GLOBAL BRIEF | Fall/Winter 2019 by Louis Fishauf Design Ltd.

Who Makes the Rules This Century? And Who Gets to Live by Them?

EDITORS’ BRIEF

Some countries and peoples presume by instinct and culture to make the rules. Some are fighting to get into that group. Others are not. And others still do not even realize the game is afoot.

COVER ILLUSTRATION: BLAIR KELLY

Faculty of Law imagines what a Canada that is more just vis-à-vis its Indigenous people – and, as a result, far more constitutionally complicated – would look like over the course of this century, and whether this political-strategic entity can even be properly governed given its multiple moving parts and pressures. In Tête à Tête, GB speaks with Nathalie Tocci, director of Rome’s leading Instituto Affari Internazionali, about the present health and future of the European project in general, and of Italy in particular. GB then exchanges with Jeremi Suri, GB Geo-Blogger and top presidential thinker at the University of Texas at Austin, about the genesis, decision-making and coming year or two of the Trump administration in particular, and of the US and American civilization more generally. In Query, GB Senior Editor Zachary Paikin proposes a forward bilateral agenda for the unlikely strategic dyad of Canada and Russia, working from the Arctic and then well beyond. GB Junior Editor Zach Battat games the endgame in Syria. In Nez à Nez, Devlen Balkan of the University of Copenhagen and the LSE’s Katerina Dalacoura spar over whether the latest Turkish-American dispute – before and well after the latest Saudi-American dispute – signals the end of Turkey’s Western project. In The Definition, GB examines the consequences of the American pullout from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the Iran nuclear deal – and what’s to be done next. Former Egyptian foreign minister Nabil Fahmy, Jon Finer, former chief of staff to US Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian diplomat Behzad Saberi, and Kayhan Barzegar of Tehran’s Islamic Azad University weigh in. In Strategic Futures, GB asks which African country or countries have term-setting potential this century. The answers come from Niagalé Bagayoko of the African Security Sector Network in Ghana, Amnesty International’s Stephen Lamony, and Herbert M’cleod of the International Growth Centre in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Situ reports come to us from Minsk, Belarus via the Minsk Dialogue’s Yauheni Preiherman, and also from Mexico City via GB Spanish Geo-Blogger Alejandro Magos and Tamir Bar-On of Tec de Monterrey in Queretaro. GB is in Ethiopia’s Cabinet Room, catching the in-camera debates just before the recent cabinet shuffle in Addis Ababa (and perhaps even causing that cabinet shuffle). George Elliott Clarke, former Canadian parliamentary poet laureate, closes the book in Epigram. Enjoy your Brief. | GB

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ome publications and analysts would have that we are living in a time of great powers: the US, China and, perhaps, to a less impressive extent, Russia. No others need apply just yet. But the dominant game is far more subtle and sophisticated than that: great powers compete for power, security, and more power and security still. The 21st century is so interconnected and technical that the bigger prize is dictation: Who sets the terms for the world’s behaviour and thinking? And who lives – consciously or unconsciously – according to the terms set by those term-setters? Those are the key questions. On this logic, Russia fits comfortably into the world of great powers – term-setters – this century, and very consciously so. China, even more so. And the peculiar behaviour of the relatively new administration in Washington suggests, if anything, that President Trump, too, is more concerned about term-setting than strategic power for its own sake. Set the logic – the cage, as it were – for your friends and enemies alike, and you will be king (or queen, depending on the terms). Of course, other countries and other people, on all continents, are also aspirants to or candidates for termsetting achievements this century. This may not be in grand strategy or geopolitics, but in culture, business, sport, science, and indeed any area of human thinking, behaviour and endeavour. Who may succeed and who will fail – and how – are the matters that exercise us in this issue of GB. David Skilling, of Singapore’s Landfall Strategy Group, launches us into the number in the One Pager, explaining the growing use – surgical and chaotic alike – of sanctions, tariffs and other instruments of war by other means. In the lead Feature, GB Editor-in-Chief Irvin Studin pens an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, arguing that the new USMCA Agreement with the US and Mexico will have devastating consequences for the strategic reputation and strategic future of the country he leads. Andrey Kortunov, of the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow, reflects on whether, when, and under which circumstances Russia can return – as it inevitably must – to Europe; perhaps, as he argues, via Asia (or even via a Greater Eurasia). Barthélémy Courmont, GB Geo-Blogger in French and also of the Université catholique de Lille, distills four scenarios for the future of North Korea in the wake of the apparent quasi-détente with the US and South Korea. Finally, Douglas Sanderson of the University of Toronto’s

N O. 2 3

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & PUBLISHER Irvin Studin

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D E PA R T M E N T S

MANAGING EDITOR Sam Sasan Shoamanesh ART DIRECTOR Louis Fishauf ASSOCIATE EDITOR Michael Barutciski ASSISTANT EDITOR Marie Lavoie

EDITORS’ BRIEF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 ONE PAGER

David Skilling | Sanctions, tariffs and war by other means . . . . . . 5

SENIOR EDITOR & ASSISTANT PUBLISHER

Jaclyn Volkhammer

IN SITU

SENIOR EDITORS

Yauheni Preiherman | Belarus finds its foreign policy stride. . . . . . 6

Milos Jankovic, Zachary Paikin

Alejandro Magos & Tamir Bar-On | AMLO & Mexico-US relations. . . 38

JUNIOR EDITORS

Zach Battat, Uran Bolush, Maxime Minne,

TÊTE À TÊTE

Khilola Zakhidova, Andrew Tower,

Nathalie Tocci | What future for the European project?. . . . . . . . . . . 10

Tatevik Hovhannissian

Jeremi Suri | On the state and future of US politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

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QUERY Zachary Paikin | Is there a forward Canada-Russia agenda?. . . . . . . 30 Zach Battat | What is the Syrian endgame?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 IN THE CABINET ROOM Dusan Petricic | Ethiopia assesses its footballing woes. . . . . . . . . . 45 NEZ À NEZ Balkan Devlen vs. Katerina Dalacoura The Ankara-Washington fight and Turkey’s Western project. . . . . 46 THE DEFINITION

Whither the Iran nuclear deal after the US withdrawal?…. . . . . 60 STRATEGIC FUTURES Which African country can become a term-setter?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

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F E AT U R E S

AN OPEN LETTER TO JUSTIN TRUDEAU Why the new USMCA Agreement will have

devastating consequences for Canada’s strategic reputation and future BY IRVIN STUDIN

RUSSIA’S TROUBLES & OPTIONS The present Russian-Western conflict need not predetermine a difficult Russian-Western century BY ANDREY KORTUNOV

QUEL AVENIR POUR LA CORÉE DU NORD? Quatre scénarios, du moins au plus probable, que pourrait prendre la Corée du Nord PAR BARTHÉLÉMY COURMONT

NEW REFLECTIONS ON THE INDIGENOUS QUESTION Modern treaties and a new domestic imagination may still save the day BY DOUGLAS SANDERSON

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Sanctions, Tariffs and War by Other Means

