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      For Yemen, No Consistent EU Policy in Sight

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      The European Union and its member states have presented an approach to the ongoing conflict in Yemen that has lacked both coordination and coherence. The situation in Yemen, which was the poorest Arab country already before the eruption of a civil war in 2014, has been described by the Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. In the face of this, the EU and its national governments have too often proved unable or unwilling to make a positive impact on the developments in Yemen. Some EU members, in fact, have been going in the opposite direction.

      The lack of a common European position on Yemen could be observed after September 14, 2019, when Aramco oil facilities in Saudi Arabia were hit by airstrikes, forcing the kingdom to cut its oil production by more than a half. The attacks were claimed by the Houthi rebels who had seized the capital Sanaa in 2014.

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      Although the Houthis had hit Saudi territory several times in the past, Riyadh insisted that the Aramco attacks were launched from the north, implicitly blaming either Iran or Iraqi militias backed by Tehran. Iran provides the Houthis with support, although claims that the group is an Iranian proxy are far-fetched. An investigation carried out on behalf of the United Nations Security Council concluded that the attacks had probably not been launched from Yemen.

      On the one hand, France and Britain reacted to the attacks (whose authorship was even more uncertain at that moment) with very similar statements, highlighting their commitment to support the security of Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, the German Foreign Ministry and the European External Action Service (the diplomatic arm of the EU) emphasized the need for de-escalation and made no reference to Saudi security.

      The Embargo That Never Was

      The different wording of these statements following the Aramco attacks could be considered anecdotic if it did not reflect a more profound divergence of views among EU members regarding the conflict in Yemen. France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain have continued to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia despite its blatant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights in Yemen. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, direct targeting by the Saudi-led coalition has resulted in more than 8,000 civilian deaths since 2015.

      Germany is the only EU heavyweight that has banned weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, even though Berlin has exceptionally approved the export of €400 million ($449 million) in weapons to Saudi Arabia in March last year. Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands are some of the countries that have taken a similar position. It must be noted, however, that the economic value of weapons sales to Riyadh differs greatly from country to country. Saudi Arabia represents Britain’s biggest market for weapons exports and the third-largest for France. On the contrary, none of the above-mentioned countries implementing a ban has Saudi Arabia among its top-three buyers of military equipment.

      An EU-wide ban on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia is not only extremely unlikely, it would also have a limited impact if implemented. The United States remains by far the major arms supplier to Saudi Arabia, providing 68% of the weapons the kingdom has bought since 2014. Even so, an EU-wide ban on weapons sales to Riyadh is one of the strongest policies the EU could enforce. The share of Saudi weapons imports originating from EU countries is not the sole indicator of its importance for Riyadh. Switching from one weapons supplier to another takes money, time and may lead to incompatibilities in the weapons systems.

      EU countries exporting weapons to Saudi Arabia are acting against the EU Council Common Position on Arms Exports approved in 2008. Article 2 of the Common Position establishes that EU member states must deny an export license for military technology that “might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law.” Adding to this, the EU’s former foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, used to speak strongly against military solutions for Yemen. Mogherini’s successor, Josep Borrell, has less credibility to take such a position since he was Spain’s foreign minister when the Socialist government reversed its initial ban on weapon sales to Saudi Arabia.

      At the end, however, national EU governments retain sovereignty in the management of arms exports and thus often contradict the EU Common Policy. The European Parliament has called for a sanctions committee to be implemented in order to monitor weapons sales, but the decision is non-binding. Actually, it is not unusual to see members of the European Parliament voting in favor of severing support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen while their own parties implement a diametrically opposite policy at the national level.

      The Rhetoric-Reality Gap

      This notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to think that the European Union has not been able to formulate a coordinated and coherent strategy regarding Yemen only because of the dissimilar positions of its member states regarding weapons exports. The low priority given to formulating and eventually supporting such a policy has been equally important. The volume of aid Yemen has received from the European Union is proof of its limited importance to EU leaders.

      Between 2015 and 2018 — the last year for which reliable data is available — Yemen has been allocated €2.33 billion in aid from EU institutions and member countries. During these same four years, Afghanistan and Morocco have received more than €5 billion each from the European Union, the largest global contributor of humanitarian aid.

      It is true that the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance is always complicated when a country is involved in a civil war, and Yemen is no exception. Actually, there are reasons to fear the Houthis might be diverting aid to non-humanitarian purposes. However, it would be naïve to assume that this is the main reason for the low levels of humanitarian aid Yemen has received from the European Union and its member countries. With a slightly smaller population, war-ravaged Syria has received three times as much humanitarian aid as Yemen between 2015 and 2018.

      The explanation for this reality has more to do with the fact that the war in Yemen does not carry the threat of a refugee crisis for the European Union. As surprising as it may seem, more than 160,000 migrants, mostly from Ethiopia and Somalia, arrived in Yemen in 2018. Once there, they often join Yemenis in trying to reach Saudi Arabia in the search of a better life. Riyadh, however, exerts strict controls on migration on the Saudi-Yemeni border, having built a fence along it during the early 2000s.

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      Marissa Quie and Hameed Hakimi argue that in the European Union, aid has become “a tool to stem what electorates perceive to be a ‘tidal wave’ of migration.” This goes a long way into explaining why Libya — through an Italy-Libya deal supported by the EU — Morocco, Turkey or Afghanistan, important points of rigin or transit for migrants aiming to reach Europe, are seen as a higher priority than Yemen.

      The incapacity of the European Union to reach and implement a comprehensive strategy regarding Yemen damages its soft-power projection in the world. Even though the EU stance on the Yemeni conflict is only one of many aspects leading to the questioning of Europe’s soft power, it does not always have to be this way. Europe proved this with its constructive role in the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal, regardless of the fact that the EU was far less successful in finding a solution to the US exit from the deal in 2018.

