of Anatolia, is nearer.

      Who Owns the Sea?

      Nation-states are the oddity of the modern age. To people in the era of empires, today’s borders would seem extraordinarily restrictive. For centuries, Kastellorizo interacted freely with the mainland, which lies one mile away. Now it exists as a surreal outpost adrift in the Mediterranean. This tiny, quiet island is central to the latest crisis between Greece and Turkey — an argument over gas exploration rights and who owns where on the seafloor in the eastern Mediterranean. It has led to collisions between Greek and Turkish vessels, and even a confrontation in Libyan waters between Turkish and French frigates in June.

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      The clash with France is part of a wider confrontation in which France has become a vocal ally of forces in the eastern Mediterranean seen as broadly anti-Islamist. This includes European Union members Greece and Cyprus, as well as Israel, Egypt and the forces of renegade General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, a figure from the Gaddafi regime. All these alliances put France at odds with Turkey, which has emerged as the most vocal and perhaps the most powerful force for political Islam in the region. The alliance with Greece has helped to reignite much older hostilities between Greece and Turkey, feeding into dangerous older narratives.

      The argument surrounding territorial waters is as artificial as the nation states that have given rise to it. The intricacies of maritime law hang around the question of whether the far-flung isles of Greece can claim exclusive economic zones (EEZs) on the seabed around them — in effect, that they have a continental shelf that Greece can claim, a mile off the Turkish coast.

      Such claims create a collision course with Turkey, given the unusual situation of the two geographic territories. The result of the 1919-23 Turkish War of Independence was the establishment of a Turkish state on the landmass of Asia Minor, but to the exclusion of almost every island in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas lying off its shore. The peculiarity of this scenario is evident to anyone who has visited the popular tourist regions of the Turkish coast and the eastern Greek isles. The two are intimate neighbors, far more alike than they are to their respective hinterlands, let alone their distant national capitals.

      Arrival of Nationalism

      Nationalism — since its arrival from Western Europe — has been calamitous for the wider region in which Greece and Turkey lie. It has brought chaos to the Arab world, to the Balkans and to Cyprus. Even today, it still informs the aspirations of the Kurdish people to add yet another state to a region of instability and ethnic tension.

      On the face of it, Greece and Turkey appear to be two comparative success stories of the era of nation states in this region. They have been relatively stable, centralized states for much of the 20th century, despite the recurrence of military intervention in politics. Yet Greece and Turkey are also examples of the failure of the nation-state model in their very nature. Both espouse a virulent ethnic nationalism. Both are rooted in an ancient tribal exceptionalism, layered with later religious identities.

      Like the wider region, this nationalism has required that what was a patchwork of ethnicities, indeed a form of multiculturalism — or, at least, co-habitation — was systematically uprooted, most brutally in the state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing of the early 20th century. State-sanctioned ethnic violence is nothing new to the region. It happened to the Sephardic Jews of Greece in the 1940s (themselves previously cleansed from Christian Spain after the retreat of the Moors), it has happened in the Balkans in the past few decades, and it happened in Greece and Turkey in 1923.

      That was the year of the Treaty of Lausanne, which stipulated the transfer of populations between the two states based upon religious affiliation: Greek Orthodox to Greece, Muslims to Turkey. In many cases, this papered over cultural and ethnic complexities that were far from the clear-cut distinctions that Greek and Turkish nationalists believed inherent in their respective nation-state projects. This history, and the very human and very personal tragedy of it, has embedded an antipathy towards the “other” in the body politic of both states to the present day.

      It is this reality that makes questions surrounding continental shelves, exclusive economic zones and rights to resources that lie under the sea so intractable. It was hard enough and bloody enough to divide the land of this region between the warring parties, often leading to strange and unnatural results like the sad fate of the little isle of Kastellorizo — severed from the mainland it gazes upon with every sunrise. To attempt the division of the waters as well is likely to lead to yet another hard and bloody outcome.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What Can the Gulf States Learn from the Belarus Crisis?

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      It might come as a surprise that the Gulf states have more than a passing interest in events in Belarus. Beyond growing economic ties, the political drama provides valuable lessons for the region’s monarchies and their efforts to maintain standards of living for their citizens without compromising power and influence. The Belarus crisis also offers useful pointers for Gulf states in their dealings with Russia.

      Over the past three decades, Belarusian domestic politics has been defined by its predictability. Despite the emergence of opposition candidates around election time, President Alexander Lukashenko’s grip on power was such that there was only one outcome. Yet, as with so much of 2020, life as Belarusians know it has been turned on its head.

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      While the veracity of past elections has been called into question, a mixture of political complacency and COVID-19-related turmoil has breathed new life into Belarus’ opposition movement. Beyond disputing Lukashenko’s winning margin in July’s poll, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Belarusians have taken to the streets calling for change. Mostly born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this generation does not regard the stability offered by Lukashenko as an asset. As they see it, state control of Belarus’ economy and society is incompatible with their aspirations.

      Lukashenko’s response to what has effectively become a matter of life and death for his regime has fluctuated between incoherency and heavy-handedness. The president’s disappearance from the public gaze at the start of the unrest, coupled with the disproportionate use of force against demonstrators, suggests that he did not seriously consider the possibility of mass protests. Continued police brutality and opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s flight into exile make it difficult to use “external forces” as justification for the crackdown.

