How can Sri Lanka recover from economic collapse?

A bailout from the International Monetary Fund will be critical in stabilizing Sri Lanka's finances, but critics say the Indian Ocean island needs to tackle food insecurity and political instability first.

Sri Lanka's economic crisis has caused fuel shortages that sparked long lines at gas stations

Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was picked to continue in the role by parliament on Wednesday, now has a mammoth task in guiding the country out of its economic crisis. The Indian Ocean island's debt-laden economy collapsed after it ran out of money to pay for food, fuel and medicine — sparking months of protests.

The government owes $51 billion (€50 billion) and is struggling to make interest payments on those loans, let alone pay down the principal.

Many analysts have blamed years of mismanagement and corruption for the meltdown, including reckless borrowing from China, which was used to fund infrastructure projects that turned into white elephants.

The debt crisis was exacerbated by several other policy blunders, including deep tax cuts introduced just months before COVID-19 hit and an abrupt transition to organic farming that saw crop yields plummet.

A massive drop in tourism revenue — a vital source of foreign exchange — following the 2019 Easter terrorist attacks and during the pandemic, made matters far worse.

The economy is on course to contract by as much as 8% this year, while the cost of many food products and fuel has tripled and currency has collapsed by 80%.

Can IMF bailout be secured?

The first priority for the new government will be to restructure Sri Lanka's huge debts. Negotiations for a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are already underway but they will require further restructuring of existing IMF loans as well as to others from China, India and Japan.

Any rescue package is likely to come with strings attached, including the privatization of state-owned enterprises and deeper austerity measures.

"The reality is that people can't take any more austerity," Ahilan Kadirgamar, a political economist at the University of Jaffna, told DW. "Many people have no cushion whatsoever," he said, adding that nearly two-thirds of Sri Lankans work in the informal economy.

Kadirgamar is skeptical about an IMF bailout, saying that Colombo will struggle to boost its external debt going forward as the cost of capital will be too high for a country that has just defaulted.

More relief needed to 'avert famine'

The economist has called on Wickremesinghe to use Sri Lanka's foreign exchange income — which he said amounted to $1.3-$1.5 billion per month — to prioritize the import of essentials like food, fuel and medicine that are still in short supply. The government must also increase deficit spending to fund further relief for the public, amid the rising threat of famine, he added.

The previous government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa — who fled to Singapore and resigned from exile — has already undone some of the policy errors that fueled the crisis. But many of them could take years to help fuel the recovery.

Sri Lanka's new president (left) faces a deep political, economic and humanitarian crisis

 that toppled the previous leader

Tax cuts reversed

For example, sweeping tax cuts announced in 2019 to spur growth were reversed last month to help meet the conditions of the proposed IMF bailout.

The original decision saw revenues fall by as much as 800 billion rupees ($2.2 billion, €2.1 billion) a year, according to Bloomberg. The reversal means sales tax (VAT) and corporate taxes are being hiked at the worst possible time and may fail to boost tax revenues enough while the economy is on its knees.

"I would say that the benefits [of the tax hikes] are going to be negligible," Soumya Bhowmick, associate fellow at the India-based Center for New Economic Diplomacy, Observer Research Foundation, told DW. "The additional tax revenue won't go to strengthen the economy but to tackle food shortages and other measures."

Kadirgamar, from the University of Jaffna, noted there was, "no appetite from the political class for a wealth tax," despite the urgent need for new streams of tax revenue.

Farming stimulus needed after organic crops debacle

In November, the government also U-turned on a major experiment with organic farming, just months after announcing a nationwide ban on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. As a result of the ban, domestic rice production fell by a third and tea production — the country's primary export and source of foreign currency — dropped by 16%.

"In a short period of time, they destroyed the productivity gains achieved by farmers over many years, so rebuilding will take quite a lot of time, and that's after they have dealt with the crisis at hand," Bhowmick said.

Kadirgamar told DW that many of Sri Lanka's 2 million farmers had "lost confidence" after the organic blunder and that an "active stimulus" would be required by the government to encourage them to recultivate their land.

"Even if agriculture is low in GDP terms, in terms of our food security and people's livelihoods, it's a really huge sector," Kadirgamar told DW.

Tourism, too, could take a long time to recover. Sri Lanka's tourist revenues reached $4.3 billion in 2018 but slumped almost 80% during the pandemic.

While most Asian countries have seen an increase in international travelers recently, the widespread civil unrest and the severe disruption in Sri Lanka have again put off many holidaymakers.

Russians — the country's top source of tourism revenue — and Ukrainian

 have stayed away due to the war

Remittances vital for foreign exchange

Rising foreign remittances from the estimated 3 million Sri Lankans working abroad could be a growing source of revenue but that too has been hit by both the pandemic and currency controls introduced last year.

Expatriates in total send home between $500-600 million per month, but when the government set the rupee's exchange rate at an uncompetitive price, the use of the informal "hawala" transfer system increased while official remittances dropped by up to 52%.

"Hawala" allows migrant workers to remit cash in the currency they earn to a middleman who ensures the worker's family receives the equivalent amount in rupees.

"Unless the government figures out a way to incentivize remittances through formal channels, the figure won't return to its previous level," Kadirgamar said.

Bhowmick, however, was more optimistic, as a result of an increase in Sri Lankans seeking employment abroad as their work at home has dried up.

"I'm quite hopeful that remittances will return to their normal level within a year or so as post-pandemic recoveries happen," he told DW.

Edited by: Uwe Hessler

INTER-IMPERIALI$T RIVALRIES

China, India vie for influence in Sri Lanka amid economic turmoil

Sri Lanka — with its strategic location at the crossroads of busy shipping routes — has become an arena of geopolitical rivalry and maritime competition between India and China.

In 2017, Colombo had to hand over the Hambantota port and thousands of acres

 of surrounding land to Beijing for 99 years

Sri Lanka is currently experiencing the worst economic turmoil in its independent history, staring at surging inflation, staggering levels of debt and empty foreign exchange reserves, which have resulted in crippling shortages of essential items such as food and medicine.

Regional heavyweights India and China, both vying for influence in the island nation, have been quick to offer help.

New Delhi has so far given about $1.5 billion (€1.47 billion) to Colombo for funding imports of food, fuel, medicines and fertilizers. It has also provided another $3.8 billion in assistance in the form of currency swaps and credit lines. 

Beijing, for its part, is providing some 500 million yuan ($75 million, €73.35 million) in humanitarian aid and has promised to "play a positive role" in Sri Lanka's talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

But China has yet to respond to Colombo's appeal for debt relief.

Beijing funds Colombo's infrastructure drive

Sri Lanka — with its strategic location at the crossroads of busy shipping routes linking Asia to Africa and Europe — has become an arena of geopolitical rivalry and maritime competition between India and China in recent years.

Sri Lanka is a vital node in the Maritime Silk Road, as part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative

India and Sri Lanka share not only close trade relations, but also ethnic and religious ties.

But under the leadership of ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, who  served as president from 2005 to 2015, Beijing had appeared to gain sway in Colombo at the expense of New Delhi. China emerged as Sri Lanka's biggest trade partner and one of its largest creditors, accounting for about 10% of the country's entire foreign debt of about $51 billion.