      The European Union rhetorically upholds a certain set of norms that are presumably the result of a certain European identity. These include the defense of human rights, the respect of international regimes — the 2008 EU Common Position and the 2014 Arms Trade Treaty among them — and the responsibility to help avert humanitarian crisis through aid. Nevertheless, as Mai’a K. Davis Cross explains, “identity, image, policies and Public Diplomacy are all interrelated.” EU public diplomacy in Yemen cannot work as long as its policies, and those of its member states, convey an image at odds with the identity the European Union claims as its own.

      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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      The Infiltration of Law Enforcement by Racist Extremists

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      As protests continue to bring cities across the United States to a standstill, the problem of racist policing is more evident than ever before. The killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department was the latest in a long line of violent assaults on people of color by law enforcement, and his name joins an ever-growing list of those who have been killed by ones who are sworn to protect and serve. The United States is grappling with the issue of police racism before the world’s eyes, and the scale of the conversation currently happening is unprecedented and, sadly, still not enough.

      While the unconscious bias of some officers of the law has been laid bare for all to see, the conscious and hateful bias of others has remained largely in the shadows. The systemic issue of racial profiling is evident, but the hidden epidemic of far-right activism in police departments around the country is an insidious and even more dangerous threat. The links between the police and organized racism are as old as the institutions themselves. During the civil rights movement, Southern police chiefs coordinated with local Ku Klux Klan chapters, and many officers and commissioners in the deep South were accused of aiding Klan activity and even being active members of KKK organizations.

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      While this trend seems like an archaic symptom of the era of segregation, links between law enforcement and far-right organizations have remained constant through the 20th century and into the 21st and are now seemingly more widespread than ever. In the 1990s, a federal judge found that a number of deputies in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office had concrete links to neo-Nazi organizations and that a number of cases of police violence against black and Latino communities had been motivated by their racist hostility and “terrorist” sympathies. Likewise, in 2008, a prominent Chicago-area police officer was fired and prosecuted over links to the Ku Klux Klan.

      Widespread Infiltration

      A 2015 FBI investigation found that white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement agencies was at epidemic levels, and suggested that right-wing and anti-government “domestic terrorists” were using links with law enforcement to gain intelligence and restricted access privileges, as well as ultimately evade capture. The report found that the vast majority of law enforcement agencies across the United States did not screen potential recruits for links to far-right organizations and often turned a blind eye to those recruits with questionable political beliefs.

      The bureau was aware of widespread infiltration as early as 2006, suggesting in a heavily redacted report that white supremacist activists were taking advantage of weak vetting procedures in local law enforcement agencies to gain access to “restricted areas vulnerable to sabotage and to elected officials or protected persons, whom they could see as potential targets for violence.” The 2006 report suggested that this was a systematic effort, coordinated by high-profile far-right figures such as William Pierce, and infiltration was seen as a key element in the philosophy of leaderless resistance.

      Despite the concerns and recommendations outlined in the FBI’s latest report, recent research has shown that the links between law enforcement and the extreme right have continued to flourish. Last year, a Reveal News investigation found that hundreds of active duty and retired law enforcement officers were members of online forums dedicated to Islamophobia, neo-Confederate ideology and even neo-Nazism. Almost 400 police officers from 150 different departments had their identities verified, and many were found to have been actively peddling hate speech, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and anti-government rhetoric.

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      The Proud Boys in particular have strong links to law enforcement, and a number of high-profile investigations have highlighted the extent of the collusion between police and the hate group described as the “alt-right fight club.” In May this year, a Chicago PD officer, Robert Bakker, was found to have been an active member of a Proud Boys Telegram channel called “Fuck Antifa,” where he actively coordinated Proud Boys meet-ups and bragged about his connections in the police department and the government.

      Six months earlier, a police officer from East Hampton, Connecticut, was forced into retirement after his links to Proud Boys groups in the area. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law led an investigation into the officer’s social media activity, finding that he was an active member of the self-described “western chauvinist” group. A year before that, a female officer from Clark County, Washington, was fired after she was pictured wearing a Proud Boys sweatshirt and was later discovered to have been merchandising Proud Boys apparel on the design-sharing RedBubble website.

      Even in cases in which officers are not active members of hate groups, collusion remains a very real issue. In 2019, police officers in Washington, DC, were pictured fist-bumping Proud Boys members at a July 4 rally in front of the White House. The members of the group were then given a police escort to a local bar, while anti-fascist protesters were met with violence from both the police and the Proud Boys. In an even more egregious case, an investigation in Portland, Oregon, found that a senior police officer had been exchanging friendly text messages with Joey Gibson. Gibson was the leader of the far-right Patriot Prayer, a sometimes violent offshoot of the Proud Boys defined by both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

      In the lead-up to a number of high-profile clashes between the group and anti-fascist counterdemonstrators, Gibson and Lieutenant Jeff Niiya shared joking messages and talked about Patriot Prayer’s planned actions, with Niiya even confiding in Gibson that he had told officers to ignore outstanding warrants for the arrest of a prominent Patriot Prayer member, Tusitala “Tiny” Toese. A separate investigation found that Niiya had submitted police reports on Gibson’s behalf, launching criminal investigations against “antifa activists” based on footage Gibson had privately sent him. This raised concerns that far-right demonstrators were being given preferential treatment by Portland police, particularly given the reputation for forceful suppression of anti-fascist counterprotest in the city.

      Not Immune

      Although this trend reaches uniquely epidemic levels in the United States, the rest of the world is not immune. A 2019 report showed alarming levels of collusion between law enforcement and violent right-wing extremists in Germany. The investigation, led by the nation’s general prosecutor, found that the extreme-right Nordkreuz group had compiled a death list of leftist activists, journalists and pro-refugee targets using police records and was in the process of planning a major terror attack. It was found that the 30 members of the group had close ties to law enforcement, with at least one member actively employed by a special commando unit of the state office of criminal investigations.