      “Family” Comes First

      Much like Belarus, the Gulf states have relatively young populations, particularly Saudi Arabia, where over two-thirds of citizens are under the age of 35. Many have benefited from access to higher education systems that have grown exponentially since the early 2000s, both in terms of state and private universities. With this in mind, the region’s political elites can use the lack of meaningful opportunities for so many Belarusians to underscore the importance of their development plans and national visions.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Designed to meet the specific needs of Gulf countries, these strategies nevertheless have several objectives in common. In an effort to counter faltering prices and technological obsolescence, the region is attempting to diversify its dependence on oil and gas revenues by facilitating high-knowledge-content jobs in different industrial sectors. Doing so also requires the greater incorporation of indigenous populations into national workforces at the expense of expatriate workers. In this respect, Kuwait’s plans to drastically reduce its migrant population offers a glimpse into the future shape of the Gulf’s workplaces. While never explicitly mentioned in strategic documents, the Gulf states anticipate that encouraging their own populations’ development will offset opportunities for the type of political dissent that’s currently gripping Belarus and which rocked Bahrain almost a decade ago.

      The Gulf’s rulers have no appetite for an Arab Spring 2.0, a scenario that some warn is a distinct possibility thanks to COVID-19. Accordingly, local development opportunities will continue to be encouraged during these chastened times. When it comes to wider political participation, Kuwait will remain something of an outlier for the foreseeable future.

      The Gulf states’ responses to COVID-19 also merit consideration. Once dismissed by Lukashenko as an ailment that can be treated with saunas and vodka, Belarus was among the last in Europe to enact lockdown measures. While it remains to be seen what impact ongoing protests will have on infection rates, a spike in cases could be used by Gulf states to justify their no-nonsense approaches to tackling the virus. Qatar, for example, was one of the first to completely lock down all but the most essential public services. The country’s return to normal rests on the public’s strict compliance with a four-phase reopening plan.

      Don’t Annoy Next Door

      International reaction to the political crisis in Belarus has so far been muted, with presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and China’s Xi Jinping leading the congratulations for Lukashenko’s re-election. For its part, the European Union’s response has been cautiously led by the likes of Lithuania and Poland. Their approach reflects two important points. First, the protests are highly internalized and not about pivoting Belarus further East or West. Second, direct support for the opposition risks a Ukraine-type scenario whereby Moscow directly intervenes to safeguard its interests.

      Point two is of particular relevance to the Gulf states, whose economic ties with one of Russia’s closest allies continue to grow. Cooperation between Belarus and the United Arab Emirates is a case in point. According to government statistics, the volume of trade between both countries amounted to $121 million in 2019, up from $89.6 million the previous year. Minsk has also made overtures to Oman regarding joint manufacturing opportunities and the re-export of products to neighboring markets.

      Saudi Arabia undoubtedly has the most to lose from antagonizing Russia in its own backyard. Last April, the kingdom sold 80,000 tons of crude oil to Belarus. This purchase, first of its kind, not only reflects Minsk’s determination to lessen its reliance on Russian supplies, but also happened against the backdrop of faltering demand and an oil price war between Moscow and Riyadh. Since then, both sides have brokered a fragile peace designed in part to ensure that OPEC+ members respect industry-saving production cuts.

      Accordingly, the “softly, softly” approach currently being employed by the EU’s eastern flank provides a blueprint for how the Gulf states should continue to manage their responses to the Belarus crisis. Not only does it offer the best chance of maintaining economic relations irrespective of the final outcome, but it also keeps regional oil supplies in still uncharted waters at a time of great uncertainty in global markets. Antagonizing Russia with even the most tacit support for Belarus is, put simply, too risky a proposition.

      Belarus’ unfolding crisis is ultimately about replacing an unmovable political leader and system that have dominated the country for decades. In a region defined by its own version of long-term political stability, a similar scenario among Gulf states is unpalatable. Fortunately, the region still has resources at its disposal to prevent this from happening and protect much-needed economic victories in new markets. While always important, the Gulf’s indigenous populations are increasingly being reconfigured as the most essential features of the region’s future prosperity and stability.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      No Credible Alternative to the US Grand Strategy in Europe

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      Never in the last 75 years has the US-led liberal order in Europe been intellectually more contested. Some in the United States, especially among realist and neorealist scholars, disapprove of what is commonly referred to as the West-centric institutional and rules-based order. They generally raise three interrelated, skeptical and somewhat pessimistic assumptions for growing isolationist sentiments in the US.

      First, there is are good reasons to think that the unipolar moment is coming to an end. As America’s primacy gradually declines with the rise of China, its grand strategy of liberal hegemony should also dissipate, including its institutional leg of collective security in Europe to which the US has given too much and received too little in return. Second, the Euro-Atlantic liberal order has generated more problems than solutions in the post-Cold War period. NATO expansion beyond the Iron Curtain poisoned relations with Russia and provoked unnecessary tensions in Georgia and Ukraine. The United States, so the argument goes, should gradually reduce its military presence in Europe and turn “NATO over to the Europeans.”

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      Third, Russia, in reality, is not as big a peril to European security as it is generally portrayed and perceived in the US and across Europe, for that matter. Moscow is driven more by defensive aims (or so it claims), so balancing between Russia and the European states on one hand and a restrained US foreign policy on the other is a better way forward for everyone. If we are to assume this logic is correct, then those who still prefer the liberal Euro-Atlantic unipolarity are wrong. Are they? 

      No Competitors Yet

      On first assumption, the United States is still by all major accounts the top dog on the world stage. It is wealthier, more powerful and more influential relative to any potential competitor in the international system despite an ongoing debate, additionally fueled by global disruptive events such as COVID-19. Its geography, an often-cited structural advantage, will persist despite the pandemic. While the US is flanked by two enormous oceans and surrounded by much weaker and friendly states, Russia and China, on the other hand, face balancing behavior from powerful regional rivals coupled with having ongoing territorial disputes.

      Second, Washington’s annual defense spending is at least twice as much as Moscow’s and Beijing’s — combined. America’s preponderance of power and strategic advance is far more superior considering increased military spending of its formal allies in the European and Indo-Pacific theaters. Out of 15 countries with the largest military spending, 11 are security partners of the United States. Russia and China neither have formal allies among the top 15, nor do any of their allies believe that an attack on one is an attack against all.