When Sri Lanka embarked on a massive infrastructure drive after the end of a decades-long civil war in 2009, China pumped money into the country, funding roads, ports and airports for example.

Sri Lanka also emerged as a vital node in the Maritime Silk Road, under Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative.

Accusations of 'debt trap' diplomacy

China's closer ties with Sri Lanka have unsettled India, traditionally Colombo's closest economic and political partner.

But not all the collaboration has turned out to be financially viable, particularly the debt-financed mega projects like the Hambantota port and the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport.

In 2017, Colombo had to hand over the Hambantota port and thousands of acres of surrounding land to Beijing for 99 years, triggering accusation that China engaged in a "debt trap" diplomacy to gain influence and control over key assets in the country.

"My field research last year found that China has gained a considerable footprint on the island's foreign policy through infrastructure diplomacy," said Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, a political and security analyst from Sri Lanka. 

"There are concerns regarding Chinese projects due to opaqueness, lack of transparency and high-interest rates for Chinese loans," he stressed, adding that the Chinese offered loans at considerably higher rates than other lenders.

"We have borrowed at 6.4% from China while Japanese loans were less than 1% interest rate," he said.

Sumit Ganguly, a South Asia expert and professor of political science at Indiana University Bloomington in the US, shared a similar view. "The shiny infrastructural projects that were built on the basis of Chinese loans have proven to be castles of sand," he said.

'Rumors spread by Western countries'

But Xiaoxue Liu, an associate research fellow at the National Institute of International Strategy in China, said that allegations that China's Belt and Road initiative had dragged Sri Lanka into the current hardship were "rumors spread by Western countries."

According to her, most of Sri Lanka's foreign debts were caused by the large amount of commercial loans that the country had taken out over the last few years. "These loans are the key factors that caused Sri Lanka's dire economic situation," she said. 

Nevertheless, with the current economic crisis  and the general perception of Beijing's culpability, as well as China's apparent reluctance to write off Sri Lanka's debt, either partly or in full, India is eyeing up the chance to regain lost ground and consolidate its position as Colombo's primary partner.

"India sees this crisis as an opportunity. It has moved quite deftly to assist Sri Lanka with supplies of fuel, medicine and loans," said Ganguly.

"There are, obviously, limits to India's generosity owing to its own needs. However, given the significance that New Delhi attaches to its neighbor and its fears of Chinese influence in the country it is acting with alacrity," he underlined.

Over the past few months, India has managed to wrest control of some Chinese projects in Sri Lanka.

In March, New Delhi inked a deal to set up hybrid power projects on islands in northern Sri Lanka, after China said in December that it was suspending its plans to build plants on three islands due to security issues. In the same month, Colombo also scrapped an agreement with a Chinese firm to build a $12 million wind farm in the country, and instead offered the project to an Indian rival. 

These decisions came after Sri Lankan authorities allowed India to proceed with a long-delayed project to jointly redevelop a strategic oil terminal along the island nation's eastern coastline.

"India's policy toward Sri Lanka is not based on a reaction to China. It is historical and based on people-to-people contacts with shared culture. If you look at Indian investments in Sri Lanka, they are people-centric," said Smruti Pattanaik, a foreign policy research fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi.

Recalibrating Sri Lanka's foreign policy

Despite India appearing to regain lost ground, all is not well as anti-Indian sentiments still persist among sections of the Sri Lankan population, given suspicions and fears about Indian hegemony.

On Wednesday, Sri Lanka's Parliament elected acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe — who has served as prime minister several times before and is seen to be pro-India — as president after Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and tendered his resignation last week.

Abeyagoonasekera said that the next government should recalibrate the nation's foreign policy and make it more balanced and with less of a pro-China tilt than witnessed under Rajapaksa.

"As an island nation, we have supported international norms and values for a rules-based order in the Indian Ocean. We should keep supporting in this direction to be a partner with our like-minded partners."

Liu, meanwhile, insisted that China had no intention to compete with India in Sri Lanka, as Beijing's main goal was to develop economic programs that would benefit both China and Sri Lanka.

"It's clear to us how close Sri Lanka is to India geographically while how far away it is from China," she said. "China knows it can't compete with India for influence in Sri Lanka, but if that's how India wants to view the situation, China can't stop them from doing so."

William Yang from Taipei contributed to this article.

Edited by: Shamil Shams

Opinion: Russia-Iran-Turkey talks strong on symbolism, short on substance

While the talks put the respective leaders in the spotlight, the implications for regional stability, economic cooperation, food security and the war in Ukraine remain opaque, write Sanam Vakil and Galip Dalay.

Despite the show of unity, tensions between Russia, Iran and Turkey

 are simmering beneath the surface

Officially Tuesday's meeting in Tehran was part of the "Astana Format," a process through which the three actors have negotiated their interests in Syria. That process has proved to be effective in reshaping the conflict map in Syria, but has not advanced a political vision for dealing with the conflict, leaving the format largely defunct. 

The symbolism of this meeting is conspicuous for three reasons. First, this was Vladimir Putin's highest profile visit since Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24. Putin's aim in Tehran was to convey the message that Russia is not as isolated as the West portrays it to be. 

Second, the talks came on the heels of US President Joe Biden's Middle East tour, where he tried to reassure traditional US partners about US security commitments to the region; further solidify the anti-Iran regional bloc and align on China and Russia. 

Third, it coincided with Turkey's attempts to mend ties with UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt, and at a time when tensions between Ankara and Tehran relations are growing. Uncertainty over the revival of the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA) also looms large. Whether or to what extent Turkey will join the growing anti-Iran coalition in the region is a question that is on the minds of many actors.

Thinking in geopolitical categories

Galip Dalay (left) and Sanam Vakil of Chatham House

Compartmentalization has long been a hallmark of the relationship between Turkey and Iran and will continue to be the guide going forward. For example, there's the issue of Turkey's planned new military offensive in northern Syria directed against the Syrian Kurdish PYD/YPG forces, and Turkey's military operations in Iraq. Iran opposes those plans and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei unsurprisingly pushed back firmly to showcase Iran's influence in both arenas. 

In addition to both countries' desire to boost their trade ties, Iran is one of the largest sources of energy for Turkey and as such their gas export contract was extended for a further 25 years. While there were no further breakthroughs in their talks, such meetings help to prevent the simmering tension in their relations from spiraling out of control. 

Another major issue that dominated the talks is how to establish a safe grain corridor from Ukraine. While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is keen to push ahead, Putin wants the discussion to drag on so that Moscow can use it as leverage vis-a-vis different actors. But if Putin concedes on this point down the road, it will not only spell good news for the question of food security in places like Africa, Asia and the Middle East, but will also boost Turkey's international stature.

While details remain scant, we can assume that Putin raised the thorny issue of Turkish combat drone sales to Ukraine that have exacted a cost on Russian forces and have become a major irritant in ties between Russia and Turkey. Despite its support for Ukraine, Ankara will tread carefully in order not to antagonize Russia.