      A recent investigation by Der Spiegel found that the elite unit, known as the KSK, openly tolerated extremist right-wing iconography and membership, even using widely-known Nazi ciphers such as “88” — code for HH, or Heil Hitler. The investigation uncovered high-level officers openly promoting “national-conservative ideology” and espousing racist ultranationalism. Earlier this year, a KSK soldier who reportedly had links to extremist groups was arrested after a weapons and explosives cache was found in his back yard. The German government responded to Der Spiegel’s exposé by launching its own investigation into the unit, finding that racist extremism was endemic across all ranks. As a result, the unit was officially disbanded in early July.

      As historian Kathleen Belew has shown in her most recent book on the long history of the far right’s links to the United States military, “Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America,” the siphoning of weaponry and ammunition from military bases to white supremacist organizations has been a constant tactic of would-be terrorist groups. There is no doubt that the continued militarization of police forces in the United States and Europe, combined with the high levels of extremist infiltration, offers new avenues for the theft of high-grade weaponry and tactics, and further armament of extremist right-wing groups.

      These links between law enforcement and white supremacist organizations are deeply concerning, and present a very real threat to peace, justice and liberty in the United States and around the world. As police racism once again enters the spotlight, it is more important than ever to examine and challenge the infiltration of law enforcement by racist extremists. A centralized vetting process that directly seeks out links to organized racism and excludes candidates with any affiliation with far-right groups is the bare minimum and should be the first step toward a total overhaul of the training and oversight procedures.

      Despite a number of legal challenges to the protective role of policing, law enforcement, at its core, still exists to protect and serve the people regardless of race, religion or creed, and any affiliation with hateful ideology compromises an officer’s ability to execute this role fairly and without prejudice. Until the systemic and personal racism of law enforcement is no longer an issue, we will see more George Floyds, more Breonna Taylors, more murders in the name of law and order. Preventing and eliminating racist bias in police departments across the US is only the first step toward a long process of reckoning and reconciliation.

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

      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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      Three Years On, Still No Accountability for Our Son’s Death

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      Three years ago today, we suffered the most painful experience a family can endure. Our son Christopher Allen was murdered on the other side of the world, reporting on the civil conflict in South Sudan. A freelance journalist and dual US-UK citizen, Chris was only 26 years old and had a bright future ahead of him — a future that was taken from him, from us and from those whose stories he was so intent on telling the world.

      On August 26, 2017, our lives changed irrevocably. Now, the pursuit of justice for Chris would become a central part of our existence. Our hearts were broken and, in addition to experiencing insurmountable grief, we found our family facing an uphill battle not only with the South Sudanese but also with Chris’ own governments in Washington and London, as well as with the United Nations.

      No Justice

      These are the very democratic institutions that are meant to protect journalists and press freedom, that are meant to fight injustice and ensure accountability for unspeakable crimes. Yet they have failed to act meaningfully to support us or help secure justice for Chris’ killing. Everything that is meant to be set into motion when a tragedy like this occurs simply did not happen — at least not without a fight from our side. Now, three years on, there has still been no investigation and no justice. We still lack even basic answers about what happened to Chris.

      Chris developed his craft as a journalist in Ukraine, where he lived and worked from April 2014 and from there embarked on a new challenge. In August 2017, he traveled to South Sudan to cover the country’s under-reported civil war, embedding with the SPLA-IO, a rebel faction attempting to overthrow the established government in Juba.

      Chris had embedded with the soldiers for more than three weeks, listening to the stories of their lives, their losses, motivations and fears before being targeted by government forces during a battle in Kaya, near South Sudan’s border with Uganda. We spoke with Chris the night before he was killed. The company was moving out that evening to walk through miles of bush to capture munition supplies.

      We urged Chris not to go, to write a piece that covered the embed to date, to share with his readers the pain the families of these men suffered at the hand of those in power. But he insisted that the story of preparing for battle was incomplete. Chris’ dedication to his journalism was absolute — he felt he must bear witness to the battle. He said to us that he “had to see it through.” Our son looked for the truth at all costs.

      As his parents, it is daunting and painful to recount this. Just as Chris sought the truth of the tragedies and difficulties of others, we have been working to establish the truth of the circumstances of his killing every day for three full years. Yet the very governments and institutions whose duty it is to help us find the truth have failed to support us at every key juncture over the past three years.

      Based on evidence uncovered through journalistic investigations in the absence of any official inquiry, we know that Chris was killed by a member of the South Sudanese armed forces and that his killing and the treatment of his body post-mortem are likely to constitute war crimes. With support from a legal team as well as campaigners at Reporters Without Borders, we have tenaciously sought an independent criminal investigation from the South Sudanese and US authorities.

      We Must See This Through

      In our deep desire to secure justice and accountability for the wrongful killing of our son, a civilian and journalist armed only with a camera, and to remind states that they cannot suppress press freedom by killing journalists with impunity, we will continue to demand a meaningful investigation and justice. Like Chris, we must see this through.  

      Despite our intense efforts, the US and UK governments and the United Nations have still failed to act meaningfully to help us find answers or justice, and in some cases have not responded at all. This is in sharp contrast to their publicly stated commitments to freedom of expression. The lesson we have learned over these past three painful years is that too often, these bodies cannot be taken at their word, and must very actively be held to account.

      We persevere in our fight for justice not only for our son, but for all journalists taking tremendous risks to get out the truth from dangerous places around the world. Every case of impunity leaves the door open for further attacks on journalists and emboldens those who wish to use violence to silence public interest reporting. In contrast, every case in which justice is achieved sends a powerful signal that violence against journalists will not be tolerated anywhere and that those who commit such atrocious acts will pay the price. This, in turn, serves to deter violence and protect journalists everywhere.