ONE PAGER

The weaponization of economic instruments and the fragmentation of the global order BY DAVID SKILLING

world’s reserve currency issuer, these sanctions are perhaps the new version of the ‘exorbitant privilege’ of which then French finance minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing warned in the 1960s. The centrality of the US dollar within the global system gives Washington sanctioning options not enjoyed by other capitals. China, too, is using its economic muscle to advance its interests, punishing parties with which it has bilateral disagreements. Japan and Taiwan have long endured various sanctions, and the so-called Dalai Lama effect is well established, with countries being sanctioned after receiving official visits. Norway was targeted by Beijing after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to activist Liu Xiaobo in 2010: tight restrictions were imposed on imports of Norwegian salmon, while Norwegian export growth to China stalled. It took seven years and considerable politicking by Oslo for Norwegian-Chinese trade in seafood to renormalize. And South Korea had its tourism sector constrained by China in 2017 for having stationed the US THAAD missile system on its territory. Top South Korean firms like Lotte and Hyundai were affected. To be sure, economic sanctions are preferable to military conflict, and there is justification for sanctions in some cases. But the ad hoc application of these measures risks further fragmentation of the international system when it is already stressed by protectionism and mercantilism. Economic and financial flows may begin to circulate primarily within political blocs. Some countries may weigh the costs and benefits of transacting in US dollars or with US banks if that creates exposure to US sanctions. Such large-country behaviour may even cause firms to think hard about their global footprint, reinforcing the existing arguments for re-shoring economic activity. New rules of the game to guide and restrain these ‘weaponized’ economic actions would be helpful, but there are no strong institutions that could provide a basis for such rules. The WTO, IMF and G20 are all unlikely candidates. And for now, the prospect of a bigpower agreement on a sanctions détente seems remote. What starts with specific, targeted sanctions may soon lead – and with some rapidity – to structural change in the operations and logic of the global system, and the emergence of a highly fragmented and deeply inefficient global economy. Bref, the open, rules-based model of globalization that has prevailed over the past several decades is coming apart. | GB

David Skilling is Director at Landfall Strategy Group in Singapore.

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key marker of regime change in the global system is the growing interaction between international commerce and brute geopolitics. Economic policy instruments are increasingly being used as tools of national interest. The current use and threatened use of tariffs and other trade restrictions by the US, China, Russia, the EU and others are one reflection of this dynamic. So too is the weaponization of other economic policy instruments – notably sanctions. In recent decades, economic sanctions were seldom used: the principal strategic rivals in the Cold War had limited economic interaction. But globalization has made the world – and rivals – more connected.The largest states have thus begun to privilege economic and even personal sanctions to project power. In some cases – on North Korea, Iran and Russia – these sanctions have commanded support among key Western countries. The sanctions have had material impacts: North Korean exports to China were down by around 90 percent over the past year, while exports to Russia from the Baltics and Nordics in particular, and from the Eurozone in general, remain down by about 30 percent relative to the pre-sanction environment. Increasingly, though, economic sanctions are being used in highly capricious, unilateral and often extraterritorial ways by larger powers to advance strategic objectives. Recent US sanctions on Russia targeted specific firms and oligarchs (aluminium producer Rusal and related firm En+, associated with Oleg Deripaska). The sanctions imposed on the Chinese tech corporation ZTE would have put it out of business, but for a political deal. And US national security adviser John Bolton has threatened to sanction officials of the International Criminal Court. The US has coupled its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal with threats to impose secondary sanctions on firms from other countries doing business with Iran. Non-US firms with American operations, or that are banked by institutions with an American presence, will be constrained in doing business with Iran. This is an especial exposure for European firms. As the US Ambassador to Germany bluntly tweeted, “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.” In response, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire noted that “[t]he international reach of US sanctions makes the US the economic policeman of the planet, and that is not acceptable.” At a time when the US seems less interested in remaining the

Belarus Finds its Foreign Policy Stride

IN SITU

The ‘last dictatorship of Europe’ hedges carefully between East and West, like a hedgehog and fox all at once YAUHENI PREIHERMAN reports from Minsk, Belarus

Yauheni Preiherman is head of the Minsk Dialogue

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Track-2 Initiative.

ntil a few years ago, Belarus was a black spot on the political map of Europe. Despite its crucial geopolitical position at the crossroads of West and East, the country was generally dismissed as being, de facto, part of ‘Russia’s geopolitical backyard’ and therefore treated as unimportant in international strategic debates. Behind slogans about Slavic brotherhood, many analysts and decision-makers in Russia also expected Minsk to bandwagon with Moscow on all important international issues. And yet geopolitical developments have revealed a Belarus, once called “the last dictatorship of Europe” by Condoleezza Rice – referring to the country’s human rights record, and by way of a demand for Belarus to become more democratic – that is quite different from these clichéd perceptions: small but highly realist, trying to use the little foreign policy marge de manœuvre that it has to preserve its sovereignty and contribute to regional security amid growing turbulence in Eastern Europe and the more general Russian-Western confrontation. As geopolitical tensions rose in Eurasia in recent years, Belarus’s international behaviour began to surprise both Russia and the West. The first such surprise came with the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, when Minsk refused to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Any such recognition would have meant creating another problem in relations with the West. Moreover, recognition from Minsk would have suggested that the Belarusian government was fine with the idea of changing postSoviet borders through force; evidently, it was not. Another, more consequential surprise was Minsk’s reaction to the Russo-Ukrainian collision over Crimea and the Donbass. Again, contrary to popular expectations, Belarus did not pick a side in the conflict. Instead, it undertook and managed to preserve good relations with both Kiev and Moscow, offering its territory as a venue for the peace talks that issues in the Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 agreements. The Belarusian government also provided – on a permanent basis – its ‘good offices’ to the OSCE Trilateral Contact Group, which deals, at an operational level, with security, economic and humanitarian issues in war-torn Donbass. At core, Belarus’s international behaviour is today

driven by a firm logic – that of a small state trying to survive in the context of growing geopolitical uncertainties. Three factors are central to understanding this logic: geography, the general security situation in Eastern Europe, and the track record of Belarusian relations with the principal strategic actors in its region. Geographically, Belarus is sandwiched between Russia and the EU (or the West). It is, as a result, constantly exposed to competing or contradictory geopolitical pressures originating from its much bigger neighbours. Of course, these competing pressures were recently amplified into open confrontation, threatening the strategic stability not only of Eastern Europe – with the bleeding wound in the Donbass continuing to stoke regional tensions – but indeed of Europe more generally, if not other continents. These developments have clearly forced Belarus to think seriously about the foundations of its foreign and security policies. In the 1990s, Belarus famously declared that it would adhere to a multi-vectored policy. However, over the next quarter-century, only one vector – relations with Russia – really mattered on the ground. The two countries even created a union-state, which has until now been an unusual integration model, characterized by close cooperation in many areas, including in military affairs. And yet this model falls well short of any confederation or federation, and therefore does not materially limit the sovereign powers of each of the two states. Belarus has also been an active participant in Russian-driven integration projects in the postSoviet space – most notably the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the relatively new Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). At the same time, Minsk’s relations with the West have, from the 1990s onward, generally been poor and bereft of energy. Indeed, Belarus is the only EU neighbour country with no overarching bilateral framework to govern its relations with Brussels (even though multiple smaller-scale agreements exist). In 1996, the parties signed the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which was not ratified on the EU side due to concerns about democracy and human rights in Belarus. Similar concerns about human rights have dominated Belarus’s relations with the US and Canada.