      Third, the US still boasts the world’s largest economy that can afford to fund the most powerful military in the world despite a disproportionately hard economic downturn triggered by the pandemic. Its global GDP share is still larger than the global GDP share of China and Russia combined, even by factoring in GDP reductions in the US this July. Moreover, the share of the global economic output by NATO members reaches more than 40% in world proportions and roughly 50% if other democratic allies in the Pacific theater are incorporated as well.

      America’s geopolitical leverage is even greater considering three additional factors. The primacy of the US dollar has not waned in 2020 just as it had not waned during 2008 financial crisis. The US also rests on soft-power capabilities. The top spots in global rankings, such as the Soft Power 30, are held by democracies — the United States was in fifth position in 2019. Russia and China are ranked far lower. And third, its population growth rate has also been relatively high.

      On the other hand, the Russian and Chinese workforce is aging, judging by all available measures. Given all these factors, it seems, as Gregory Mitrovich suggests, “wholly premature, short of a devastating major event, to claim that we are witnessing the end of America’s global dominance.” Equally premature is any call for American withdrawal from Europe, where the US is not only unchallenged but is largely accepted as benevolent.

      Whole and Free

      On second assumption, from a realist or neorealist perspective, a more powerful country does not necessarily mean a more attractive choice. What makes great powers more appealing, especially in the European theater, rests on an enduring combination of other capabilities grounded in less tangible resources. In other words, dominant powers are to be feared, but no liberal European state in the post-World War II era has ever felt a military threat from American hegemony — as Gilford John Ikenberry put it, “reluctant, open and highly institutionalized — or, in a word, liberal.” Some may correctly argue this was an act of deterrence against the common threat of the Soviet bloc in the bipolar system.

      However, when the unipolar era began, America’s liberal primacy has continued to offer system-wide benefits both within Europe’s old and new democracies with lasting and far-reaching consequences for their peace and stability. Its benevolent leadership, for example, stood shoulder to shoulder with the Germans seeking freedom and reunification despite some opposition from Paris and London. Washington also laid out its vision for Europe’s new security order and sought to keep a reunited Germany in NATO. Without such leadership, France and the United Kingdom would have been more fearful of Germany’s unilateral plans, let alone weaker neighbors that would find new realities difficult to balance against. As one senior European diplomat put it, “We can agree on U.S. leadership, but not on one of our own.”

      American leadership also persuaded Ukraine — also to a great benefit of Russia’s vital interests — to relinquish possession of nuclear arms it had inherited after the dissolution of the USSR. Without such leadership, Ukraine would probably have had second thoughts. As Ukraine’s then-Defense Minister Konstantin Morozov put it, plainly, “Ukraine would have posed no threat to anyone if, hypothetically speaking, it had possessed tactical nuclear weapons.” Had American leadership missed this opportunity, other states in the region would have also regarded their respective security distinctly from each other. Germany, for example, would have also been more tempted to contemplate nuclear deterrence at some point.

      To zoom out a little wider, American liberal hegemony in general, and the NATO alliance with its institutional and rules-based order in particular, attracted central, eastern and southeastern European countries — former illiberal states — to choose a common prescription for perennial peace and prosperity in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. New democracies from beyond the Iron Curtain have managed to transform themselves: Their economies have largely prospered, and their political systems liberalized despite recent authoritarian tendencies in Hungary and Poland. While some variation does exist, almost all new NATO members remain “free” according to the 2020 Freedom House scores. The only exceptions are Hungary, Montenegro and North Macedonia, which are marked as “partially free.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      NATO enlargement has been a net positive on security grounds as well. Europe has largely enjoyed peace and stability for the past 30 years. New allies offered themselves as foundational military partners and have willingly chosen to share the security burden to fight alongside the US. This mutual attraction within the Euro-Atlantic alliance has been so overwhelming in historical proportions that structural realists struggle to explain its extended lifespan and recent vitality. This includes the two latest enlargement rounds in southeastern Europe that happened on President Donald Trump’s watch, not sufficient but certainly greater share of collective defense burdens by European member states, regular military deployments and common military exercises all over the continent, as well as effective multilateral aid using NATO capacities during the COVID-19 crisis. This suggests, contrary to many pessimistic views, that American liberal hegemony in Europe is far from being in decline.  

      One can only imagine the different scenarios had the US decided to pursue a more restrained foreign policy in the region. Not only supporters but also critics of NATO enlargement also offered the possibility that Euro-Atlantic adversaries, namely Russia, would have been emboldened to expand the Kremlin’s sphere of influence beyond the current lines had any geopolitical vacuum existed in central and eastern Europe. J. J. Mearsheimer, for example, argues in his book that great powers “are always searching for opportunities to gain power over their rivals, with hegemony as their final goal.” Stephen M. Walt also conceded that relations with Moscow, provided Russia regained some of its former strength, “might still have worsened.”

      Counterfactuals such as these can hardly be verified. However, Russia’s brutal treatment of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine made it very clear what actually happens with states in geopolitical gray areas. Belarus, which falls in Russia’s sphere of influence, is not happy either.

      Net Positive

      American liberal hegemony has also been a net positive when it comes to security in the Balkans — if measured by the progress on where Balkan states started from and not their distance from a liberal Western world. US leadership, for example, contained an outbreak of nationalism in the region after the EU demonstrated neither effectiveness nor capacity of preemption in the early 1990s. The Clinton administration successfully brokered the Dayton Peace Agreement in a positive-sum game whereby Republika Srpska received formal recognition as a political entity within the sovereign state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the post-Dayton phase, the liberal-led European order, primarily NATO and the EU, patiently put in place new structures and policies so the country can move forward with the peace process.