      We ask that a bright light be shed on the circumstance of Christopher’s killing. We call on governments and institutions to hold the South Sudanese military accountable for the wrongful death of our son. A transparent investigation is the first step. Accountability and justice for Chris must follow. By demanding accountability for our son’s killing, we hope to create a safer world for journalists and bolster press freedom everywhere.

      We must see this through. 

      *[Joyce Krajian and John Allen are the parents of Christopher Allen.]

      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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      Negotiating the End of Brexit

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      It is increasingly likely that, unless things change, on January 1, 2021, we will have a no-deal Brexit. That would mean the only deal between the European Union and the United Kingdom would be the already ratified EU withdrawal agreement of 2019.

      There are only around 50 working days left in which to make a broader agreement for a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU. The consequences of failing to do so for Ireland will be as profound — and perhaps even as long-lasting — as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

      A failure to reach a UK-EU agreement would mean a deep rift between the UK and Ireland. It would also mean heightened tensions within Northern Ireland, disruptions to century-old business relations and a succession of high-profile court cases between the EU and the UK dragging on for years.

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      Issues on which a deal could have easily been reached in amicable give-and-take negotiations will be used as hostages or leverage on other matters. The economic and political damage would be incalculable. And we must do everything we can to avoid this.

      Changing the EU trade commissioner, Phil Hogan, under such circumstances would be dangerous. Trying to change horses in midstream is always difficult. But attempting to do so at the height of a flood — in high winds — would be even more so.

      The EU would lose an exceptionally competent trade commissioner when he was never more needed. An Irishman would no longer hold the trade portfolio. The independence of the European Commission, a vital ingredient in the EU’s success, would have been compromised — a huge loss for all smaller EU states.

      According to the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, talks between the European Union and the UK, which ended last week, seemed at times to be going “backwards rather than forwards.” The impasse has been reached for three reasons.

      The Meaning of Sovereignty

      First, the two sides have set themselves incompatible objectives. The European Union wants a wide-ranging “economic partnership” between the UK and the EU, with a “level playing field” for “open and fair” competition. The UK agreed to this objective in the joint political declaration made with the EU at the time of the withdrawal agreement, which was reached in October 2019.

      Since then, the UK has held a general election with the ruling Conservative Party winning an overall majority in Parliament, and it has changed its mind. It is now insisting, in the uncompromising words of it chief negotiator, David Frost, on “sovereign control of our own laws, borders, and waters.”

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      This formula fails to take account of the fact that any agreement the UK might make with the EU (or with anyone else) on standards for goods, services or food items necessarily involves a diminution of sovereign control. Even being in the World Trade Organization (WTO) involves accepting its rulings, which are a diminution of “sovereign control.” This is why US President Donald Trump does not like the WTO and is trying to undermine it.

      The 2019 withdrawal agreement from the EU also involves a diminution of sovereign control by Westminster over the laws that will apply in Northern Ireland and thus within the UK. That agreement obliges the UK to apply EU laws on tariffs and standards to goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain — i.e., going from one part of the UK to another.

      This obligation is one of the reasons given by a group of UK parliamentarians — including Iain Duncan Smith, David Trimble, Bill Cash, Owen Paterson and Sammy Wilson — for wanting the UK to pull out from the withdrawal agreement, even though most of them voted for it last year.

      Sovereignty is a metaphysical concept, not a practical policy. Attempting to apply it literally would make structured and predictable international cooperation between states impossible. That is not understood by many in the Conservative Party.

      The Method of Negotiation

      Second, the negotiating method has proved challenging. The legal and political timetables do not gel. The UK wants to discuss the legal texts of a possible free trade agreement first and leave the controversial issues — like competition and fisheries — until the endgame in October. But the EU wants serious engagement to start on these sticking points straight away.

      Any resolution of these matters will require complex legal drafting, which cannot be left to the last minute. After all, these texts will have to be approved by the European and British Parliaments before the end of 2020. There can be no ambiguities or late-night sloppy drafting.

      The problem is that the UK negotiator cannot yet get instructions on the compromises he can make from Boris Johnson, the British prime minister. Johnson is instead preoccupied with combating the spread of the COVID-19 disease, as well as keeping the likes of Duncan Smith and Co. onside. The prime minister is a last-minute type of guy.

      Trade Relations With Other Blocs

      Third, there is the matter of making provisions for the trade agreements the UK wants to make in the future with other countries, such as the US, Japan and New Zealand. Freedom to make such deals was presented to UK voters as one of the benefits of Brexit.

      The underlying problem here is that the UK government has yet to make up its mind on whether it will continue with the European Union’s strict precautionary policy on food safety or adopt the more permissive approach favored by the US. Similar policy choices will have to be made by the UK on chemicals, energy efficiency displays and geographical indicators.

      The more the UK diverges from existing EU standards on these issues, the more intrusive the controls on goods coming into Northern Ireland from Britain will have to be, and the more acute the distress will be for Unionist circles in Northern Ireland. Issues that are uncontroversial in themselves will assume vast symbolic significance and threaten peace on the island of Ireland

      The UK is likely to be forced to make side deals with the US on issues like hormone-treated beef, genetically modified organisms and chlorinated chicken. The US questions the scientific basis for the existing EU restrictions and has won a WTO case on beef over this. It would probably win on chlorinated chicken, too.

      If Britain conceded to the US on hormones and chlorination, this would create control problems at the border between the UK and the EU, wherever that border is in Ireland. Either UK officials would enforce EU rules on hormones and chlorination on the entry of beef or chicken to this island, or there would be a huge international court case.