PHOTOGRAPH: MATTHIAS BALK / PICTURE-ALLIANCE / DPA / AP IMAGES

increasingly popular among the small states in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, which similarly find themselves in geopolitical ‘in-between’ conditions. The more intense the strategic tensions between competing big powers, the greater the volatility felt by the small states caught in between. When this dynamic is combined with the obvious difficulties that small states have in their direct bilateral relations with each of these bigger states, the result is heightened uncertainty, with an almost prohibitively limited margin of error at play. What, then, can a small state do? Like actors on financial markets, a small, ‘hedging’ state aims to pursue multiple policies at the same time, with a view to parrying the inevitable contradictions of such a complicated course. Consider Minsk’s handling of the Crimean question. On one hand, Belarus does not officially recognize Crimea as part of Russia. On the other, in international fora like the UN General Assembly, Belarus votes against Ukrainian-sponsored

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko during a military parade marking Independence Day in Minsk, July 2018.

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Why the multi-vector approach to foreign policy failed – or never took off in the first place – remains an important subject of debate in Belarus. To be clear, for this failure, the government and society of Belarus should primarily blame themselves. But more relevant to today’s debates in Belarus is what should be done to remedy this failure, and what such a remedy might mean for the future of Belarus and regional security in Eastern Europe. Several years ago, the Belarusian government proclaimed emphatically that it was pursuing a ‘diversification’ course in its international affairs. This new course has yet to be conceptualized in formal state documents. But it is not, to be sure, a simple reorientation of Belarusian foreign policy à la Ukraine – that is, it is not a straightforward prioritization of relations with the West over everyone else. For all practical intents and purposes, Belarus now pursues what is known in the academic literature as strategic hedging. The strategy has become

resolutions that accuse Russia of illegal annexation. Indeed, the working public formula of the Belarusian authorities is to state that Crimea is de jure part of Ukraine, but de facto part of Russia.

Russian Hedging Belarus needs to preserve a good, multifaceted relationship with Russia, which is a massive political, economic and security reality at the country’s borders. There are manifest benefits to Belarus from such a positive bilateral relationship: discounted oil and gas prices, preferential access to the Russian market and Russian credit and, to be sure, the opportunity to enmesh Russia in binding institutional and legal commitments. Even when the Kremlin ignores some of these commitments – for instance, by restricting the access of Belarusian companies to the Russian market or by limiting, administratively, their competitive advantages – such enmeshing helps to make Russian behaviour more predictable. At the same time, Belarus evidently cannot go too far in its integration with Russia, as deep integration

Belarus evidently cannot go too far in its integration with Russia, as deep integration would invariably erode the small state’s sovereignty – given Russia’s scale. would invariably erode the small state’s sovereignty – given Russia’s scale. Tellingly, Minsk insists that the Eurasian Economic Union remain an economic project only, while objecting to any political integration within its framework.

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Western Hedging

Minsk must significantly improve and diversify its relations with the West. Ideally, this should counterbalance the Russian vector – both economically and politically – in order to enhance Belarus’s freedom of action. And yet the legacy of the last 25 years is such that the Belarusian authorities have little trust in the West in general, and fear that the EU and the US in particular will continue efforts to implode the Lukashenko government. The authorities also fear that the West is interested ultimately in tearing Belarus away from Russia, which would certainly provoke Moscow (as it did in respect of Ukraine).

Regional Hedging Belarus is most vulnerable to any worsening of the confrontation between Russia and the West – something that would before long force Minsk to side with the most natural party. Were this to

happen, Belarus would automatically lose considerable economic rents, while seeing its sovereignty destroyed, at the margin, in the context of conflict. Minsk’s essential interest, then, is to avoid getting dragged into any such a conflict at almost any cost. And this interest manifestly underpins Minsk’s recent forays into peacemaking – including through the provision of the said good offices in respect of the Ukraine conflict – as well as the launch of a major dialogue on regional and international security. Bref, Minsk has pursued situational neutrality in respect of both the Russo-Ukrainian and the Russo-Western confrontations. Belarus also seeks to profit strategically and economically from third-country agendas that can relieve some of the binary divisions between Russia and the West in the region’s geopolitics. China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a case in point. Minsk is doing its utmost to become one of the BRI’s crucial elements in Eastern Europe, thereby raising its geostrategic significance for Beijing. To this end, a huge Chinese-Belarusian industrial park has been opened on the outskirts of Minsk, with a view to getting Chinese strategic interests rooted in the country. Minsk has also intensified its relations with Beijing along other tracks, including in the military and military-industrial realms: a few years ago, China and Belarus jointly produced the powerful ‘Polonez’ multiple-launch rocket system. Bref, over the next five years, Belarus must ensure that it becomes part and parcel of the mental (strategic) maps of both the West and Russia, and specifically as a principal stakeholder in Eastern European stability. Minsk must continue to explain internationally the benefits of a sovereign Belarus that is uninvolved in conflict. To the extent that Belarus can work to create conditions for better transparency and dialogue – beyond alliance politics – in Eastern Europe, it can help to minimize some of the security dilemmas inherent in the region’s present strategic dynamics. Of course, in all of this, the binary geopolitical pressures cannot but pre-program various internal fissures within Belarusian government and society at large. Even within the power vertical of Belarusian public administration, policy-makers must constantly reckon with these pressures and fissures in order to minimize the risk of internal explosion. The inevitable leadership succession problem that will befall the country, sooner or later, can only amplify this risk of explosion. Belarusian leaders and decision-makers will therefore need to do their homework to ensure that the country’s domestic institutions and its instruments of sovereignty are functional and resilient to be able to endure for the long run, parrying the various political and strategic pressures along the way. | GB

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What Future for the European Project?

TÊTE À TÊTE

Whither Italy, for that matter? And can Brussels cope with its migrant problem? Trump oblige, is there cause for pessimism or optimism on the Old Continent? Conversation with NATHALIE TOCCI

GB: What is the mood – politically, economically

GB: Does the American factor play into the pres-

and strategically – in Europe today?

ent pessimism in Europe?

Istituto Affari

NT: The mood is not particularly optimistic. In some

NT: Actually, no. The American factor, oddly enough,

Internazionali in

respects, it is schizophrenic. If you map the trends over the years, we essentially have endured the Eurozone crisis, followed by the so-called migration crisis (which is not really a crisis at all), and then the annus horribilis election year of 2017. This was a series of national elections – in the Netherlands, Austria, France and Germany. Given that these elections came on the heels of those two major crises – and let us add, for good measure, the consequences of Brexit as a third crisis – Europeans have the sense of inhabiting a house with collapsing walls. That was, for all intents and purposes, the mood until May 2017. Then what happened? Emmanuel Macron gets elected president of France, and we see a complete reversal of the trendline. Suddenly, we Europeans forget our crises. Recall the speech made by Jean-Claude Juncker in his State of the EU speech in September 2017. It was all about Europe having wind in its sails. Europe was ready for a reset and restart. There was a general sense of optimism in the Brussels bubble and beyond. And this optimism was not just about Macron. In multiple European cities, we saw young people going into the streets and reclaiming their sense of belonging and belief in the EU. This was the essential story until the Italian elections. Those elections saw Euroskeptic, nationalist, populist forces score a clear victory, which suddenly reignited pessimism in and about Europe. And this is really where we are now – again, in something of a schizophrenic mode. This is a European schizophrenia that oscillates very dramatically between sheer pessimism and completely unrealistic optimism. Of course, the world must be somewhere between these two extremes. It is clear that the EU is living in an existential moment, but it is equally true that, when push comes to shove, the EU has demonstrated that it is more resilient than what many thought it was. This means that the present pessimism must be taken with a pinch of salt.

has been one of the elements contributing to European optimism. The Trump factor made Europeans suddenly open their eyes and realize that things were not as bad as they thought in Europe, but that they could go very badly indeed. One should not go around voting for populist forces with a light heart anymore because they can actually win. Bref, the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump actually conspired, for some time, to have a positive effect on Europe in terms of rekindling enthusiasm for the European project. That was the story for the first year of the Trump administration. Now we are in a different phase, because the administration in Washington is seeking actively to undermine the EU – on trade, on security (including in respect of NATO), and on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or JCPOA, the Iranian nuclear deal – see Definition at p. 60). Defining the EU as a foe has, paradoxically, had a positive effect on the EU. On the other hand, the pressure from Washington must now be fought and countered by Brussels and European capitals far more ferociously, because the threat from the Trump administration is far more concrete than it was until a few months ago. (I use the word threat very deliberately here.)