      Notwithstanding NATO’s intervention in Serbia in 1999 and CIA interference in 2000, the US and its allies also used an array of softer policy instruments to promote successful democratic change in Serbia. The International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and former activists from new NATO members advised and supported independent civil organizations and opposition parties in Serbia to replace the “Butcher of the Balkans” Slobodan Milosevic in a democratic election. In recent years, Washington and Brussels also played an instrumental role in brokering the Prespa Agreement between Northern Macedonia and Greece. A bilateral deal between two bordering countries in 2018 put an end to the long-standing name dispute on the one hand and unlocked the Euro-Atlantic membership perspective for Northern Macedonia on the other.

      Some of these hard-won historical achievements could have not been possible had the US decided to pursue a more restrained foreign policy. In all likelihood, weaker American leadership in Europe in the post-Cold War era would have created more problems, making European states less liberal and more domestically nationalist, rendering the European periphery full of prolonged proxy wars and skirmishes.

      Russia would have also had more space to moderate such conflicts with its power-projection capabilities in the region. Likewise, absent integration into Western institutions, Europe’s soft underbelly would have exposed itself to sudden geopolitical stress bringing different local and regional powers into direct collision.

      In Russia’s Image

      On third assumption, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his speech at the Munich security conference in 2007 that “the unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world.” Thirteen years later, speaking at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov endorsed a multipolar concert with new centers of influence at the international level and common geopolitical space from Lisbon to Jakarta at the wider regional level. Lavrov also stated that “Our common European home needs serious reconstruction if we want all of its residents to live in prosperity.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      On a mission to correct “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” — the collapse of the Soviet Union — the Kremlin is practically interested in replacing an existing liberal order, primarily the one extended beyond the Iron Curtain, with favorable and less democratic European regimes that fit Russia’s image. Second, it is also interested in replacing the hierarchic order in Europe with some unknown and certainly more anarchic multipolar structure. However, it is not surprising that the Kremlin’s foreign policy attracted limited support from the former Soviet republics and other central and eastern European countries. Most of them continue to fear Russia. Unlike their attraction to the US, their anxiety toward Moscow can be explained from their shared national memory of what can happen under the rule of an illiberal hegemon — or a potential hegemon that is, by the logic of Walt’s balance of threat theory, too close, too powerful and too offensive.

      So far, all attempts from the Kremlin to impose its own illiberal and structural order in Europe, largely constrained by its limits of hard and soft power, have only made young democracies and vulnerable countries scattered around the European periphery more divided and, eventually, more anarchic. In August 2008, Russia’s military intervention in Georgia restored the Kremlin’s geopolitical relevance in the European neighborhood. However, Georgia was divided between Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on one hand and the rest of Georgia on the other.

      This small triumph encouraged Russia to bully again by lopping off Crimea from neighboring Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine was then equally forcefully divided along similar geostrategic and domestic lines between Kyiv’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations and secessionist tendencies by a pro-Russian minority in the east. Some have argued that Moscow’s incursions into Georgia and Ukraine were conducted preemptively and in reaction to perceived NATO enlargement and were therefore defensive in nature. Mearsheimer famously rejected prevailing wisdom in the West that this problem is largely the result of Russian aggression.

      Stephen F. Cohen also justified Russia’s interest in restoring traditional zones of national security on its borders, including Ukraine. However, Russia marched into Syria, dropping bunker-buster bombs on Aleppo, supported mercenaries in Libya and became increasingly offensive in the Balkans — not Russia’s “near abroad” but deep inside NATO and the EU’s eastern borders. The Kremlin has reportedly fanned the flames of internal crisis in Montenegro in 2015-16 and Northern Macedonia in 2017-18. Milorad Dodik, a pro-Russian Serb leader in Bosnia and Herzegovina called his own country “an impossible state.” In February this year, he bluntly declared: “Goodbye B&H, welcome RSexit.”

      Serbia and Russia carried out a joint Slavic Shield military exercise in 2019, including Russia’s first use of its advanced S-400 missile defense system abroad. In the meantime, Serbia also received Russian donations of MIG-29 fighter jets, T-72 tanks, BRDM-2MS armored vehicles and purchased, at Putin’s suggestion, the Pantsir S-1 air defense system in 2020. Russia’s appetite, therefore, goes well beyond its immediate neighborhood. It openly challenges the established liberal order in Europe by taking advantage of tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, and different ethnicities within North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and so on.

      This revisionist path doesn’t lead to security in Europe but rather to new skirmishes and security dilemmas in the Balkans, a region divided between rival power dyads, which is at worst all too reminiscent of the 1900s, when unintended consequences of nationalist fervor led to the murder of millions.

      Bottom Line

      Contrary to claims that the US strategy of liberal hegemony is generally a source of endless trouble, supported by real failures and terrible misadventures of social engineering in Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya, its mission in Europe was historically successful and mutually beneficial both before and after the Cold War. American leadership in Europe has been a net-positive force, essentially without US military casualties, mutually acceptable and institutional — all missing in other troubled areas. It has secured undisrupted peace dividends among major European powers, provided various public goods to newcomers from beyond the Iron Curtain, and eventually brought peace to the Balkans after the international community failed to prevent genocide in Srebrenica.

      The United States, which is still the preeminent global power, does not need to reassess this grand strategy in Europe or quit NATO, an alliance encompassing nearly a billion people and half the world’s military and economic might. Down that road lie many other long-lasting win-win outcomes as well as serious challenges that are better faced collectively.