      All this shows that, in the absence of some sort of partnership agreement between the EU and the UK, relations could spiral out of control. Ireland, as well as the European Union, needs its best team on the pitch to ensure that this does not happen.

      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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      How Global Britain Confronts the Asian Century

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      On February 3, Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid bare his long-awaited vision of a “global Britain” in a world after Brexit. Speaking amidst the imperial grandeur of Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, Johnson’s message was that the United Kingdom, liberated from the straitjacket of EU membership, would be free to carve out a confident, dynamic and outward-looking role on the world stage in a post-Brexit era — even as the first handful of COVID-19 infections took root on British soil.

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      Six months and a global pandemic later, Britain faces the unique and unprecedented challenge of redefining its place in a world that is in the midst of a historic watershed moment. The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for deep-rooted trends that have long been evident to politicians, policymakers and analysts alike — none more so than the tectonic shift in the globe’s geopolitical center of gravity from West to East.

      Whether it be China’s much-publicized “wolf-warrior” diplomacy against states criticizing its initial response to the outbreak, or the initial success of East Asian states in confronting the pandemic using artificial intelligence and digital surveillance, COVID-19 has shown that the much-hyped “Asian century” is not merely a future prognosis but a present-day reality.

      Brexit Britain on the World Stage

      If the pandemic has served to boost Asia’s image on the world stage, the opposite is true for Brexit Britain. The UK’s bumbling response to the COVID-19 crisis has confirmed many of the suspicions of ill-placed grandeur held in foreign capitals since the referendum to leave the European Union in 2016.

      Despite Johnson’s boastful confidence in Britain’s “world-beating” response to the novel coronavirus (which causes the COVID-19 disease), fatal early errors by the government — notably the initial refusal to enforce a lockdown in a forlorn effort to preserve the economy — have resulted in Britain suffering the worst of both worlds. Not only is the UK facing one of the highest per-capita death rates and the worst economic fallout as a result of COVID-19 in the developed world, but the situation has been exacerbated by the looming threat of no post-Brexit trade deal being agreed with the EU by the end of 2020.

      In this context, a global Britain’s success in navigating the increasingly volatile “new normal” of the post-pandemic geopolitical order will hinge more than ever on the government’s ability to leverage ties with partners old and new across the Asian continent.

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      Johnson’s vision of a buccaneering global Britain on the world stage is fundamentally predicated upon two core pillars: trade and security. Whitehall is acutely aware that Britain’s ability to harness the ascendance of Asia’s emerging powerhouses hinges upon striking a fragile balance between these two, often inconsistent, objectives.

      On one hand, Britain’s strategic planners look hungrily toward contemporary geopolitical hotspots like the South China Sea as testing grounds for a new forceful security footprint in the Indo-Pacific region. Britain’s armed forces already possess a string of strategic outposts, from the Brunei-based Gurkha garrison to Royal Naval logistical hubs in Singapore and Diego Garcia. The recently formed UK Defence Staff (Asia Pacific) has outlined plans for a further base in Southeast Asia in a bid to affirm Britain’s commitment to upholding the regional security architecture.

      In a symbolic gesture, the scheduled deployment of the Royal Navy’s brand new state-of-the-art aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, to conduct “freedom of navigation” patrols in the disputed South China Sea during 2021 is indicative of a wholesale rejection of the strategic retrenchment from east of Suez that has typified British security policy in the Indo-Pacific since the 1960s.

      Beijing’s Sphere of Influence

      Nevertheless, such grandiose ambitions of a more assertive military and diplomatic footprint in Asia do not come without their costs. Given China’s increasingly assertive posture on the international stage since the outbreak of COVID-19, it is not unreasonable to expect the diplomatic blowback from Britain’s perceived meddling within Beijing’s sphere of influence to grow stronger in the post-COVID era.

      In July, after the UK offered citizenship to almost 3 million Hong Kong residents following Beijing’s implementation of a controversial new security law in Britain’s ex-colony, China issued a strongly-worded yet ambiguous threat of “retaliation.” China’s response is illustrative of the fact that Brexit Britain’s ability to fully harness the Asian century is dependent upon London playing second fiddle to the preferences of Tokyo, Beijing and New Delhi.  

      Despite Johnson’s lofty rhetoric hailing Britain’s post-Brexit transformation into a “great, global trading nation,” such a vision is not exactly conducive to geopolitical maneuvers that can all too readily be perceived as antagonistic by prospective partners. For instance, Whitehall’s backpedaling over the contracting of Huawei, a Chinese technology company, to construct large tracts of Britain’s 5G infrastructure over national security concerns does not bode well for a future UK–China free trade deal. Similarly, efforts to introduce restrictions on immigration via the adoption of an Australia-style points-based system have proved to be a sticking point in post-Brexit trade negotiations with India, the former “jewel of the empire” with whom Britain shares extensive historical, cultural and linguistic ties.

      As a global Britain seeks to navigate a post-pandemic order characterized by increased great power antagonism, retreating globalization and resurgent authoritarianism, Whitehall’s strategic planners must be prepared to make hard-headed compromises between geopolitical and economic objectives in Asia in a manner that has been sorely lacking from Brexit negotiations with Britain’s European partners. Cut adrift from Europe at a time when the global order is becoming increasingly fragmented into competing regional blocs, a rudderless Britain lacking a coherent, sustainable vision of how it seeks to engage with Asia’s emerging superpowers risks becoming caught in the middle of an escalating cold war between the US and China.

      Reason for Optimism

      Despite the gloomy prognosis for a global Britain standing at the dawn of the Asian century, there remains reason for optimism once the short-term shockwaves of the pandemic have receded. Britain’s elite universities retain a mystical allure for ambitious young Asians seeking a world-class education. China, India, Hong Kong and Malaysia account for four of the top five countries of origin for international students in the UK. In addition, with two leading vaccine candidates in development at Oxford and Imperial, a British breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19 would further bolster Britain’s reputation as a global hub of research and innovation.