Nathalie Tocci is Director of the

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Rome.

GB: What about the tensions with Russia since

2014 and their effect on Europe? NT: This is a complicated story. Let me start with the positive side of things. As we all know, there are clear differences within the EU vis-à-vis Russia and the nature of the challenge posed by that country. Here I use the word challenge rather than threat, because there is, in fact, no agreement among Europeans that Russia represents a threat. Everyone agrees that Russia represents a challenge, but not necessarily a threat (see the Feature article by Andrey Kortunov at p. 24). Of course, the differences between Russia and

The American factor, oddly enough, has been one of the elements contributing to European optimism. The Trump factor made Europeans suddenly open their eyes and realize that things were not as bad as they thought in Europe, but that they could go very badly indeed.

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PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF IAI

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Europeans increasingly appreciate China’s economic value. The Belt and Road Initiative starts in China but ends in Europe. There is also growing appreciation of China’s importance in the overall safeguarding of the multilateral system, particularly on issues such as the climate.

the EU are there. In fact, they have always been there. But what is interesting is that, from 2014 to this very day, these differences have not prevented the EU from assuming a unified position. This unified position has two dimensions – dialogue on the one hand, and sanctions on the other (see the One Pager by David Skilling at p. 5). Indeed, it is quite remarkable that we Europeans have actually stayed the course with this position far more stably and sustainably than what President Putin likely anticipated back in 2014. Bref, the Europeans remain fairly solid and predictable on this matter. Now, where is all this going? Will anything change? Can the EU be moved? Let me connect this to the situation in Italy. We now have populist, nationalist forces in power in Rome and other capitals on the continent. These new governments are assuming far more open positions vis-à-vis Russia. Can we therefore imagine that the consensus within Europe on Russia will begin to crack? I am not overly pessimistic in this regard. I say this because what is distinctive about nationalism and nationalist forces is precisely that they are nationalist – that is, they generally do not have much of an interest in foreign policy questions. They tend to be far more domestically oriented. The new Italian government, for instance, would like the Eurozone rules (on fiscal and monetary policy) to be revisited. The same applies to migration policy in Europe. Yes, they would also like sanctions on Russia to be lifted. But because they need to choose their battles, they cannot revisit and revise all three policy areas. And since the Russia question is very obviously an almost pure foreign policy question, it will likely prove less pressing to these nationalist governments than the other two matters. In other words, this is probably not a battle that the present Italian government is going to fight. It would rather stick its neck out on the other major issues. GB: What about Europe’s strategic, economic and

political relations with China today? NT: This is also an evolving story. Europeans increasingly appreciate China’s economic value. We know that the Belt and Road Initiative starts in China but ends in Europe. There is also growing appreciation of China’s importance in the overall safeguarding of the multilateral system – particularly if we think about issues such as the climate. And this is especially true in light of the Trump factor – that is, given that Europe’s core and traditional partner on multilateralism has effectively gone missing, at least for now. Bref, there is growing appreciation of the need to work with China on a wide variety of issues. At the same time, there is an equally growing appreciation that we are not talking about a teddy bear with no strategic interests at all. We know, for

instance, that the South China Sea remains a challenge of geopolitics and international law. It is also crystal clear, in European minds, that the Belt and Road Initiative is extremely Sinocentric in content and purpose. So yes, in economic terms, we engage with it and with Beijing, but we are acutely aware that we need to engage with it in a manner that seeks to protect European interests and values. GB: How is the migrant crisis or challenge (as you

put it) currently viewed in Italy? NT: I say that this is not a migration or refugee crisis as such because, first, this is not a crisis of numbers. One could have said that there was a crisis of numbers back in 2015, given that Germany took in over a million people in one fell swoop. But even then, I would argue that a million in an EU-wide population of over 500 million only approximates a crisis. That was 2015. If we look at the numbers today, we are talking about irregular arrivals by boat. There is a fairly clear indication of a trend of about 45,000 people per year. Again, 45,000 in a Union of over 500 million people is nothing. It cannot be called a crisis – at least not today. Second, a crisis is, by definition, something shortterm and immediate. Here we are actually talking about a structural, long-term phenomenon that will be with us for the rest of the 21st century. This is a story about the African continent, demography, climate change, poverty and war. And, of course, we cannot change our geography. Europe is right next to a huge, demographically young African continent, separated only by a tiny strip of the Mediterranean Sea. Europe is, by juxtaposition, fairly small and ageing. Bref, the trend is structural, and this migration will be with us for the rest of this century – and likely beyond. I would therefore struggle to define it as a crisis. Now, in what way is this actually a crisis? It is certainly a political crisis, and therefore a crisis of values. This crisis of values turns on the fact that all of the brouhaha concerns a few hundred thousand people who are coming to Europe not primarily to enjoy the culture and good weather, but instead because they are escaping war or have no other means of creating a sustainable livelihood. The reaction that these migrants receive is one of closure. This, then, is a fundamental crisis of values – one that turns on whether the EU should be standing for certain values, including ones enshrined in treaties. This is also – to be sure – a crisis of solidarity within the EU, with Italy having been left completely on its own to wrestle with the issue. Of course, solidarity is one of the key political features and underlying elements of the European project. But again, however we define the problem, this

is something that will stay with us for years and decades to come.

GB: Can you comment on the bridge collapse in

GB: What is the state of politics in Italy at present, and how is the future viewed?

NT: It epitomizes, tragically, the state of the country under the weight of bad politics, corruption and bureaucracy. Italy, like the Morandi Bridge, is on the verge of collapse. Unlike the bridge, though, Italy’s collapse is unlikely to happen in one go. It is a slow but accelerating decline that has been underway for the last three decades.

GB: What is the mentality of young Italians today

in respect of the country, the political class, and the economic and strategic future of the country? NT: Young Italians are extremely frustrated, disillusioned and pessimistic. The country has really been badly hit. It has been badly hit precisely because when the global financial crisis and Eurozone crisis hit, with the migration issue subsequently emerging for good measure, Italy was already in an extremely weak position. This was not a country that had been growing at four or five percent before the global financial crisis. It had already been going through at least a decade of relative decline. And in the context of this relative decline, the country was hit with a double crisis. Italians began to lose hope in the future. They ended up voting for specific parties out of sheer frustration. This is not dissimilar, arguably, from what happened in the US with the election of Donald Trump. Frustrated Americans were not necessarily thinking that a billionaire from New York could or would truly improve the condition of the Rust Belt. Instead, not believing in anything or anyone else, they presumed to try to wreck the system.