      An alternative order that is promoted by some American realist and neorealist pundits on one side and revisionist challengers in the Kremlin on the other might have different motivations, means and ends. However, their common preference for dissolving NATO or having different poles in the European theater brings, by logic of structural realism, crosscutting relationships among different axes of conflict. That gloomy trajectory, if it ever happens, would make a perfect setting for a 21st-century Gavrilo Princip to fire his bullet again and trigger a chain of regrettable events here, there and everywhere.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Donald Trump hopes for election boost from Kosovo-Serbia talks

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      The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia will meet at the White House on Thursday and Friday, in an encounter that some see as a push for a diplomatic win for Donald Trump to brandish during his re-election campaign.Kosovo’s prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, will meet with the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, in talks that Trump aides say will be primarily about economic issues between the two countries, but may pave the way to a broader deal.The goal of the talks is “to create economic development that will then somehow change the dynamic amongst the political class”, said a senior adviser to Trump in a call with reporters earlier in the week. The adviser said it was not yet clear whether Trump would take part in the meetings – suggesting he would only meet the two leaders if there is a deal to be signed.Kosovo broke from Serbia after a war and Nato bombing campaign, and declared independence in 2008, but the two sides have no relations.The White House diplomatic push, led by the Trump loyalist Richard Grenell, has irritated some European diplomats, who say the EU’s long-running mediation process should be given priority.It has also prompted fears that a land swap could be on the table as part of the deal, which many believe would have knock-on effects in other parts of the Balkans. Grenell has long denied that a land swap is under consideration.Grenell, who has courted controversy as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and then as acting director of national intelligence, has also attracted criticism for his negotiation tactics. In April, Kosovo’s ousted prime minister Albin Kurti accused Grenell of mounting a coup to overthrow him so he could present Trump with a diplomatic success in an election year. “My government was not overthrown for anything else but simply because Ambassador Grenell was in a hurry to sign an agreement with Serbia,” said Kurti.A meeting at the White House planned in late June fell apart at the last minute after prosecutors at a court in The Hague announced they had filed a draft indictment against Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaçi. The statement was released as Thaçi was already en route to Washington.Now, two months before the US election, the meeting will finally take place, with the emphasis on economic progress.“We can either sit around and continue talking about political issues that get us nowhere, or we can do something that President Trump thinks might work, and we’re going to test it to see if it works,” said the Trump adviser.The EU-brokered talks were on hold for two years after Kosovo imposed import tariffs on Serbian goods, but have recently resumed. Meetings in Brussels, including expert dialogue and top-level discussions, are planned for next week.The EU envoy for Kosovo-Serbia talks, Miroslav Lajčak, has said an EU-brokered deal to normalise relations between Belgrade and Pristina could be ready soon.“Let’s see how much time we need, but I am speaking about months, I am not speaking about years,” he said at a forum in Slovenia this week. “Both parties are committed, both parties are serious, respecting each other.” More

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      Discovery of Natural Gas Exposes Turkey’s Political Rifts

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      President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement on August 21 that Turkey had discovered some 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the Black Sea has exposed the acutely divided domestic political environment in the country. Whereas the pro-Erdogan camp hailed the development as an important milestone toward the government’s declared ambition to become a leading global power — it has the potential to significantly reduce Turkey’s current account deficit — the opposition, particularly the Republican People’s Party (CHP), sent out messages that disdained the importance of the discovery by declaring it financially unfeasible.

      The secretary general of the CHP, Selin Sayek Boke, went so far as to argue that Erdogan is going to use the gas for his own ends. Engin Atalay, the deputy chairman of CHP’s parliamentary group, had previously declared that “Even if the government has done the best thing in the world, we will unconditionally criticize and refuse it,” which is indicative of the opposition’s modus operandi.

      The New Cold War in the Middle East

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      So, what explains the opposition’s hostility toward this seemingly groundbreaking development in the Black Sea, as well as its steadfast total rejection of government actions? Simply put, it is part of the opposition’s long-time perception that Erdogan is consolidating his power and that the hydrocarbon discovery may serve his interests. This state of mind is also a reflection of the opposition’s fear that it is running out of options to stop Erdogan’s rise.

      Safety Valve

      Since CHP’s inception on September 9, 1923, by Mustafa Kemal, a secular nationalist and founder of modern Turkey, the CHP elite has considered itself entitled to govern the country. Having completely severed ties with the Ottoman past, Kemal crafted the state on the strict interpretation of Westernism and secularism. The CHP elite assumed the responsibility of upholding those principles by perpetuating the CHP single-party regime by suppressing any opposition. This state of privilege and entitlement lasted until 1950. That year, the first democratic elections in the history of modern Turkey were held as a prerequisite for receiving funds as part of the Marshall Plan, which the CHP desperately needed given the abysmal state of the economy after World War II despite Turkey’s neutrality.

      The opposition, under Adnan Menderes, a conservative who overtly displayed his Muslim identity, won the elections by a landslide, allowing him to form a single-party government — a blow to the CHP elite. In his 10-year tenure, Menderes defied the Kemalist establishment by, among others, reverting the Muslim call to prayer to Arabic, and allowing the education of the Quran in primary school. He declared in 1951 that “Turkey is a Muslim country and will remain so.” Secular CHP’s three electoral defeats against Menderes convinced the CHP elite that democracy is not an option to regain what they believe was theirs and that the erosion of the Kemalist principles can only be halted by force.

      In 1960, the Kemalist Turkish armed forces (TAF) stepped in and toppled Menderes, executing him and the two other prominent cabinet members. This launched the tradition of military coups in Turkey, where the TAF assumed the guardianship (praetorian) role of the Kemalist principles, specifically secularism. In the next 50 years, the TAF would “keep the civilians in line” by stepping in three more times, in 1971, 1980 and 1997. It made its presence known to governments through the supreme national security council, in which top generals dictated domestic and foreign policy recommendations to civilian government members. 