Russia still sees itself as an important geopolitical player

The ties between Russia and Iran are also characterized by compartmentalization. Historical tension and suspicion pervade their relationship. US claims that Russia is looking to purchase Iranian drones to use against Ukraine put a further strain on their ties. Meanwhile there's no sign of any progress to revive the Iranian nuclear deal.

Tehran has denied taking sides in the war against Ukraine, but after the meeting suggested that Putin had been provoked and that war would have been inevitable. Iran's security-minded establishment sees strategic and economic opportunities on the horizon due to the economic sanctions on Russia that are starting to take a toll. 

Where they do see eye to eye is in their mutual suspicion of Western policies and values. If Iran does export drones to Moscow, its pro-Russian posture could be the nail in the coffin for the JCPOA and firmly tilt Iran toward Russia and China in the geopolitical realignments that are underway. 

And then there's the issue of energy supplies. Despite facing Russian energy competition from Russian oil on the market, Tehran is eager to cement the long-term cooperation agreements and can offer Moscow sanctions-busting and survival strategies that include using Iran as an export corridor. Notably, Gazprom and Iran's oil company signed a $40 billion (€39 billion) Memorandum of Understanding to develop Iran's North Pars Gas Field. And, of course, Tehran will also hope to benefit from grain deliveries.

At the end of the day, the trilateral talks were short on major breakthroughs, however, they achieved their aim of drawing attention to Russia's continued reach and influence within the multipolar politics in the Middle East.  

Sanam Vakil is the deputy director of the Middle East North Africa program at Chatham House, where she leads project work on Iran and Gulf Arab dynamics.

Galip Dalay is Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House specializing on Turkish politics and Middle Eastern affairs. He is Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy.

The causes and consequences of the Ukraine war

Full text of a speech given by John Mearsheimer at the European Union Institute

John J. Mearsheimer / July 12, 2022 / CANADIAN DIMENSION

“No Putin. No War.”

 Street art by Plan B. 

Photo by rajatonvimma/Flickr.

LONG READ

This is the full text of a speech given on June 16 by John J. Mearsheimer at the European Union Institute (EUI) and published by The National Interest under the headline “The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis.” Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

The war in Ukraine is a multi-dimensional disaster, which is likely to get much worse in the foreseeable future. When a war is successful, little attention is paid to its causes, but when the outcome is disastrous, understanding how it happened becomes paramount. People want to know: how did we get into this terrible situation?

I have witnessed this phenomenon twice in my lifetime—first with the Vietnam war and second with the Iraq war. In both cases, Americans wanted to know how their country could have miscalculated so badly. Given that the United States and its NATO allies played a crucial role in the events that led to the Ukraine war—and are now playing a central role in the conduct of that war—it is appropriate to evaluate the West’s responsibility for this calamity.

I will make two main arguments today.

First, the United States is principally responsible for causing the Ukraine crisis. This is not to deny that Putin started the war and that he is responsible for Russia’s conduct of the war. Nor is it to deny that America’s allies bear some responsibility, but they largely follow Washington’s lead on Ukraine. My central claim is that the United States has pushed forward policies toward Ukraine that Putin and other Russian leaders see as an existential threat, a point they have made repeatedly for many years. Specifically, I am talking about America’s obsession with bringing Ukraine into NATO and making it a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. The Biden administration was unwilling to eliminate that threat through diplomacy and indeed in 2021 recommitted the United States to bringing Ukraine into NATO. Putin responded by invading Ukraine on February 24 of this year.

Second, the Biden administration has reacted to the outbreak of war by doubling down against Russia. Washington and its Western allies are committed to decisively defeating Russia in Ukraine and employing comprehensive sanctions to greatly weaken Russian power. The United States is not seriously interested in finding a diplomatic solution to the war, which means the war is likely to drag on for months if not years. In the process, Ukraine, which has already suffered grievously, is going to experience even greater harm. In essence, the United States is helping lead Ukraine down the primrose path. Furthermore, there is a danger that the war will escalate, as NATO might get dragged into the fighting and nuclear weapons might be used. We are living in perilous times.

Let me now lay out my argument in greater detail, starting with a description of the conventional wisdom about the causes of the Ukraine conflict.
The conventional wisdom

It is widely and firmly believed in the West that Putin is solely responsible for causing the Ukraine crisis and certainly the ongoing war. He is said to have imperial ambitions, which is to say he is bent on conquering Ukraine and other countries as well—all for the purpose of creating a greater Russia that bears some resemblance to the former Soviet Union. In other words, Ukraine is Putin’s first target, but not his last. As one scholar put it, he is “acting on a sinister, long-held goal: to erase Ukraine from the map of the world.” Given Putin’s purported goals, it makes perfect sense for Finland and Sweden to join NATO and for the alliance to increase its force levels in eastern Europe. Imperial Russia, after all, must be contained.

While this narrative is repeated over and over in the mainstream media and by virtually every Western leader, there is no evidence to support it. To the extent that purveyors of the conventional wisdom provide evidence, it has little if any bearing on Putin’s motives for invading Ukraine. For example, some emphasize that he said that Ukraine is an “artificial state” or not a “real state.” Such opaque comments, however, say nothing about his reason for going to war. The same is true of Putin’s statement that he views Russians and Ukrainians as “one people“ with a common history. Others point out that he called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Of course, Putin also said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.” Still, others point to a speech in which he declared that “Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.” But as he went on to say in that very same speech, in reference to Ukraine’s independence today: “Of course, we cannot change past events, but we must at least admit them openly and honestly.”

To make the case that Putin was bent on conquering all of Ukraine and incorporating it into Russia, it is necessary to provide evidence that first, he thought it was a desirable goal, that second, he thought it was a feasible goal, and third, he intended to pursue that goal. There is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24.

In fact, there is significant evidence that Putin recognized Ukraine as an independent country. In his July 12, 2021, article about Russian-Ukrainian relations, which proponents of the conventional wisdom often point to as evidence of his imperial ambitions, he tells the Ukrainian people, “You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome!” Regarding how Russia should treat Ukraine, he writes, “There is only one answer: with respect.” He concludes that lengthy article with the following words: “And what Ukraine will be—it is up to its citizens to decide.” It is hard to reconcile these statements with the claim that he wants to incorporate Ukraine within a greater Russia.

In that same July 12, 2021, article and again in an important speech he gave on February 21 of this year, Putin emphasized that Russia accepts “the new geopolitical reality that took shape after the dissolution of the USSR.” He reiterated that same point for a third time on February 24, when he announced that Russia would invade Ukraine. In particular, he declared that “It is not our plan to occupy Ukrainian territory” and made it clear that he respected Ukrainian sovereignty, but only up to a point: “Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist while facing a permanent threat from the territory of today’s Ukraine.” In essence, Putin was not interested in making Ukraine a part of Russia; he was interested in making sure it did not become a “springboard” for Western aggression against Russia, a subject I will say more about shortly.