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NT: We Italians are on a fairly long wave. I do not expect the current government to collapse any time soon. The tensions within the government are not sufficiently large to bring it down. There are, however, very clear tensions between the Lega Nord and the Movimento 5 Stelle, as well as within the Movimento 5 Stelle itself. Of course, the Movimento 5 Stelle has always played on the idea that it is neither left nor right – that is, that it is post-ideological. But this is rubbish – let us face it. Everyone knows that it is ideological in one way or another. Indeed, the left wing of the Movimento 5 Stelle obviously feels uncomfortable – in fact, increasingly uncomfortable – about being in government with an extreme right-wing party. Bref, I do not wish to suggest that everything is hunky-dory. No, there are issues there. But this is a government – or a political wave – that is not going to exhaust itself in the immediate future. All of this is ultimately political. So, at the very least, let us see what happens in the European parliamentary elections. If what emerges in those elections is a situation in which the Movimento 5 Stelle declines slightly in its support, while the Lega increases its support significantly – but still remains short of a majority on its own – then my guess is that the government in Rome will probably last another year or so. So this is a long wave. Italians just need to weather the storm. Above all – and this is on the other side of the fence – the traditional liberal, mainstream, centre-left parties, and especially Italy’s Democratic Party, really need to get their act together. They really do need to rethink social democracy. To be sure, this is not just a story about Italy. It is a story about France, the Netherlands, Austria and Germany. It is also a story about the US and Canada. This is a broader Western, if not global, story about the crisis of social democracy. On the other hand, there is a real need – particularly in Italy – for the centre-right to reinvent itself. Unfortunately, until Berlusconi – who is at once half-dead and half-alive, but nonetheless still there – cedes the political and psychological space, it will be very difficult for a modern centre-right presence to emerge in the country.

Genoa?

GB: How do you see Brexit unfolding over the next

year? How is this impacting the continent? NT: The million-dollar question that is still unre-

Italy has been badly hit precisely because when the global financial crisis and Eurozone crisis hit, with the migration issue subsequently emerging for good measure, the country was already in an extremely weak position.

solved is whether Brexit will actually happen at all. Although I would still place my bet on it probably happening, in one form or another, we are, more than two years out from the referendum, still in exactly the same position that we were in back then. The fundamental contradiction is that anything that makes sense in economic terms does not make sense in political terms for the Brexiteers who won the referendum (albeit with only 52 percent of the vote). That fundamental contradiction, which has been there from day one, remains unresolved. It is very clear, from an economic perspective, that it is in the UK’s interest to have as tight a relationship as possible with the EU. Whether ‘as tight as possible’ means being inside the customs union, a Norway-type arrangement, a very deep and structured partnership, a free-trade agreement or some other species of arrangement can be debated. One can define and structure the arrangement in different ways, but it would have to be an interaction that is very strong and very tight. Having said this, politically speaking, any such arrangement does not seem to make sense for those who wish to reclaim far greater control and sovereignty for the UK. As the clock ticks down to March 2019, which is the official cut-off point for Article 50 and therefore for the UK’s exit from the EU, I struggle to see how the broad contours of an agreement – let alone the details – can be reached in time to allow for a smooth British exit from the EU. GB: How do you rate the performance of Emmanuel

Macron to date? What is his political future?

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NT: There was this general sense, following the

election of Emmanuel Macron that, after the German elections, the Franco-German engine would be back on track and would really give a massive push to European integration. Then, as we know, the elections in Germany did not go as smoothly as many had hoped. It took many months to form a government in Berlin. Finally, a government was formed with a new grand coalition between the Social Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union. At that point, everyone thought that this would be the moment when the engine would restart. This has not happened yet. It has not happened in part because of domestic problems in Germany, where the coalition is very fragile and there are emerging tensions within the coalition government – particularly in respect of migration, with the AfD, now enjoying growing public support, looming in the background. But another reason – to be sure – is the fact that, when

push comes to shove, the kind of proposals that President Macron has for the reform of the EU actually contradict, in many respects, Germany’s ideas. All of this is to say that, again, unfortunately, the optimism of Europeans was overinflated precisely because of their schizophrenic attitude vis-à-vis the European project. GB: Is there an EU future, in defence and security

terms, alternative to or outside of NATO? NT: If there is not a future for European security

and defence, then we are all doomed. If one is to look at the trends – not just President Trump today, but long-term structural trends well into the 21st century – then it is very clear that Europeans will have to look increasingly after themselves. Whether this is done within a NATO framework or some new framework, frankly, does not matter. The old debates about competition between the EU and NATO on this front are completely obsolete. To be clear, it is not NATO that is obsolete, but rather the competition or contradiction between the EU and NATO that is obsolete. The story of the future, then, is about Europeans taking upon themselves greater responsibility on security and defence. This is something that can be incentivized within an EU framework. If it happens, it will also be to the benefit of NATO. GB: What would the future European relationship

be with NATO? NT: I see no contradiction here. For the sake of argu-

ment, one can ask: what if, in 30 or 50 years’ time, we end up in a situation where the Europeans are essentially doing everything in NATO because the Americans have disengaged? This might be a NATO in which there is a growing partnership between, say, the Europeans and Canada, and in which relations with Turkey will remain very complicated. At that point, one could legitimately ask: Is NATO still the right framework under which to conduct the bulk of European security and defence? I do not know the answer to that question, but my point is that the question itself is not really worth asking now. It is, instead, worth making sure that Europeans get their act together on security and defence. Of course, this is something that has been gradually happening, with more significant steps having been taken in the last several years. There is still a very, very long way to go, and it is fraught with hurdles and complications, but the journey has begun. Now, where that journey leads, in terms of the most appropriate institutional framework, is a second-order question. (continued) For the rest of the interview with Nathalie Tocci, please visit the GB website: www.globalbrief.ca

“In this major book (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), Irvin Studin, one of his generation’s top international policy thinkers, brings together Russia’s leading thinkers and specialists to tell us about how this massive, mysterious, and hyper-complicated country, in its many dimensions, works and can, in very practical terms, be improved. Studin’s book is a must-read for anyone who truly wants to understand Russian strategy, policy and administration beyond the surface level, and indeed for all those who want to learn where the world is headed in the first part of the 21st century.” HUBERT VÉDRINE Former Foreign Minister of France

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Why the new USMCA Agreement will have devastating consequences for Canada’s strategic reputation and strategic future. And what’s to be done to fix this? BY IRVIN STUDIN

AN OPEN LETTER TO JUSTIN TRUDEAU Irvin Studin is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher

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of Global Brief.