      Fast forward to 2002, when Erdogan’s ascent to power and the beginning of the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) single-party rule in Turkey heralded the impending clash with the military reminiscent of the Menderes era. This time the Kemalist military would lose. Erdogan had long believed that the military’s interpretation of strict secularism, particularly in the 1990s, suppressed the pious masses to which he belonged. He skillfully used Turkey’s European Union accession process to take on the military. He did this by zealously implementing EU guidelines, among which was the “civilianization” of politics requiring the demilitarization of the supreme national security council. In 2004, for the first time since its inception in 1938, a civilian, Mehmet Yigit Alpogan, became the secretary general of the council.

      The Turkish military would strike back in April 2007 by issuing a stern warning against the election of Erdogan’s then-comrade, Abdullah Gul, as president. The move backfired, and the AKP won the general election by a landslide that summer, heralding the beginning of total civilian control over the Turkish armed forces. It is this loss of the Kemalist “safety valve” that began to raise alarm bells for the CHP. The abortive coup of July 15, 2016, was probably the oppositions last dimming hope. To its dismay, the popular resistance against the coup resulted in failure, along with the widespread purge of the supporters of Fethullah Gulen — Erdogan’s “public enemy number one” — in the military, judiciary and law enforcement, allowed Erdogan to further consolidate his grip on power. 

      The New System

      An unexpected glimmer of hope for the opposition in its effort to topple the invincible Erdogan emerged with the introduction of the presidential system in 2017, which replaced the parliamentary system. In the parliamentary system, the main opposition party, the CHP, had no chance of forming a government, mostly due to unfavorable demographic realities. Its numbers consistently hovered around 20%-25%, whereas the AKP doubled that. In the new two-round presidential elections, a candidate is required to obtain at least 50%+1 of the popular vote in order to be elected. If no overall majority is reached, then a runoff is held between the two most popular candidates from the first round.    

      The first such election was held in June 2018, where four major parties — the AKP, the CHP, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and the Good Party — nominated their candidates, with President Erdogan polling highest. With what is now called the People’s Alliance, where the AKP and the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) formed an official pact, Erdogan won 52% of the popular vote. However, a win by a slight margin convinced the opposition that in a 50%+1 system, it may have a chance against him. Therefore, in an unprecedented turn in Turkish politics, the opposition began to coalesce around the idea “anybody but Erdogan.”

      The opposition formed what is now called the Nation Alliance, where the CHP and the Good Party created an official pact with the HDP and the Felicity Party (SP, Erdogan’s former party) throwing in their unofficial support. The Good Party, with its moderate nationalist ideology, did not want to enter into an official pact with the Kurdish nationalist socialist-leaning HDP, which is the political arm of the outlawed PKK terrorist organization. The prospect of this new style of opposition was first tested in the March 2019 mayoral elections.

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      To ensure success, the Nation Alliance nominated only the candidates whose party had the highest chance of winning against the People’s Alliance. This tactic seemed to have worked. For the first time in 30 years, a party with a manifestly leftist and secular worldview and with the support of the rest of the opposition, the CHP, won the mayoral elections in Turkey’s four biggest cities: Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Adana.

      However, in the aftermath of this success, the anyone-but-Erdogan alliance began showing signs that it was headed for a catastrophic failure. One of the biggest problems was that the alliance had only one requirement — without any meaningful policy contribution to Turkish politics — for the completely opposite political views, and that was to coexist in the name of toppling Erdogan. The right-wing Turkish nationalist Good Party constituency grew resentful of the de facto alliance with the HDP. Furthermore, the HDP’s claim that “without its some 1 million votes [10-12% of total votes], the anti-Erdogan alliance would not have won the elections in Istanbul” further inflamed the Good Party base, which represented some 7%-8% of voters. This led to the resignation of five Good Party deputies.

      Moreover, in order to appeal to conservative constituents, which was necessary to take on Erdogan, the leftist-secular CHP nominated former ultranationalists and conservatives as mayoral and presidential candidates. For instance, the current mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas, is listed as affiliated with the CHP, but he used to be a prominent member of the MHP, which is currently in an official alliance with Erdogan. Yavas’ newly surfaced undated video where he called Deniz Gezmis and his friends — the icons of the Turkish leftist movement who were executed in 1972 on charges of communist affiliations — a “bunch of thugs” drew criticism from certain leftists within CHP.

      The biggest threat to the alliance appeared to be Muharrem Ince, who unsuccessfully contested the current CHP premier Kemal Kilicdaroglu for the seat of party chairman. He has sternly criticized Kilicdaroglu for being undemocratic and lambasted him for leading the CHP astray from Mustafa Kemal’s interpretation of secularism and nationalism (ulusalcilik) by courting the former conservative candidates and aligning with the Kurdish secessionist HDP. Ince, poised to form his own party, drew criticism from the anti-Erdogan coalition for dividing the much-needed block of votes.

      Foreign Entities Against Erdogan  

      With the armed forces now under Erdogan’s full command following the July 15 coup, Turkey began to display activism abroad, which once again is perceived by the opposition as part of Erdogan’s powerplay. Since 2016, Turkey has successfully conducted three incursions into Syria, saved the UN-recognized Libyan government from implosion, and defended its maritime claims in the Eastern Mediterranean against a coalition of countries including Greece, France and the United Arab Emirates.    

      The anybody-but-Erdogan coalition has harshly criticized the president’s virtually every foreign policy move. The “What are we doing in …?” phrase has become an iconic expression the anti-Erdogan block used to decry Turkey’s military involvements in Syria, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, which pro-Erdogan circles see as a crucial matter of national security.

      In the name of weakening Erdogan, the members of the opposition have not shied away from supporting foreign countries and entities that Turkey is known to clash with militarily and politically. For instance, as opposed to Erdogan, Kilicdaroglu does not recognize the PKK’s Syria branch, the YPG, as a terror organization. Whereas Erdogan has expressed his desire to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad, Kilicdaroglu advocated dialogue with him.