One might argue that Putin was lying about his motives, that he was attempting to disguise his imperial ambitions. As it turns out, I have written a book about lying in international politics—Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International Politics—and it is clear to me that Putin was not lying. For starters, one of my principal findings is that leaders do not lie much to each other; they lie more often to their own publics. Regarding Putin, whatever one thinks of him, he does not have a history of lying to other leaders. Although some assert that he frequently lies and cannot be trusted, there is little evidence of him lying to foreign audiences. Moreover, he has publicly spelled out his thinking about Ukraine on numerous occasions over the past two years and he has consistently emphasized that his principal concern is Ukraine’s relations with the West, especially NATO. He has never once hinted that he wants to make Ukraine part of Russia. If this behavior is all part of a giant deception campaign, it would be without precedent in recorded history.

Perhaps the best indicator that Putin is not bent on conquering and absorbing Ukraine is the military strategy Moscow has employed from the start of the campaign. The Russian military did not attempt to conquer all of Ukraine. That would have required a classic blitzkrieg strategy that aimed at quickly overrunning all of Ukraine with armored forces supported by tactical airpower. That strategy was not feasible, however, because there were only 190,000 soldiers in Russia’s invading army, which is far too small a force to vanquish and occupy Ukraine, which is not only the largest country between the Atlantic Ocean and Russia, but also has a population over 40 million. Unsurprisingly, the Russians pursued a limited aims strategy, which focused on either capturing or threatening Kiev and conquering a large swath of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine. In short, Russia did not have the capability to subdue all of Ukraine, much less conquer other countries in eastern Europe.

As Ramzy Mardini observed, another telling indicator of Putin’s limited aims is that there is no evidence Russia was preparing a puppet government for Ukraine, cultivating pro-Russian leaders in Kyiv, or pursuing any political measures that would make it possible to occupy the entire country and eventually integrate it into Russia.

To take this argument a step further, Putin and other Russian leaders surely understand from the Cold War that occupying counties in the age of nationalism is invariably a prescription for never-ending trouble. The Soviet experience in Afghanistan is a glaring example of this phenomenon, but more relevant for the issue at hand is Moscow’s relations with its allies in eastern Europe. The Soviet Union maintained a huge military presence in that region and was involved in the politics of almost every country located there. Those allies, however, were a frequent thorn in Moscow’s side. The Soviet Union put down a major insurrection in East Germany in 1953, and then invaded Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to keep them in line. There was serious trouble in Poland in 1956, 1970, and again in 1980-1981. Although Polish authorities dealt with these events, they served as a reminder that intervention might be necessary. Albania, Romania, and Yugoslavia routinely caused Moscow trouble, but Soviet leaders tended to tolerate their misbehavior, because their location made them less important for deterring NATO.

What about contemporary Ukraine? It is obvious from Putin’s July 12, 2021, essay that he understood at that time that Ukrainian nationalism is a powerful force and that the civil war in the Donbass, which had been going on since 2014, had done much to poison relations between Russia and Ukraine. He surely knew that Russia’s invasion force would not be welcomed with open arms by Ukrainians, and that it would be a Herculean task for Russia to subjugate Ukraine if it had the necessary forces to conquer the entire country, which it did not.

Finally, it is worth noting that hardly anyone made the argument that Putin had imperial ambitions from the time he took the reins of power in 2000 until the Ukraine crisis first broke out on February 22, 2014. In fact, the Russian leader was an invited guest to the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest where the alliance announced that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. Putin’s opposition to that announcement had hardly any effect on Washington because Russia was judged to be too weak to stop further NATO enlargement, just as it had been too weak to stop the 1999 and 2004 waves of expansion.

Relatedly, it is important to note that NATO expansion before February 2014 was not aimed at containing Russia. Given the sad state of Russian military power, Moscow was in no position to pursue revanchist policies in eastern Europe. Tellingly, former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul notes that Putin’s seizure of the Crimea was not planned before the crisis broke out in 2014; it was an impulsive move in response to the coup that overthrew Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader. In short NATO enlargement was not intended to contain a Russian threat but was instead part of a broader policy to spread the liberal international order into eastern Europe and make the entire continent look like western Europe.

It was only when the Ukraine crisis broke out in February 2014 that the United States and its allies suddenly began describing Putin as a dangerous leader with imperial ambitions and Russia as a serious military threat that had to be contained. What caused this shift? This new rhetoric was designed to serve one essential purpose: to enable the West to blame Putin for the outbreak of trouble in Ukraine. And now that the crisis has turned into a full-scale war, it is imperative to make sure he alone is blamed for this disastrous turn of events. This blame game explains why Putin is now widely portrayed as an imperialist here in the West, even though there is hardly any evidence to support that perspective.

Let me now turn to the real cause of the Ukraine crisis.


Members of Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade. 

Photo courtesy the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine/Twitter.


The real cause of the trouble

The taproot of the crisis is the American-led effort to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s borders. That strategy has three prongs: integrating Ukraine into the EU, turning Ukraine into a pro-Western liberal democracy, and most importantly, incorporating Ukraine into NATO. The strategy was set in motion at NATO’s annual summit in Bucharest in April 2008, when the alliance announced that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members.” Russian leaders responded immediately with outrage, making it clear that they saw this decision as an existential threat, and they had no intention of letting either country join NATO. According to a respected Russian journalist, Putin “flew into a rage,” and warned that “if Ukraine joins NATO, it will do so without Crimea and the eastern regions. It will simply fall apart.”

William Burns, who is now the head of the CIA, but was the US ambassador to Moscow at the time of the Bucharest summit, wrote a memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that succinctly describes Russian thinking about this matter. In his words: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” NATO, he said, “would be seen … as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Today’s Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze…It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.”

Burns, of course, was not the only policymaker who understood that bringing Ukraine into NATO was fraught with danger. Indeed, at the Bucharest Summit, both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy opposed moving forward on NATO membership for Ukraine because they understood it would alarm and anger Russia. Merkel recently explained her opposition: “I was very sure…that Putin is not going to just let that happen. From his perspective, that would be a declaration of war.”

The Bush administration, however, cared little about Moscow’s “brightest of red lines” and pressured the French and German leaders to agree to issuing a public pronouncement declaring that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join the alliance.

Unsurprisingly, the American-led effort to integrate Georgia into NATO resulted in a war between Georgia and Russia in August 2008—four months after the Bucharest summit. Nevertheless, the United States and its allies continued moving forward with their plans to make Ukraine a Western bastion on Russia’s borders. These efforts eventually sparked a major crisis in February 2014, after a US-supported uprising caused Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country. He was replaced by pro-American Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. In response, Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and helped fuel a civil war between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

One often hears the argument that in the eight years between when the crisis broke out in February 2014 and when the war began in February 2022, the United States and its allies paid little attention to bringing Ukraine into NATO. In effect, the issue had been taken off the table, and thus NATO enlargement could not have been an important cause of the escalating crisis in 2021 and the subsequent outbreak of war earlier this year. This line of argument is false. In fact, the Western response to the events of 2014 was to double down on the existing strategy and draw Ukraine even closer to NATO. The alliance began training the Ukrainian military in 2014, averaging 10,000 trained troops annually over the next eight years. In December 2017, the Trump administration decided to provide Kyiv with “defensive weapons.” Other NATO countries soon got into the act, shipping even more weapons to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s military also began participating in joint military exercises with NATO forces. In July 2021, Kyiv and Washington co-hosted Operation Sea Breeze, a naval exercise in the Black Sea that included navies from 31 countries and was directly aimed at Russia. Two months later in September 2021, the Ukrainian army led Rapid Trident 21, which the US Army described as an “annual exercise designed to enhance interoperability among allied and partner nations, to demonstrate units are poised and ready to respond to any crisis.” NATO’s effort to arm and train Ukraine’s military explains in good part why it has fared so well against Russian forces in the ongoing war. As a headline in the Wall Street Journal put it, “The Secret of Ukraine’s Military Success: Years of NATO Training.”