DEAR PRIME MINISTER: There are two types of leaders on the world stage, just as there are two types of people: those who set the terms, and those who live on the terms of others. I have come to the unfortunate professional determination that you have all too comfortably consigned yourself, and by implication Canada, to the latter category. You, sir, are no term-setter. Nay, as you approach your first re-election contest in 2019, I believe that you have presided over a period in government and made one or two historical mistakes of commission and omission that, in strategic terms, will set our country back at least a decade – if not two. While I am a strict non-partisan, I was truly very impressed by the initial energy, can-do spirit and, to be sure, love and ken of country that you brought to your post after you formed government in 2015. You corrected some of the behavioural and policy pathologies of the prior government, and in your first year enjoyed exceptional goodwill and political oxygen, both nationally and internationally. In addition, you have, in my judgement, almost always conducted yourself as a public gentleman at a time when this seems less and less the favoured fashion. As you may know, I have been publicly critical of the lost opportunity for Canada to have greatly expanded its global footprint and influence in the first few years of your prime ministership, particularly given the clear international vacuum of – and demand for – major leadership and the historical opening afforded to Canada, the Canadian brand, and the Canadian imagination by juxtaposition with the Trump presidency from the year 2016. You either did not fully see the opportunity, did not want to, or simply did not know how to move on it fast enough. The recent signature you affixed to the new United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) Agreement decisively closes the unique opportunity for Canada under your leadership. Indeed, without overstepping or overstating, let me assert that I believe this signature to betray

a strategic incompetence of historic and, over the long run, potentially existential consequence and proportions for the country you lead. I clearly overestimated you and the foreign minister, and underestimated the Americans – even in their present political degeneracy and weakened strategic reputation. The central clause in question is Article 32.10 of the USMCA. What does it say, and what does it require? Each of the three signatories to the treaty must notify the others of any intention to enter into free-trade negotiations with any ‘non-market country,’ advise on the objectives of those negotiations, and provide – prior to the signature of any such free-trade agreement – the full text of the agreement for review and assessment by the other signatories of the USMCA. The meaning of ‘non-market country’ is as determined by the trade remedy laws of any one of the three signatories, provided none of the signatories already has a free-trade agreement with the ‘non-market country’ in question. Subsection 4 of this article reads: “Entry by any Party into a free-trade agreement with a non-market country shall allow the other Parties to terminate this Agreement [USMCA] on six-month notice and replace this Agreement with an agreement as between them.” Buried so deep in the agreement, and when properly ‘gamed out,’ this unusual clause, in the context of an overall treaty to which you have agreed under pressure – and not world-historical pressure, mind you – will have devastating consequences for the strategic future and strategic reputation of Canada. I am being diplomatic. Allow me to explain and then ask you a series of direct questions. You and your government asserted, over the course of more than a year of negotiations for a modernized NAFTA, that Canada was part of a tripartite process to update a 25-year old trade agreement. To be clear, this renegotiation of NAFTA was not initiated by your side, but rather by the new US president. More clearly still, the first-mover in the renegotiation, as well as in threatening to withdraw from NAFTA in

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ILLUSTRATION: BLAIR KELLY

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the absence of renegotiation, was the US – never Canada, and never Mexico. I have no doubt, given the professionalism of Ottawa, that you and your team entered this renegotiation with a view to advancing Canada’s own objectives. In your public pronouncements and briefings, until the 11th hour, you asserted that Canada was a tough negotiator, defending the Canadian interest, and that Canada would not sign onto any agreement that was ‘bad.’ In the end, however, you signed onto a deal that, via Article 32.10 – never once mentioned in public or among even the cognoscenti until the deal was done – effectively strips Canada of any ability to negotiate free-trade agreements with China and, if pressed, a host of other potential economic partners. But this, to be sure, is only a first-order, surface-level implication of your signature: the broader implications for Canada go well beyond pure foreign policy and spill over quickly into economic policy, Canada’s overall reputation and image in the world, our national identity and, lastly, the long-run ability of Ottawa and the federal government to represent properly the interests of Canada in the 21st century. While you and your government may not yet appreciate what you have done, Canadian accession to this treaty is, in sporting terms, an own goal of the near-highest magnitude – equivalent in form, although less cataclysmic in scale or less immediately obvious in its strategic folly, to the UK’s own goal through Brexit (a set of decisions that all specialists concede can and will only make the UK smaller, poorer and more provincial in its convictions). I write to you, and to the Canadian public in copy, in the sincere hope that you will, on deep reflection, reconsider Canada’s decision with speed and purpose, so that the country can avoid an abrupt, unconscious and completely self-imposed relegation to the margins of international life and the human condition just as the world was looking to us in particular for ambition, vision and, critically, a demonstrated ability to deliver.

QUESTION 1: Your foreign minister was tasked in her mandate letter to negotiate an update to NAFTA – an economic and commercial treaty. Who gave her a mandate to negotiate, and you a mandate to sign, a wholesale foreign policy union – a strategic pact, for all practical intents and purposes – with Washington? Let there be no doubt – this is what it is. It took Canada nearly a century to get out of the British orbit. At the start of this new century, when people are looking to Canada for foreign

policy innovation, initiative and leadership in solving major problems, you have outsourced all executive decision-making to another country. How can this be? Trade lawyers in your government and superficial enthusiasts will comfort you in saying that the text of Article 32.10, first, is not tantamount to an American veto on Canadian strategic decision-making; second, that if it is a veto of any sort, then that veto exists for any and all of the three signatory countries; and third, that every trade treaty, including the original NAFTA, has come with a provision for withdrawal by any party for a variety of reasons. We have many excellent lawyers in Canada, but alas, no real strategists. This has now become all too painfully plain. Article 32.10 was driven not by a legal logic, but rather a brutally strategic one: to lock Canada – procedurally, economically and, most importantly, psychologically – exclusively into the orbit of American decision-making; and, more brutally still, to the strategic and tactical predilections and caprices of the peculiar administration of the day in Washington. Washington knows what it has achieved. Beijing realized it immediately. I am certain that major capitals like Moscow, New Delhi, Tokyo, Brussels, Paris and Brasilia quickly understood what had happened as well. Have you yet seized upon what has happened? And again, how could this happen?

QUESTION 2: You were negotiating with a president and an administration that, in terms of political ethics, is unusually degenerate, and whose strategic judgement and commitment are not trusted in any serious capital on Earth – from Berlin, Paris and Brussels through to Moscow, Ankara, Beijing and Tokyo. In all these capitals, decision-makers, having seen the American president’s behaviour and America’s demonstrative withdrawal from and unapologetic breach of several major treaties (including the original NAFTA), are busily hedging against American tactical caprice and strategic disengagement. While all this is happening, and so obviously, how can it be that you have signed an agreement that expressly outsources key strategic and economic decision-making to Washington – and, I repeat, to this president and administration in particular? Are we now to wait for Washington’s judgement and approval for serious Canadian strategic investment in China and, if not China, then in respect of any number of other countries that the Americans themselves deem, at any given moment, and for their own strategic or political reasons (but always in their own interest), ‘non-market’? Is India non-market or market? What about Brazil? Why do we trust that the Americans know what is best for Canada (or even for themselves, for that matter)? What is their foreign policy talent today? Do they know something that we do not? Do they know Canada’s borders, political and cultural traditions and specificities, and indeed our strategic opportunities better than we do ourselves? The ink on your signature having barely dried, President Trump directed a tweet at Mexico, threatening to breach or pull out of the USMCA in reaction to American security preoccupations on the Mexican-American border. Such threats, coherent or incoherent, substantive or merely expressive, will continue throughout the life of this administration, and will surely be turned (again) toward Canada on a variety of policy

issues in the near future. (And why not similarly so under a future rapacious American president, if he or she is taking proper notes?) Bref, while you, Prime Minister, as a Canadian leader and per the Canadian tradition, will piously and pedantically observe the letter and spirit of this new treaty, you will have ceded Canadian decision-making to a foreign capital that operates, for the foreseeable future, on raw caprice and calculation, viewing this treaty as binding when necessary, but not necessarily binding. In the meantime, having locked ourselves into the American orbit in law, operations and psychology, we will have wasted precious time – decades, in fact – not spreading our wings around the world, and not strengthening our global positions and relationships, including vis-à-vis Washington, commensurate with the size, potential and global import of our country.