      Kilicdaroglu believes Turkey has no business in Libya, whereas the government states it is an important move to counter the Greek maritime claims in the East Mediterranean that could cripple Turkey’s ability to navigate in those waters. Moreover, the CHP mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, criticized the government for converting the Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque, which led the pro-Erdogan circles accusing Imamoglu of being a “Greek spy.” 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Despite these appeals, the Turkish opposition has very few prospects to receive meaningful support from abroad. The bygone days when the Western governments were able to wield absolute influence on the Turkish authorities are just that — gone. The inability of the US and EU to dissuade Turkey from dislodging the PKK from northern Syria is a clear sign of a relative weakening of Western influence over Turkey, conversely signaling Erdogan’s ever-growing power. Likewise, last week’s refusal of EU members — Germany, Spain, Italy, Hungary and Malta — to adopt the sanctions against Ankara proposed by Greece indicates that Erdogan’s Turkey is much more important to Germany in the post-COVID-19 world than a member state’s declared interests in the Mediterranean. What is more, France was dismayed when President Emmanuel Macron could not convince NATO that Turkey was at fault in the naval incident where Turkish and French frigates dangerously came too close off of Libya in July. Finally, Greeks mourn that Europe has bowed to Erdogan on Hagia Sophia.  

      The entitled CHP elite still resents that the country it believes it founded has been taken over by what it sees as a conservative Muslim. What is more disappointing for the CHP is that the Turkish military’s DNA to meddle with domestic politics has been removed, leaving little chance for a coup. It also appears that growing infighting among the members of the anti-Erdogan coalition after the successful 2019 local elections is likely going to affect the opposition’s prospects of taking on Erdogan in 2023.

      The impression that, in the name of weakening Erdogan, it would rather collaborate with foreign entities hostile to Turkey will further damage the opposition. Most Turks are wary of this type of political game. Perhaps some sort of cooperation with Erdogan is a must for the Turkish opposition to save itself from extinction.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Could COVID-19 Bring Down Autocrats?

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      The outbreak of COVID-19 initially looked like a gift to autocrats around the world. What better pretext for a state of emergency than a pandemic?

      It was a golden opportunity to close borders, suppress civil society and issue decrees left and right (mostly right). Donald Trump in the United States, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and others took advantage of the crisis to advance their me-first agendas and consolidate power. Best of all, they could count on the fear of infection to keep protestors off the streets.

      However, as the global death toll approaches a million and autocrats face heightened criticism of their COVID responses, the pandemic is looking less and less like a gift.

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      The news from Mali, Belarus and the Philippines should put the fear of regime change in the hearts of autocrats from Washington to Moscow. Despite all the recent signs that democracy is on the wane, people are voting with their feet by massing on the streets to make their voices heard, particularly in places where voting with their hands has not been honored.

      The pandemic is not the only factor behind growing public disaffection for these strongmen. But for men whose chief selling point is strong leadership, the failure to contain a microscopic virus is pretty damning.

      Yet, as the case of Belarus demonstrates, dictators do not give up power easily. And even when they do, as in Mali, it’s often military power, not people power, that fills the vacuum. Meanwhile, all eyes are fixed on what will happen in the US. Will American citizens take inspiration from the people of Belarus and Mali to remove their own elected autocrat?

      People Power in Mali

      Ibrahim Boubacar Keita won the presidential election in Mali in 2013 in a landslide with 78% of the vote. One of his chief selling points was a promise of  “zero tolerance” for corruption. Easier said than done. The country was notoriously corrupt, and Keita had been in the thick of it during his tenure as prime minister in the 1990s. His return to power was also marked by corruption — a $40-million presidential jet, overpriced military imports, a son with expensive tastes — none of which goes over well in one of the poorest countries in the world.

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      Mali is not only poor, it’s conflict-prone. It has been subject to military coups at roughly 20-year intervals (1968, 1991, 2012). Several Islamist groups and a group of Tuareg separatists have battled the central government — and occasionally each other — over control of the country. French forces intervened at one point to suppress the Islamists, and France has been one of the strongest backers of Keita.

      Mali held parliamentary elections in the spring, the first since 2013 after numerous delays. The turnout was low, due to coronavirus fears and sporadic violence as well as the sheer number of people displaced by conflict. Radical Islamists kidnapped the main opposition leader, Soumaila Cisse, three days before the first round. After the second round, Keita’s party, Rally for Mali, claimed a parliamentary majority, but only thanks to the constitutional court, which overturned the results for 31 seats and shifted the advantage to the ruling party.

      This court decision sparked the initial protests. The main protest group, Movement of June 5 — Rally of Patriotic Force, eventually called for Keita’s resignation, the dissolution of parliament and new elections. In July, government security forces tried to suppress the growing protests, killing more than a dozen people. International mediators were unable to resolve the stand-off. When Keita tried to pack the constitutional court with a new set of friends, protesters returned to the street.

      On August 18, the military detained Keita and that night he stepped down. The coup was led by Assimi Goita, who’d worked closely with the US military on counterinsurgency campaigns. Instead of acceding to demands for early elections, however, the new ruling junta says that Malians won’t go to the polls before 2023.

      The people of Mali showed tremendous courage to stand up to their autocrat. Unfortunately, given the history of coups and various insurgencies, the military has gotten used to playing a dominant role in the country. The US and France are also partly to blame for lavishing money, arms and training on the army on behalf of their “war on terrorism” rather than rebuilding Mali’s economy and strengthening its political infrastructure.

      Mali is a potent reminder that one alternative to autocrats is a military junta with little interest in democracy.

      Democracy in Action in Belarus

      Alexander Lukashenko is the longest-serving leader in Europe. He’s been the president of Belarus since 1994, having risen to power like Keita on an anti-corruption platform. He’s never before faced much of a political challenge in the country’s tightly-controlled elections.