In addition to NATO’s ongoing efforts to make the Ukrainian military a more formidable fighting force, the politics surrounding Ukraine’s membership in NATO and its integration into the West changed in 2021. There was renewed enthusiasm for pursuing those goals in both Kyiv and Washington. President Zelensky, who had never shown much enthusiasm for bringing Ukraine into NATO and who was elected in March 2019 on a platform that called for working with Russia to settle the ongoing crisis, reversed course in early 2021 and not only embraced NATO expansion but also adopted a hardline approach toward Moscow. He made a series of moves—including shutting down pro-Russian TV stations and charging a close friend of Putin with treason—that were sure to anger Moscow.

President Biden, who moved into the White House in January 2021, had long been committed to bringing Ukraine into NATO and was also super-hawkish toward Russia. Unsurprisingly, on June 14, 2021, NATO issued the following communiqué at its annual summit in Brussels:

We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process; we reaffirm all elements of that decision, as well as subsequent decisions, including that each partner will be judged on its own merits. We stand firm in our support for Ukraine’s right to decide its own future and foreign policy course free from outside interference.


On September 1, 2021, Zelensky visited the White House, where Biden made it clear that the United States was “firmly committed” to “Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.” Then on November 10, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, signed an important document—the “US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership.” The aim of both parties, the document stated, is to “underscore…a commitment to Ukraine’s implementation of the deep and comprehensive reforms necessary for full integration into European and Euro-Atlantic institutions.” That document explicitly builds not just on “the commitments made to strengthen the Ukraine-US strategic partnership by Presidents Zelensky and Biden,” but also reaffirms the US commitment to the “2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration.”

In short, there is little doubt that starting in early 2021 Ukraine began moving rapidly toward joining NATO. Even so, some supporters of this policy argue that Moscow should not have been concerned, because “NATO is a defensive alliance and poses no threat to Russia.” But that is not how Putin and other Russian leaders think about NATO and it is what they think that matters. There is no question that Ukraine joining NATO remained the “brightest of red lines” for Moscow.

To deal with this growing threat, Putin stationed ever-increasing numbers of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border between February 2021 and February 2022. His aim was to coerce Biden and Zelensky into altering course and halting their efforts to integrate Ukraine into the West. On December 17, 2021, Moscow sent separate letters to the Biden administration and NATO demanding a written guarantee that: 1) Ukraine would not join NATO, 2) no offensive weapons would be stationed near Russia’s borders, and 3) NATO troops and equipment moved into eastern Europe since 1997 would be moved back to western Europe.

Putin made numerous public statements during this period that left no doubt that he viewed NATO expansion into Ukraine as an existential threat. Speaking to the Defense Ministry Board on December 21, 2021, he stated: “what they are doing, or trying or planning to do in Ukraine, is not happening thousands of kilometers away from our national border. It is on the doorstep of our house. They must understand that we simply have nowhere further to retreat to. Do they really think we do not see these threats? Or do they think that we will just stand idly watching threats to Russia emerge?” Two months later at a press conference on February 22, 2022, just days before the war started, Putin said: “We are categorically opposed to Ukraine joining NATO because this poses a threat to us, and we have arguments to support this. I have repeatedly spoken about it in this hall.” He then made it clear that he recognized that Ukraine was becoming a de facto member of NATO. The United States and its allies, he said, “continue to pump the current Kiev authorities full of modern types of weapons.” He went on to say that if this was not stopped, Moscow “would be left with an ‘anti-Russia’ armed to the teeth. This is totally unacceptable.”

Putin’s logic should make perfect sense to Americans, who have long been committed to the Monroe Doctrine, which stipulates that no distant great power is allowed to place any of its military forces in the Western Hemisphere.

I might note that in all of Putin’s public statements during the months leading up to the war, there is not a scintilla of evidence that he was contemplating conquering Ukraine and making it part of Russia, much less attacking additional countries in eastern Europe. Other Russian leaders—including the defense minister, the foreign minister, the deputy foreign minister, and the Russian ambassador to Washington—also emphasized the centrality of NATO expansion for causing the Ukraine crisis. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the point succinctly at a press conference on January 14, 2022, when he said, “the key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward.”

Nevertheless, the efforts of Lavrov and Putin to get the United States and its allies to abandon their efforts to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border failed completely. Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to Russia’s mid-December demands by simply saying, “There is no change. There will be no change.” Putin then launched an invasion of Ukraine to eliminate the threat he saw from NATO.
Where are we now and where are we going?

The Ukraine war has been raging for almost four months I would like to now offer some observations about what has happened so far and where the war might be headed. I will address three specific issues: 1) the consequences of the war for Ukraine; 2) the prospects for escalation—to include nuclear escalation; and 3) the prospects for ending the war in the foreseeable future.

This war is an unmitigated disaster for Ukraine. As I noted earlier, Putin made it clear in 2008 that Russia would wreck Ukraine to prevent it from joining NATO. He is delivering on that promise. Russian forces have conquered 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and destroyed or badly damaged many Ukrainian cities and towns. More than 6.5 million Ukrainians have fled the country, while more than eight million have been internally displaced. Many thousands of Ukrainians—including innocent civilians—are dead or badly wounded and the Ukrainian economy is in shambles. The World Bank estimates that Ukraine’s economy will shrink by almost 50 percent over the course of 2022. Estimates are that approximately 100 billion dollars’ worth of damage has been inflicted on Ukraine and that it will take close to a trillion dollars to rebuild the country. In the meantime, Kyiv requires about $5 billion of aid every month just to keep the government running.

Furthermore, there appears to be little hope that Ukraine will be able to regain use of its ports on the Azov and Black Seas anytime soon. Before the war, roughly 70 percent of all Ukrainian exports and imports—and 98 percent of its grain exports—moved through these ports. This is the basic situation after less than four months of fighting. It is downright scary to contemplate what Ukraine will look like if this war drags on for a few more years.

So, what are the prospects for negotiating a peace agreement and ending the war in the next few months? I am sorry to say that I see no way this war ends anytime soon, a view shared by prominent policymakers like General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the JCS, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. The main reason for my pessimism is that both Russia and the United States are deeply committed to winning the war and it is impossible to fashion an agreement where both sides win. To be more specific, the key to a settlement from Russia’s perspective is making Ukraine a neutral state, ending the prospect of integrating Kyiv into the West. But that outcome is unacceptable to the Biden administration and a large portion of the American foreign policy establishment, because it would represent a victory for Russia.