      Such cutting-edge academic expertise — combined with London’s enduring status as a global financial center, post-2021 visa and immigration reforms targeting highly-skilled professionals, and the cultural imprint of large Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese diasporas — ensures that even post-Brexit Britain possesses the latent potential not only to attract top-class Asian talent, but also to emerge as one of the Asian century’s biggest winners outside of the Indo-Pacific. Whilst Brexit has undercut the Blairite vision of Britain as a “pivotal power” bridging the gap between the US and Europe, the United Kingdom’s deep-rooted historical, cultural, linguistic and economic ties with Asia’s rising powers provide ample scope for recasting Britain as a pivot on a grander scale: as a global hub bridging East and West.

      However, such aspirations remain little more than wishful thinking unless British policymakers can formulate a coherent approach toward the Asian century, which has so far been absent. Nevertheless, tentative steps have been taken in such a direction over recent months. Whitehall’s merging of the Department for International Development with the Foreign Office is likely to deal a blow to British influence in less-developed corners of Asia, at least in the short term. Yet Johnson’s renewed commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid enables a more cohesive, long-term approach with developmental issues, allowing funding to be streamlined toward teams of world-class specialists, such as the UK Climate Change Unit in Indonesia or the Stabilisation Unit supporting post-conflict reconstruction in fragile states like Pakistan and Myanmar.

      Similarly, the Foreign Office’s recent adoption of an “All of Asia” strategy is indicative of a more comprehensive approach to forging partnerships across the continent, balancing conflicting security, diplomatic, trade, developmental priorities, as illustrated through the establishment of the UK’s first permanent mission to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc in January 2020.

      Before It Sets Sail

      As the nature of post-pandemic global order emerges over the coming months and years, a global Britain will find itself navigating a turbulent geopolitical environment made infinitely more challenging by the aftershocks of the coronavirus. This includes a worldwide economic crisis, decreased globalization, declining faith in multilateral institutions and rising great power tension, all of which threaten to derail Johnson’s post-Brexit voyage into the unknown before it has even set sail.

      Whilst Britain and its Western allies have bungled their response to the public health crisis, Asia’s dynamic rising powers are already bouncing back from the pandemic and laying the building blocks to ensure that the 21st century truly is Asian. From Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative” to New Delhi’s “Make in India” to ambitious future vision projects such as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, Vision of Indonesia 2045 or Kazakhstan 2050, Asia’s emerging powerhouses all champion integrated strategic frameworks to harness the unprecedented shift in global wealth and power eastward, which the COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed.

      A global Britain’s greatest mistake would be to supplement such a long-term calculated strategy with the half-baked geopolitical gambits that have so far typified Brexit Britain’s approach to the world’s largest continent. Indeed, for the UK to truly unleash its full potential in the dawning Asian century, it must look to Asia itself for inspiration.

      *[Will Marshall is an intern at Gulf State Analytics, which is a media partner of Fair Observer.]

      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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      Will Millennials and Zoomers Save the Future?

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      “All of you young people who served in the war. You are all a lost generation.” This famous phrase is credited to Gertrude Stein by Ernest Hemingway, who popularized it in the epigraph to his 1926 novel “The Sun also Rises.” The phrase encapsulates the feelings of a generation, disillusioned by the civilizational breakdown witnessed during the Great War, the loss of faith in the ideals and values that had marked their pre-war youth, which left them empty and cynical. In Europe, many of them would ultimately find a new purpose in the ranks of Mussolini’s squadristi, Hitler’s Sturmabteilung and the various fascist movements that sprang up in their wake — with disastrous results.

      It might appear preposterous to compare today’s younger generations, millennials and zoomers (aka Generation Z), to Hemingway’s cohort of young women and men on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet there are good reasons to presume that today’s younger generations are going to be as deeply, if not more, scarred — socially, economically and psychologically — by COVID-19 as the Lost Generation was by World War I.  

      Foretaste of Things to Come

      The travails of COVID-19, as has been frequently noted, are just a foretaste of things to come. The combination of climate change and the destruction of natural habitats has made the outbreak of infectious diseases spreading from animals, such as bats and birds, to humans increasingly likely. As a landmark study published in Nature put it a decade ago, “mounting evidence indicates that biodiversity loss frequently increases disease transmission.” Or, to put it differently, “current evidence indicates that preserving intact ecosystems and their endemic biodiversity should generally reduce the prevalence of infectious diseases.”

      Unfortunately, the opposite has been the case. The current rate of extinction is “tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years — and it is accelerating.” By now, humanity, which accounts for not more than a small sliver of life on this planet, is responsible for the loss of more than 80% of all wild mammals and half of all plants. The consequences are potentially catastrophic.

      For the moment, concerns about global warming and the rapid loss of biodiversity has been overshadowed by the all-consuming issue of COVID-19. And for good reasons. The novel coronavirus has severely disrupted life as we have come to know and expect it. And there is no end in sight. Its social, economic and psychological consequences, in addition to its impact on public health, has been profound and far reaching, particularly for the younger generations. Millennials, already pummeled by the fallout from the Great Recession of 2008, have been hit hard once again. For zoomers, the generation born between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s, COVID-19 is likely to be the formative experience shaping the rest of their lives.

      For both generations, the economic impact of the pandemic has been disastrous. Already last year, months before the pandemic hit the United States full force, Annie Lowrey wrote in The Atlantic that millennials were “likely to be the first generation in modern economic history to end up worse off than their parents. The next downturn might make sure of it, stalling their careers and sucking away their wages right as the Millennials enter their prime earning years.” The pandemic confirmed her worst fears. Early this year, Lowrey characterized the pandemic as a “financial tsunami for younger workers.”