QUESTION 3: You signed under pressure and under the threat of more pressure. The pressure came from imposed tariffs (steel and aluminum, and even softwood lumber), the threat of new tariffs on Canada’s auto sector, and from a supposed deadline of October 1st – one that had been shifted back on several occasions without any additional tariffs having been applied against Canada. You said that Canada would resist any pressure in order to seal a deal that was good for the country and Canadians. And yet, at the 11th hour, before this last deadline, you accelerated the approval of the many chapters of the new deal and signed. Why? Do you realize what you have done to the country’s strategic reputation? Do you realize that the Americans now smell blood for the next round of negotiations, whatever the issue or policy field? And how can any other serious country now take Canada seriously in any major international negotiations, recognizing that our leadership has signed – and is seen to have signed – away so very much, so very quickly, under pressure?

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Prime Minister, when I worked in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in Canberra, Australia, there was a major diplomatic and legal dispute between Australia and the much smaller city-state of Singapore. Over the course of more than a year, Australia applied huge, if not ferocious, political pressure on Singapore to fold to its preferences. Sitting at the centre of government in Australia, I was certain that Singapore would cede ground, if not crumble altogether before the Australian pressure campaign – which even included a face-to-face meeting between then Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong. But the Singaporeans did not budge. Why? Later, when I was visiting professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, I realized that the Singaporean strategic toughness is fairly unique among the nations. They know their interests cold, they know how to use the instruments of power, and they will not budge when pressed to cede ground in core areas of national strategy. As with the Israelis, from whom the Singaporeans have drawn conspicuous notes and lessons for half a century, Singapore knows that to show strategic weakness before a strategic bully has existential consequences for the republic. To the contrary, if Singapore negotiates, as with the Israelis, it aims to bloody the nose of the bigger country – both to protect its

interests and the state’s legitimacy, but also to forewarn all future, invariably bigger negotiating partners that negotiating with Singapore is an exceedingly unpleasant and painful experience. Bref, Singapore’s behaviour is always driven by the existential logic of forcing its more massive opposite numbers to think twice, even thrice, before wanting to press Singapore on any number of major questions of policy and strategy. Have you, Prime Minister, thought beyond your nose in signing this deal? Can you see tomorrow at all? A future US president or administration that knows how and is disposed to use brutal instruments of economic or even military pressure on Canada will know that the pain threshThe new old of Canada’s leaders is extremely low. USMCA The current American president, should he so please in the coming months and Agreement years (if he survives this term and into a decisively second term), will have taken good notes on our weak resistance and willingness to closes the offer up critical tools of national decisionhistoric opmaking in order to make the pain – real or threatened, credibly or not – go away, portunity for even if temporarily. In other words, our Canada under country breathes easily, for the time beyour leadering, purely on the beneficence of this and future American presidents. Should a ship. I believe random caprice turn his mood and focus this betrays once again in our disfavour, we will have no capacity to resist whatsoever. a strategic If Washington has quickly absorbed incompetence the lesson of our weakness, then all other of historic and serious capitals, starting with the ones at our immediate borders – Beijing to potentially the west and Moscow across the Arctic – existential will also have taken notes. If we should ever undertake major negotiations with consequence them again, on any matter, Canada will and proporstruggle to be taken seriously precisely because you and your government have tions. shown us to be extremely quick to blink under pain or threat of pain. And these are capitals that, without exception, know how to inflict pain. Why did you sign? What was the rush? We appeared to have been resisting tariff and deadline pressures with success. You had my full support in standing tough – as long as it took, even well into 2019 – in order to secure favourable positions for Canada. Surely the threat of auto tariffs, mooted many times over by President Trump but never implemented, should not have been enough to accelerate our signature of such a strategically deficient compact? And what if Trump was faking the auto tariff, knowing that it would cause nearly as much pain for the US as for Canada, given the cross-border integration of the sector? What lessons will he have drawn from our rapid capitulation? And if he was serious, what conclusions could he then draw from our behaviour? That we are quick to give up strategic, long-run decision-making power to avert short-term, tactical

pain? Quick indeed. Prime Minister, you have succumbed to stress, at signal cost to national decision-making powers for a generation to come, without even having negotiated away (that is, removed) the sources of that stress. The tariffs are still in place, and the future use of tariffs not only highly possible, but indeed, given your decision-making, effectively legitimated as an effective tool of negotiation and national strategy by a bigger partner. You, sir, have consigned Canada to the status of strategic cripple – unable and unwilling to defend its own national decision-making power and prerogatives under stress (and seen as such), and exceedingly vulnerable to even further concessions and extractions under the next We have many round of stress, should it come tomorrow excellent or the day after. And more vulnerable still, it must be said, on account of not having lawyers in fully realized what has happened, in its Canada, but no manifold permutations.

real strategists. Article 32.10 was driven not by a legal logic, but rather a brutally strategic one: to lock Canada – procedurally, economically and psychologically – into US decision-making.

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QUESTION 4: The surest sign of the colonial mind and condition is that of not even realizing one’s own colonial circumstances. In the event, Prime Minister, while you continue to celebrate this deal as a good one for Canada in terms of automobiles, dairy, culture and other areas of the Canadian economy, the Americans have been stressing their strategic success in blocking – for all practical intents and purposes – our sovereign ability to make deals with their primary strategic rival and economic competitor, China. Did you understand the logic of their thinking all along, or were you so focussed on Bucket A as to entirely miss, or not properly appreciate, Bucket B? Now that the importance of Bucket B is becoming more plain, do you even care? Why box our country out altogether from Bucket B? Worse still, why force Canada to partake, for all practical intents and purposes, in American hostility toward Bucket B?

The Canadian public and even most Canadian policy professionals continue to assess this agreement in the conventional terms of relative economic rents to Canada as compared with the US (or Mexico), and as compared with the economic rents accruing to Canada in the original NAFTA agreement. The governing mental image and framework driving the public and official Canadian understanding of the deal is of products (and services) crossing the Canada-US border (virtually and physically, across all transport modes) with minimal friction (tariffs, regulations and prohibitions), subject to especial provisos or accommodations on all sides – for instance, for Canada, on supply management, culture, indigenous considerations or dispute resolution. Washington took your governing, simplistic mental map,

allowed you to press it as sacrosanct, and began a strategic negotiation on an altogether different plane – that of the entire future of international and economic relations outside of North American borders. This was obviously a theme that either interested you little, or on which you and your team had little to say, and indeed had scant ammunition through which to engineer a meaningful position in the Canadian interest. When all was said and done, the Americans allowed you to declare victory on the first plane, while the second plane – that of real strategy – went completely unoccupied. Canada had conceded its foreign decision-making prerogatives to a foreign power with virtually no resistance – indeed, with hardly anyone in the public and even political and strategic classes noticing.