Ukrainian leaders have agency of course, and one might hope that they will push for neutralization to spare their country further harm. Indeed, Zelensky briefly mentioned this possibility in the early days of the war, but he never seriously pursued it. There is little chance, however, that Kyiv will push for neutralization, because the ultra-nationalists in Ukraine, who wield significant political power, have zero interest in yielding to any of Russia’s demands, especially one that dictates Ukraine’s political alignment with the outside world. The Biden administration and the countries on NATO’s eastern flank—like Poland and the Baltic states—are likely to support Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists on this issue.

To complicate matters further, how does one deal with the large swaths of Ukrainian territory that Russia has conquered since the war started, as well as Crimea’s fate? It is hard to imagine Moscow voluntarily giving up any of the Ukrainian territory it now occupies, much less all of it, as Putin’s territorial goals today are probably not the same ones he had before the war. At the same time, it is equally hard to imagine any Ukrainian leader accepting a deal that allows Russia to keep any Ukrainian territory, except possibly Crimea. I hope I am wrong, but that is why I see no end in sight to this ruinous war.

Let me now turn to the matter of escalation. It is widely accepted among international relations scholars that there is a powerful tendency for protracted wars to escalate. Over time, other countries can get dragged into the fight and the level of violence is likely to increase. The potential for this happening in the Ukraine war is real. There is a danger that the United States and its NATO allies will get dragged into the fighting, which they have been able to avoid up to this point, even though they are already waging a proxy war against Russia. There is also the possibility that nuclear weapons might be used in Ukraine and that might even lead to a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. The underlying reason these outcomes might be realized is that the stakes are so high for both sides, and thus neither can afford to lose.

As I have emphasized, Putin and his lieutenants believe that Ukraine joining the West is an existential threat to Russia that must be eliminated. In practical terms, that means Russia must win its war in Ukraine. Defeat is unacceptable. The Biden administration, on the other hand, has stressed that its goal is not only to decisively defeat Russia in Ukraine, but also to use sanctions to inflict massive damage on the Russian economy. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has emphasized that the West’s goal is to weaken Russia to the point where it could not invade Ukraine again. In effect, the Biden administration is committed to knocking Russia out of the ranks of the great powers. At the same time, President Biden himself has called Russia’s war in Ukraine a “genocide” and charged Putin with being a “war criminal” who should face a “war crimes trial” after the war. Such rhetoric hardly lends itself to negotiating an end to the war. After all, how do you negotiate with a genocidal state?

American policy has two significant consequences. For starters, it greatly amplifies the existential threat Moscow faces in this war and makes it more important than ever that it prevails in Ukraine. At the same time, it means the United States is deeply committed to making sure that Russia loses. The Biden administration has now invested so much in the Ukraine war—both materially and rhetorically—that a Russian victory would represent a devastating defeat for Washington.

Obviously, both sides cannot win. Moreover, there is a serious possibility that one side will begin to lose badly. If American policy succeeds and the Russians are losing to the Ukrainians on the battlefield, Putin might turn to nuclear weapons to rescue the situation. The US Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May that this was one of the two situations that might lead Putin to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. For those of you who think this is unlikely, please remember that NATO planned to use nuclear weapons in similar circumstances during the Cold War. If Russia were to employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine, it is impossible to say how the Biden administration would react, but it surely would be under great pressure to retaliate, thereby raising the possibility of a great-power nuclear war. There is a perverse paradox at play here: the more successful the United States and its allies are at achieving their goals, the more likely it is that the war will turn nuclear.

Let’s turn the tables and ask what happens if the United States and its NATO allies appear to be heading toward defeat, which effectively means that the Russians are routing the Ukrainian military and the government in Kyiv moves to negotiate a peace deal intended to save as much of the country as possible. In that event, there would be great pressure on the United States and its allies to get even more deeply involved in the fighting. It is not likely, but certainly possible that American or maybe Polish troops would get pulled into the fighting, which means NATO would literally be at war with Russia. This is the other scenario, according to Avril Haines, where the Russians might turn to nuclear weapons. It is difficult to say precisely how events will play out if this scenario comes to pass, but there is no question there will be serious potential for escalation, to include nuclear escalation. The mere possibility of that outcome should send shivers down your spine.

There are likely to be other disastrous consequences from this war, which I cannot discuss in any detail because of time constraints. For example, there is reason to think the war will lead to a world food crisis in which many millions of people will die. The president of the World Bank, David Malpass, argues that if the Ukraine war continues, we will face a global food crisis that is a “human catastrophe.”

Furthermore, relations between Russia and the West have been so thoroughly poisoned that it will take many years to repair them. In the meantime, that profound hostility will fuel instability around the globe, but especially in Europe. Some will say there is a silver lining: relations among countries in the West have markedly improved because of the Ukraine war. That is true for the moment, but there are deep fissures below the surface, and they are bound to reassert themselves over time. For example, relations between the countries of eastern and western Europe are likely to deteriorate as the war drags on, because their interests and perspectives on the conflict are not the same.

Finally, the conflict is already damaging the global economy in major ways and this situation is likely to get worse with time. Jamie Diamond, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase says we should brace ourselves for an economic “hurricane.” If he is right, these economic shocks will affect the politics of every Western country, undermine liberal democracy, and strengthen its opponents on both the left and the right. The economic consequences of the Ukraine war will extend to countries all over the planet, not just the West. As The UN put it in a report released just last week: “The ripple effects of the conflict are extending human suffering far beyond its borders. The war, in all its dimensions, has exacerbated a global cost-of-living crisis unseen in at least a generation, compromising lives, livelihoods, and our aspirations for a better world by 2030.”

Conclusion

Simply put, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is a colossal disaster, which as I noted at the start of my talk, will lead people all around the world to search for its causes. Those who believe in facts and logic will quickly discover that the United States and its allies are mainly responsible for this train wreck. The April 2008 decision to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO was destined to lead to conflict with Russia. The Bush administration was the principal architect of that fateful choice, but the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations have doubled down on that policy at every turn and America’s allies have dutifully followed Washington’s lead. Even though Russian leaders made it perfectly clear that bringing Ukraine into NATO would be crossing “the brightest of red lines,” the United States refused to accommodate Russia’s deepest security concerns and instead moved relentlessly to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border.

The tragic truth is that if the West had not pursued NATO expansion into Ukraine, it is unlikely there would be a war in Ukraine today and Crimea would still be part of Ukraine. In essence, Washington played the central role in leading Ukraine down the path to destruction. History will judge the United States and its allies harshly for their remarkably foolish policy on Ukraine. Thank you.

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

Opinion: Putin, Tehran and the drone dealers

Officials deny that the Russian President's visit to Tehran is also about the delivery of combat drones. That is unlikely, says Kersten Knipp — and argues that the countries are united in their fight against democracy.

Drones are likely to be on the agenda at the talks

What will Russian President Vladimir Putin discuss in Tehran on Tuesday? If the official statements from both countries are to be believed, the delivery of Iranian-made (combat) drones to Russia was not on the agenda.