      According to preliminary data, after the onset of the pandemic, “a staggering 52 percent of people under the age of 45 have lost a job, been put on leave, or had their hours reduced due to the pandemic, compared with 26 percent of people over the age of 45.” Federal aid was likely to do little to nothing to alleviate their financial woes.

      The outlook is equally bleak for zoomers. According to the consulting firm Delloite, in April and May 2020, 30% of Zoomers reported having lost their job or having been put on temporary, unpaid leave. This is particularly ironic. As Mathew Goodwin has recently noted, zoomers “find themselves in a strange position — on the one hand, they are on track to be the most well-educated generation in history but, on the other, they are entering the labour market amid one of the most challenging periods in history.” Given their educational background and levels of skills, their prospects in the labor market should be bright; instead, they are nothing short of bleak.

      At least for the moment, opportunities for internships have largely dried up, entry positions are rare and, for those who manage to get one, the pay is low. And things are unlikely to get better any time soon, given the depth of the coronavirus-induced recession. As an essay in The Economist recently put it, “Economic misery has a tendency to compound. Low wages now beget low wages later, and meagre pensions after that. The prospect of middle-aged drudgery beckons.”

      After Us, the Deluge?

      The Lost Generation’s soul-shattering experience of senseless death during the Great War turned many of them cynical while leading them into aimless and reckless pursuit of vacuous, decadent hedonism, reflected in the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the paintings of George Grosz. Given the circumstances, one might expect history to repeat itself, not as a “grand tragedy” but as a “rotten farce,” as per Karl Marx’s “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,” reflected in the infamous “COVID parties” on the beaches of Florida, with their flair of Russian roulette, scripted according to the adage “after me, the deluge,” or, more prosaically, “who gives a shit about the future.”

      As it turns out, zoomers do — or so a growing number of recent studies suggest, whether produced by think tanks or by business consulting firms seeking to exploit Gen Z’s consumer potential. The results are nothing short of stunning, the implications potentially revolutionary. Take global warming. In 2019, an Amnesty International-sponsored survey found more than 40% of young people considering global warming the most important global issue. At the same time, however, almost half of zoomers and more than 40% of millennials thought that it was already too late to repair the damage caused by climate change.

      This, however, does not seem to have turned them cynical, self-centered, apathetic or escapist. On the contrary. An article in Forbes, written at the height of last year’s global mass demonstrations calling for action to confront climate change, put it best, claiming that Gen Z was “a force to be reckoned with. They’re not trying to change the world; they’re already doing it and, in many cases, they’re leading the way.”

      A Gen Zer’s Perspective on Climate Change Reform

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      Recent studies support this contention. They find that the younger generation holds deeply engrained values that more often than not are in complete opposition to the values that dominated advanced capitalist societies pre-coronavirus. In the face of a resurgence of ethnocentrism and tribalism, they cherish diversity while rejecting the knee-jerk nationalism that has been the hallmark of right-wing populism currently en vogue from Britain to Denmark, from Italy to the United States.

      Unlike their elders, who for decades allowed themselves to be subjected to incessant neoliberal indoctrination claiming that the state is part of the problem, that only markets get things right, that society does not exist, and that everybody fends for themselves, zoomers are pro-government and supportive of a strong state. COVID-19 has not only validated and reaffirmed their belief in government action and the extension of social welfare policies but also in the necessity of fundamental, radical change.

      With Gen Z, the old slogan from the student movement of the 1960s that “the personal is political” has come back with a vengeance — and a new meaning. We have seen it with the controversies over the wearing of masks that have shown how quickly and to what degree personal choice turns into political statement these days. Today, as a number of top-notch business consulting firms have affirmed, this is particularly true with respect to consumption patterns and consumer choices. Veganism, for instance, is not only a lifestyle choice — it is also, and in some instances even predominantly, a political statement. As Deborah Kalte has recently noted, the “vast majority of vegans is politically motivated and aims to induce change in society at large.”

      In the past, as Thorstein Veblen and Pierre Bourdieu have argued and shown, consumption served as a marker, a sign of distinction, and this in a very material sense. Today, or so a number of studies suggest, at least with the younger generation, consumption is tied in with ideals and values, which makes it highly political.

      The Personal Is Political

      Even before the onset of the pandemic, business reports noted the central importance of sustainability for the younger generation. In 2015, a Nielsen report found more than 70% of global millennials were willing to pay more for sustainable goods. Five years later, a First Insight report found that “the vast majority of Generation Z shoppers prefer to buy sustainable brands, and they are most willing to spend 10 percent or more on sustainable products.” At the same time, the report noted that Gen Zers and millennials “are the most likely to make purchase decisions based on values and principles (personal, social, and environmental).”

      And the revolution does not stop here. Business consultants have already set their eyes on Generation Alpha — the offspring of the millennial generation and younger siblings of Gen Z — who populate today’s cradles and kindergartens. As an article in Wired puts it, the “latest age group to emerge are barely out of diapers, and the internet is already serving them ads.”

      Raised and influenced by their millennial parents and Gen Z siblings, they are expected to be just as progressive and radical — even more so — as their immediate elders, or so a recent report from the e-commerce consulting firm Wunderman Thompson Commerce wants us to believe. Confronted with myriads of global crises — humanitarian, ecological, economic, social — they are characterized as “uniquely ethically inclined and value-led.” This is based on the finding that more than two-thirds “of 6 to 9 year olds say that saving the planet will be the central mission of their careers in the future, joining the fight that current Gen Zs are leading.” An equally large proportion indicated they would like to buy from companies that “are trying to do good in the world.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      If the findings of these studies are true, things are likely to heat up considerably in the near future, both socially and politically. What the younger generations represent is a reality that is fundamentally at odds with the one peddled by Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and Scott Morrison (Australia’s champion of coal), to name but a few. There is a huge gap between the perceptions and values of the younger generations and those of the older generations, as most recently seen once again with COVID-19, whether with regard to wearing masks or accepting track-and-trace apps. Today, the fate of the planet is to a large extent in the hands of generations that are unlikely to experience the full force of the disasters their actions and inactions have caused. The reality is that governments, corporations and the older generation have largely failed the younger generations and continue to do so — with catastrophic consequences.  Over the past several decades, governments have piled up huge amounts of national debt.  With COVID-19, they have added further layers, bound to impose yet another enormous burden on today’s youth.     