      Until these last elections. In the August 9 elections, Lukashenko was seeking his sixth term in office. He expected smooth sailing since, after all, he’d jailed the country’s most prominent dissidents, he presided over loyal security forces, and he controlled the media.

      But he didn’t control Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. The wife of jailed oppositionist Sergei Tikhanovsky managed to unite the opposition prior to the election and brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets for campaign rallies.

      Nevertheless, Lukashenko declared victory in the election with 80% of the vote (even though he enjoyed, depending on which poll you consult, either a 33% or a 3% approval rating). Tikhanovskaya fled to Lithuania. And that seemed to be that.

      Except that the citizens of Belarus are not accepting the results of the election. As many as 200,000 people rallied in Minsk on August 23 to demand that Lukashenko step down. In US terms, that would be as if 6 million Americans gathered in Washington to demand Trump’s resignation. So far, Lukashenko is ignoring the crowd’s demand. He has tried to send a signal of defiance by arriving at the presidential palace in a flak jacket and carrying an automatic weapon. More recently, he has resorted to quiet detentions and vague promises of reform.

      Just like the Republicans in the US who appeared as speakers at the Democratic National Convention, key people are abandoning Lukashenko’s side. The workers at the Minsk Tractor Factory are on an anti-Lukashenko strike, and many other workers at state-controlled enterprises have walked off the job. Police are quitting. The ambassador to Slovakia resigned. The state theaters have turned against the autocrat for the first time in 26 years.

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      Despite COVID-19, Belarus doesn’t have any prohibitions against mass gatherings. That’s because Lukashenko has been a prominent COVID-19 denialist, refusing to shut down the country or adopt any significant medical precautions. His recommendations: take a sauna and drink vodka. Like Boris Johnson in the UK and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Lukashenko subsequently contracted the disease, though he claims that he was asymptomatic. The country has around 70,000 infections and about 650 deaths, but the numbers have started to rise again in recent days.

      There are plenty of oppositionists ready to usher in democratic elections once Lukashenko is out of the way. A new coordinating council launched this month includes former Culture Minister Pavel Latushko as well as prominent dissidents like Olga Kovalkova and Maria Kolesnikova.

      Even strong backing from Russia won’t help Lukashenko if the whole country turns against him. But beware the autocrat who can still count on support from a state apparatus and a militant minority.

      The End of Duterte? 

      Nothing Rodrigo Duterte could do seemed to diminish his popularity in the Philippines. He insulted people left and right. He launched a war on drugs that left 27,000 alleged drug dealers dead from extrajudicial murders. Another 250 human rights defenders have also been killed.

      Still, his approval ratings remained high, near 70% as recently as May. But Duterte’s failure to deal with the coronavirus and the resulting economic dislocation may finally unseat him, if not from office then at least from the political imagination of Filipinos.

      The Philippines now has around 210,000 infections and 3,300 deaths. Compared to the US or Brazil, that might not sound like much. But surrounding the Philippines are countries that have dealt much more successfully with the pandemic: Thailand (58 deaths), Vietnam (30 deaths), Taiwan (7 deaths). Meanwhile, because of a strict lockdown that didn’t effectively contain the virus, the economy has crashed, and the country has entered its first recession in 29 years.

      Like Trump, Duterte has blamed everyone but himself for the country’s failings, even unleashing a recent tirade against medical professionals. But Duterte’s insult politics is no longer working. As Walden Bello, a sociologist and a former member of the Philippines parliament, observes at Foreign Policy In Focus, “The hundreds of thousands blinded by his gangster charisma in the last 4 years have had the scales fall from their eyes and are now asking themselves how they could possibly have fallen in love with a person whose only skill was mass murder.”

      In the Philippines, presidents serve one six-year term, and Duterte is four years into his. He may well attempt to hold on for two more years. He might even pull a Vladimir Putin and change the constitution so that he can run again. A group of Duterte supporters recently held a press conference to call for a “revolutionary government” and a new constitution. Another possibility, in the wake of recent bombings in southern Philippines, might be a declaration of martial law to fight Abu Sayyaf, which is linked to the Islamic State group.

      But the combination of the pandemic, the economic crash and a pro-China foreign policy may turn the population against Duterte so dramatically that he might view resignation as the only way out.

      Democracy in the Balance

      Plenty of autocrats still look pretty comfortable in their positions. Putin — or forces loyal to him — just engineered the poisoning of one of his chief rivals, Alexei Navalny. Xi Jinping has just about turned Chinese politics into a one-man show. Viktor Orban has consolidated his grip on power in Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suppressed or co-opted the opposition parties in Turkey, and Bashar al-Assad has seemingly weathered the civil war in Syria.

      Even Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, despite an atrocious record on both the pandemic and the economy, has somehow managed to regain some popularity, with his approval rating nudging above his disapproval rating recently for the first time since April.

      The US presidential elections might tip the balance one way or the other. Although America still represents a democratic ideal for some around the world, that’s not the reason why the November elections matter. Donald Trump has so undermined democratic norms and institutions that democrats around the world are aghast that he hasn’t had to pay a political price. He escaped impeachment. His party still stands behind him. Plenty of his associates have gone to jail, but he has not (yet) been taken down by the courts.

      That leaves the court of public opinion. If voters return President Trump to office for a second term, it sends a strong signal that there are no penalties for ruining a democracy. Trump operates according to his own Pottery Barn rule: He broke a democracy and he believes that he now owns it. If voters agree, it will gladden the hearts of ruling autocrats and authoritarians-to-be all over the world.

      Voting out Trump may not simply resuscitate American democracy. It may send a hopeful message to all those who oppose the Trump-like leaders in their lands. Those leaders may have broken democracy, but we the people still own it.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More