Last week the United States said such deliveries were being prepared. According to Jake Sullivan, US President Joe Biden's national security adviser, the Iranian government is "preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred unmanned aerial vehicles," including those capable of carrying weapons, "on an expedited timeline."

"No," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in response to a reporter's question. The delivery of drones would not be discussed, he said. Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian recently assured Ukraine that his country would not supply Russia with drones. He said US claims were baseless and aimed at achieving specific political goals.

DW's Kersten Knipp

However, the US said again over the weekend that such plans exist. According to Sullivan, there are indications that a Russian delegation recently visited an airfield in central Iran at least twice for information on the Islamic Republic's ambitious drone program and to look at weapons-capable drones.

Credibility issues

With regard to the opposing claims, however, Russia and Iran have a problem — there is little reason to trust either country's official statements. Even shortly before the attack on Ukraine, Russia's highest government officials denied any such plans, lying in an unprecedented manner. The fact that Iran last month removed two International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) surveillance cameras from a uranium enrichment facility in a dispute over the country's nuclear program indicates a style that isn't strong on trust, also because the data stored on the cameras has not been forwarded to the IAEA since the beginning of 2021. In that light, what the two countries claim will not be discussed during Putin's visit to Tehran is not worth much.

Enemies of democracy

Iran supplying Russia with drones seems plausible for one reason in particular — both closely aligned regimes are fierce opponents of any form of political freedom and the rule of law. The idea of citizens obtaining information independently from sources they deem trustworthy is as horrific to them as the idea of citizens saying what they think, especially in public. The fervency and arbitrariness both states resort to in crackdowns on dissidents and critics is reflected in their ranking in the World Justice Project's 2021 Rule of Law Index. Russia ranked 101st out of a total of 139 countries, and Iran was ranked 119th. The two countries have similar rankings in Transparency International's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, too — Russia was ranked 136th out of 180 countries, Iran ranked 150th.

Are Iranian Ababil 3 drones about to be used in Russia's war on Ukraine?

On the international stage, both countries also present themselves as enemies of democracy and the rule of law determined to do almost anything: In Syria, both support dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths since the 2011 uprisings, with many people horribly murdered in state torture prisons. Russia and Iran did not hesitate to stand by such a regime and fight its opponents with a vengeance.

Ukraine, Syria — similar tactics

It seems entirely likely that the talks in Tehran will also touch on drones, including combat drones. Both states think along the same lines, which means fighting a policy of liberalization and the rule of law, to make sure the norms of an enlightened society subject only to the law (and not to arbitrariness and paternalism) do not win the upper hand, neither in Syria nor in Ukraine. As states, Iran and Russia have no soft powers at all, nothing that seems even remotely attractive. All that is left to such states is naked violence to safeguard their rule.

Greece: Hundreds evacuated as fire engulfs Athens suburbs

Thick brown plumes of smoke covered the horizon as a wildfire burned in mountainside suburbs outside the Greek capital for a second day. Meanwhile, Spain's prime minister said more than 500 have died amid intense heat.

Flames threatened the northern suburbs of Athens on Wednesday

Hundreds of people have been evacuated Wednesday as a wildfire threatened mountainside suburbs northeast of the Greek capital, Athens.

Firefighters battled through the night into Wednesday to contain the fire, but strong winds, dry conditions and high temperatures were making it difficult, according to firefighting services. 

The Fire Service said 15 planes and nine helicopters were involved in the firefighting effort on Mount Penteli, located to the northeast of downtown Athens. 

Nearly 500 firefighters and 120 vehicles were trying to stop the flames from spreading to the suburbs of Penteli, Pallini, Anthousa and Gerakas, which are home to some 29,000 people.

Several people have been taken to the hospital with breathing difficulties

Later on Wednesday, Greek fire services spokesman Ioannis Artopoios told the Skai broadcaster that "the situation is a bit better." At the same time, he said emergency services are still attempting to "surround" numerous patches of the fires in order to extinguish them completely.       

State-owned public broadcaster ERT reported that three firefighters and nine residents had suffered mild injuries and were taken to the hospital with breathing difficulties.

Smoke and flames climbed up a hill in an Athens suburb on Wednesday

Police had moved some 600 people to safety overnight.

"It was insane, we did not know where to flee," an elderly resident of Anthousa told ERT.

"Embers were falling from the sky, I've never seen anything like it," he said.

Greece has so far been spared the scorching temperatures that have contributed to deadly wildfires in France, Portugal and Spain. However, heavy wind remains a problem in spreading fires. 

The sky behind the Acropolis in Athens was blanketed in smoke on Tuesday

Wildfires across Western Europe 

Firefighters battling twin fires in the Gironde region in southwest France said the blazes were being brought under control thanks to cooler weather, but had not been stopped completely. 

"Our assessment is generally positive. The situation improved overnight," said local fire service spokesman Arnaud Mendousse.

In Italy, 500 residents in the Tuscan community of Massarosa were brought to safety as firefighters continued to battle a large wildfire.

More than 1,200 firefighters are also combating forest blazes in Portugal. 

Authorities said fires were raging near Chave and Murca east of Porto. The approaching fires have driven more than a thousand people from their homes.

Portugal has also reported more than 1,000 deaths due to the current heat wave. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said more than 500 people have died in Spain during the heat wave.   

The London Fire Brigade had its busiest day since World War II on Tuesday, as firefighters received more than 2,600 calls and at one point were fighting 12 fires simultaneously, said Mayor Sadiq Khan.

At least 41 properties were destroyed.

Despite lower temperatures, the fire danger remains high because hot, dry weather has parched grassland around the city, Khan said.

lo,wd/wmr (AFP, AP, dpa)

India: Muslim journalist Mohammed Zubair to be released on bail

Mohammed Zubair was arrested last month over a satirical tweet from 2018 that allegedly hurt religious sentiments. The arrest prompted criticism from Germany.

Zubair was arrested after an anonymous Twitter user lodged a complaint 

over a tweet he posted in 2018

India's Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail and ordered the release of prominent Muslim journalist Mohammed Zubair. 

Zubair was arrested in New Delhi last month over what police said was a "highly provocative" 2018 tweet that authorities claim was insulting to Hindu religious beliefs.

In a separate case, he was charged for using the term "hatemongers" for Hindu monks who had made inflammatory comments about Muslims.

Police also charged him with criminal conspiracy, destroying evidence and receiving foreign funds in at least half a dozen other cases in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Human rights groups have accused Indian authorities of increasingly picking on journalists and online critics, a claim denied by government officials.

Germany had called out India after Zubair's arrest, saying journalists should not be "persecuted and imprisoned" for their work. 

What did the court say?

Judges asked authorities to combine all cases against him into one and immediately release him. 

"In [the] present case [there is] no justification for keeping him in continued detention and subject him to an endless round of proceedings in various courts,'' the Supreme Court said. 

The court also rebuked the government of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh for asking the judges to order Zubair to stop tweeting. 

"How can you tell a journalist he cannot write," said Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud.