      Under the circumstances, it might be tempting to dismiss them as another Lost Generation. It bears remembering, however, that it was the original Lost Generation that was instrumental not only in the rebuilding of much of Europe after the Great War, but also in the establishment of the postwar liberal order — “embedded liberalism” — and the entrenchment of the social-democratic welfare state. 

      Today, we confront another crucial moment. Once again hope rests on the younger generations to provide the vision and energy not only to meet the numerous social, economic, cultural and particularly ecological challenges that threaten to overwhelm humanity. All available data suggest that they are quite prepared to meet the challenge, if only because they don’t have much of a choice. Chances are that the young people will make a difference — provided their parents and grandparents will take them and their concerns and worries seriously, rather than dismissing them as alarmism or folly.

      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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      How Russia Views the Election Aftermath in Belarus

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      In Moscow, all eyes are on Belarus. Russia and Belarus are intimately connected, so political actors in Russia feel an immediate connection with developments there.

      In formal terms, the two countries form a “union state” and an economic and defense community. Belarus is Moscow’s closest ally and a linchpin for Russian neighborhood policy. For two decades, Russia has funded and subsidized Belarus’ state and economy. This has become a high price for a complicated relationship, as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko consistently — and successfully — spurns Russian attempts to deepen integration.

      Belarus Election Unleashes Unprecedented Anti-Government Protests

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      Heading a joint state in Moscow had been raised as an option for keeping Russian President Vladimir Putin in power after 2024. Lukashenko was less than enthusiastic and turned, as always in moments of tension with Moscow, to the European Union. That variant is off the table, now that the amended Russian Constitution permits Putin two more terms in the Kremlin.

      A Lack of Distance

      Despite growing political differences, Moscow continues to support Lukashenko through his latest domestic political travails. Official figures put his share of the presidential vote at 80%. The candidate of the united opposition, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, had just 10%, according to the Central Election Commission. Opposition exit polls paint a very different picture, with some showing the proportions exactly inverted.

      Since the announcement of the results on August 9, the country has seen ongoing mass demonstrations, to which the security forces have responded with brutality. Nevertheless, President Putin congratulated Lukashenko on his “victory” as expected.

      The Russian political discourse pays very close attention to developments in Belarus, reflecting a persistent post-imperial lack of distance to its sovereign neighbors. Looking at the Russian discussion, one might forget that there actually is a border between Russia and Belarus, much as was the case following the Ukrainian presidential election in 2019.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Another reason for this closeness lies in the similarity of the political systems. Both are aging autocracies that are out of touch with the societies they rule and suffer rapidly evaporating legitimacy. The economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic is tangibly accelerating these processes in both states.

      The Russian state media tend to play down the significance of the events and push a geopolitical interpretation in which the protesters are a minority controlled by hostile Western actors. They would not exist without Western support, it is asserted. The objective of Western policy is said to be reducing Russian influence in the region and, ultimately, “regime change” in Moscow. In other words, the issue is not liberty but geopolitical rivalry.

      In this understanding, the trouble in Minsk is just the latest in a long series of Western plots against Russia — following the 2014 Euromaidan in Ukraine and the “color revolutions” of the early 2000s. The needs of Belarusian society are completely ignored.

      Russia’s independent media, on the other hand, seek to present a realistic picture, concentrating on developments within Belarus and Lukashenko’s loss of public legitimacy. Belarus is also treated as a template for Russia’s own political future. Comparisons are frequently drawn with the ongoing protests in Khabarovsk, with speculation whether Minsk 2020 might be Moscow 2024.

      Russian Intervention?

      Foreign policy analysts in Moscow do not believe that Tsikhanouskaya can expect Western support. The European Union is divided, they note, weakened by COVID-19 and preoccupied with internal matters, while the United States is generally incapable of coherent foreign policy action. The regime will weather the storm, they believe, but emerge from it weakened.

      This, in turn, will increase Lukashenko’s dependency on Moscow. Regime-loyal and more critical foreign policy experts alike concur that Russia will ultimately profit from the situation in Minsk without itself having to intervene politically or militarily.

      The coming days will tell whether that assumption is correct. The regime in Minsk may have lost touch with the realities of Belarusian society, but it has good prospects of survival as long as the state apparatus backs Lukashenko and Russia maintains its support.

      But if the unrest grows to paralyze the country, a Russian intervention cannot be excluded. The costs would be enormous, in view of the pandemic and the economic crisis. And an intervention could also harm the Kremlin domestically, where it has its own legitimacy problems. On the other hand, it would not be the first time Moscow chose geopolitics and great power bravado over economic and political reason. And Russia’s rulers are still happy to ride roughshod over society, both at home and in Belarus.

      The EU cannot overlook the massive election fraud and the brutality of the security forces against unarmed demonstrators. It should back the demand for new elections, offer mediation and impose additional sanctions if the regime refuses to alter its current stance. But in the process, it should do everything it can to preserve contacts within Belarusian society. Clear communication with Moscow is vital, both to float possible solutions and to lay out the costs of intervention. There is no need to fear a quarrel — the EU has been in a conflict with Russia for a long time already.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

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