Who is Mohammed Zubair?

Zubair is a co-founder of Alt News, India's most prominent fact-checking news website.

He is a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and has routinely called out hate speech by Hindu fringe groups on the internet and the marginalization of India's Muslim minority.

Zubair was arrested on June 27 after a Twitter user complained about a tweet he wrote in 2018, accusing him of mocking a Hindu god.

His arrest came just days after he brought international attention to controversial remarks made by a ruling party official against Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

The detention sparked a backlash against India, which rejected such criticism and insisted it was a "domestic issue."

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner raised concern, saying the embassy in India was closely monitoring the situation. 

Indian authorities have increasingly targeted journalists in recent years, with some getting arrested and facing criminal charges over social media posts. 

The country fell eight places in this year's Press Freedom Index published by the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders, ranking 150 among 180 nations. 

Understanding Canadian imperialism

Imperialism today is a world system in which Canada, as a Western capitalist power, plays a notable role

Owen Schalk / January 10, 2022 / CANADIAN DIMENSION


Canadian postage stamp celebrating the vastness of the British empire, December 25, 1898.

Imperialism is not only instantiated in military force and unilateral sanctions deployed to influence the sovereign political and economic affairs of a state for the benefit of an external one (usually the United States). Imperialism, far from being the exclusive remit of US militarism, is manifest in the everyday organizing principles of the entire global economy, of which states in the Global North (including Canada) have inaugurated themselves as the rulers.

Political economist Jerome Klassen offers this compelling definition of imperialism: “a state is imperialist to the extent that its leading corporations command and appropriate value on a global scale. By way of contrast, a state is dependent to the extent that it is dominated by, or drained of, global value flows.” The appropriation of value by imperialist powers and the loss of value by dependent states is called unequal exchange, which Max Ajl defines thusly: “people in the periphery [the dependent states] could produce the same widget at the same speed as someone in the core [the imperialist states] and be paid radically less for it…even when we account for differences in productivity, wages in the South are far lower than they are in the North.”

Unequal exchange is the defining feature of modern imperialism, and it is not only maintained through military force and coercion, although these measures remain central to the imperialist playbook. In many cases, imperialism is maintained through a much more quotidian system of North-South value appropriation of the sort epitomized by the International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment programs (SAPs), of which Canada is a stolid champion.

Neocolonial debt traps ensnare decolonizing states that attempt to create a strong domestic industrial base, and the high priests of “responsible” economic policy at the IMF and the World Bank (Canada was a founding member of both) respond by offering debt relief only if these countries open their resource wealth and infrastructure to Western investment. Gunships are replaced by economic advisory teams, and the quest for imperial domination perpetuates itself.

Imperialism is no longer a system in which warring empires carve up individual territories for their own private use, occasionally clashing when economic interests overlap; as David McNally writes, modern imperialism is not “simply about policing an identifiable territory or region…now it entails securing the entirety of the world markets.” Attempts to secure the world markets have entrenched “a system of global inequalities and domination—embodied in regimes of property, military power and global institutions—through which wealth is drained from the labour and resources of people in the Global South to the systematic advantage of capital in the North.” Like other Western countries, Canada has benefitted immensely from this process.

After the Second World War, Canada supported the European empires in their wars against liberation movements in the colonies. Through NATO, Canada sent millions in weaponry and military support to France (which was attempting to savagely repress independence movements in North Africa and “Indochina”), Britain (Malay), the Netherlands (Indonesia and West Papua New Guineau), Belgium (the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi), and Portugal (Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau).

During decolonization, Canada consistently aligned itself with the most brutal capitalist states in the Global South—including apartheid South Africa and the Guatemalan military dictatorship—while criticizing figures who attempted to remove their peoples from a state of neocolonial dependency, such as Jacobo Árbenz (described by the Ottawa trade commissioner in Guatemala as “unscrupulous, daring and ruthless, and not one to be allayed in his aims by bloodshed or killing”), Patrice Lumumba (whom Prime Minister John Diefenbaker considered “a major threat to Western interests”) and Kwame Nkrumah (whose overthrow in 1966 was described as “a wonderful thing…for the West” by Canadian High Commissioner in Accra C.E. McGaughey).

The reason for Canada’s condemnation of left-of-centre of solidly left-wing independence leaders, and closeness with states that violently enforce the primacy of the market, is simple: non-dependent postcolonial states in the Global South not only erect barricades to foreign investment, but they can also serve as examples to other postcolonial states which seek to follow a similar developmental path. For the sake of the imperialist world system, they must be destroyed, and almost all of them were destroyed with Canada’s gleeful approval if not material support. The returns on their destruction have been enormous.

According to Todd Gordon, Canada’s investment in Global South markets in 1980 reaped profits of $3.7 billion. In 2007, by which point most left-wing independence movements had been disempowered and SAPs implemented throughout the Global South, Canadian investments made $23.6 billion in profit, “an increase of 535 percent, which is greater than the increase in profits earned at home over the same period of time.”

Of particular note is that extractive investments in the Global South have grown exponentially over the past few decades, to the extent that Canada is now home to 75 percent of the world’s mining companies and acts as an unscrupulous defender of extractive industry on the world stage. The Canadian government offers tax incentives to transnational mining companies, refuses to establish authoritative supervisory organs, and staunchly rejects the idea of joining the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative or following United Nations recommendations concerning responsible private sector regulation.

Additionally, the Canadian state frequently intervenes in the domestic affairs of sovereign states in order to create a more favorable investment climate for Canadian companies, as evidenced by the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) financing of a new (and extremely liberalized) Colombian mining code in 2001 and the Canadian embassy’s interference in the Ecuadorian mining review of 2008. Similarly, when the Congolese government of Joseph Kabila nationalized a mine belonging to Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals in 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper raised the issue with the G8, the IMF, the World Bank, and other investors in the Congo, threatening to prevent a much-needed debt rescheduling until Kabila relented.

The Canadian state’s aggressive approach to value appropriation has born fruit: in 2012, the combined profits of Canadian mining companies in Latin America and Africa totalled $32.2 billion. By contrast, the 2012-2013 budget for CIDA, Canada’s much-praised “international development” agency, was $3.4 billion. Government of Canada statistics show that almost half of the minerals exported through Canada in 2020 were mined outside the country (a value of $90.2 billion), while the latest Energy and Mines’ Ministers Conference revealed that Canada spends more on mineral exploration than any other country, with its budgets representing 14 percent of all global exploration. This data alone reveals the unequal exchange that undergirds the Canadian economy.

Imperialism today is a world system in which Canada, as a Western capitalist power (and itself a creation of British imperialism), plays a notable role. As Canada continues to support diplomatic and material assaults on states which strive to regain a degree of economic sovereignty (Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, to name a few) it must be remembered that Canada is an imperialist nation in an imperialist world system, and that its foreign policy is designed to enforce the dependency of Global South nations while appropriating their value for its own capitalist class.

Owen Schalk is a writer based in Winnipeg. His areas of interest include post-colonialism and the human impact of the global neoliberal economy. Visit his website at www.owenschalk.com.