QUESTION 5: But what happens when the country finally notices – half a year or a few years from now – that the national government is patently unable and unwilling to make any meaningful international moves because it has formally surrendered this ability to the say-so of Washington? What happens when China, only a few years hence, becomes the world’s largest and most important economy, and that our national government has given away all sovereign ability to negotiate with China in any deep sense on a huge swathe of economic questions (even well short of free trade)? What happens when Ottawa is no longer able to represent, in the most intense and comprehensive sense, the interests of Canadian business, science, the academy and, of course, the citizenry in their engagement with this century’s most important country? A government that cannot effectively represent the longterm interests and aspirations of its people, under changing circumstances, will over time lose legitimacy. Tout court. More dangerously still, the USMCA, as you have signed it, creates the potential for great domestic turbulence should Canada ever try to free itself from the stricture of Article 32.10. Realizing the growing economic and strategic centrality of China, there will be a large portion of the Canadian population – especially the younger, increasingly educated, future-oriented population, but also very practical business interests – who will, as is already happening in much of the rest of the world, push for Canadian immersion into China and full-scale, uninhibited economic and people-to-people relations with the world’s largest country, at the heart of the world’s most dynamic continent (Asia). At the same time, there will be an indubitably large portion of the population, supported by a heavily invested border lobby, not only insisting on what will by then be a nearly exclusive Canadian economic attachment to the US, but also very vocal (and nervous) about the notion that the Americans will, as explicitly expressed in Article 32.10, pull out of the USMCA should Canada move toward deeper engagement with China (by then still the US’s main strategic and economic competitor). The hard language of Article 32.10 removes the informal understandings of international consultation (the effective buffer in international affairs) with a strict legal and behavioural cage that means that any Canadian pivot toward China threatens a deep tear with the US. The inability of our

federation to navigate these two attractive poles – two huge gravitational pulls – could create revolutionary pressures across the national territory. If the USMCA foreshadows great domestic turbulence in Canada in respect of a caged national government in Ottawa, then the agreement is equally pregnant with near-frontal conflict with the US. For if Canada is banged back into place or into its box several times by Washington, it may one day have a leadership class that wishes for the country to behave according to its proper dimensions and potential. Washington will not allow this to happen easily or without substantial pain and cost for Canada. The likelihood of confrontation and collision is very high. You have set us up for this future logic.

QUESTION 6: What is China? Why is it even important to Canada? Why would you allow Canada to be boxed out so easily of a direct strategic and economic relationship with this century’s most important country?

QUESTION 7: Why have you allowed Canada to be boxed into a single bilateral relationship at the expense of the necessary bilateral relationships we will need to manage our borders this century? Just as all other clever countries are hedging their bets against a weakened, capricious US in the context of other rising powers, how could you box us out of the game altogether? Prime Minister, as I have written in past issues of GB, unlike at Confederation, Canada has not one or two, but four essential borders this century: America to the south, China to the west, Russia to the north, and Europe to the east (ACRE, as it were).

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In truth, I do not think you properly understand China or what is happening there. The same is true, unfortunately, of much of the Canadian public and our political, business and cultural elites – whatever their education or intellect. The reason for this state of general ignorance or underappreciation of what is happening in China is fairly manifest: Canada has never known a modern China that is stable, wealthy and strategically ambitious. The entire century and a half of Canadian Confederation coincides almost exactly with the long period of Chinese political destabilization and economic weakness following their losses in the two Opium Wars in the 19th century. Bref, Canada has never had to reckon with a serious China, including as a major strategic and economic opportunity and imperative for the country. As such, we have never really had to consider our very own geographic proximity to China: Whitehorse is closer to Beijing than is Sydney, Australia, and Prince Rupert is closer to Shanghai than is Canberra. If the Australians have, for the last three or so decades, determined that they are ‘in Asia,’ for all strategic and economic purposes, then Canada is itself also clearly ‘in Asia.’ Of course, if Canada is ‘in Asia’ (and does not quite realize it yet), then we are also clearly very much ‘in America,’ which makes our geopolitical game this century exceedingly complex. If you add Russia to the mix at our northern border, across the rapidly melting polar ice (at least in seasonal terms), then we have very challenging borders indeed this century. And yet I am not persuaded that you yet understand or that your team seriously ‘feels’ these borders and the consequences of strategic mistakes in respect of them. China is no yellow or alien abstraction. It is a dominant fact of modern international life. If most of the world – developed and not – is at least partially pivoting to Asia in general and China in particular, only strategic incompetence would have the leader of a G7 country allow his country to be taken out of the game at the very start of the century – when the game has just begun. Why would China even speak to us today? If there is absolutely no prospect of a free-trade agreement with them in any foreseeable future, there is also no prospect of any

enhanced economic interaction with them on nearly any level – sector-based (as the Public Policy Forum suggests), regulatory or other. Why? Because while you have not yet gamed this out, the Chinese are extremely swift. They know that the Americans, if at all focussed, will use the new legal and, to be sure, psychological levers expressly presented in the USMCA to frustrate or altogether block any progress in Canada-China relations – economically in the first instance, but even well beyond economics and into the realms of human rights, science and culture. How do they know this? Because the Chinese would do the same with a country that, incompetence oblige, would allow a comparable clause to be Foreign leadincorporated into what amounts, for ers, having all practical intents and purposes, to its external constitution. seen the No senior Chinese leader, and certainly president’s not Xi Jinping, will be coming to Ottawa for the foreseeable future for any serious purbehaviour pose. Why bother? If Beijing knows that and America’s we are now making important decisions on the express permission or, in the best demonstrative case, as some Canadians have now begun withdrawal to articulate (with a straight face), in the from and hope of not upsetting, provoking or triggering the Americans, then China – and, unapologetic alongside them, most leading countries, breach of on all continents – will rightly begin to see Canada as but an extension of American several major power and the American project. And treaties, under your leadership, alas, a happy are hedging extension of American power indeed. Again, some Canadian enthusiasts, against Amerpublic or official, may see Canada’s marican tactical ginalization vis-à-vis China and other major countries as some badge of honour – caprice and a sign, perhaps in populist terms, that strategic disCanada has principles and associates only with extremely like-minded countries. engagement. And yet, in a world in which the Asian continent is the central theatre, the US is politically unstable and radicalized, and the number of moderate federations that are comparable to Canada is extremely limited, this marginalization should be no source of pride; nay, it is a sign of strategic benightedness.

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These are difficult borders – all nuclearized and all occupied by major powers. If Canada is to survive and succeed this century – and, contrary to your instinct, this is by no means assured in historical space-time – your job and that of your successors is to minimize the chances of us being crushed from any single front, or from two or more fronts acting in concert against us. In the event, we now have hostile to quasi-hostile relations on two of our four borders. On our relations with Russia, I have written enough in these pages. You have done almost nothing in your time in office to improve Canada’s prospects of strategic success on our northern border, still presuming Russia to be to the east of Europe as opposed to immediately across our Arctic plane, and therefore some If Washington barbarian abstraction of no consequence to Canada’s present or future. has quickly Through the USMCA, however, you have absorbed the now also closed off any meaningful proslesson of our pect of mature, country-to-country and people-to-people relations with China for weakness, the foreseeable future. Nay, without even then all other realizing it, you have, having outsourced decision-making in any relevant regard to serious capiWashington, enlisted Canada head-first tals – starting into America’s strategic and trade conflicts with China. Why? We Canadians know with the ones almost nothing about China today, and yet at our immewe have already subordinated ourselves diate borders – to the American brief. A straightforward security calculus Beijing to shows that we now have enemies or the west and potential enemies on two of our four immediate borders, with a highly unMoscow certain and capricious friend and ally to across the our south, and a distant ally to our east. Arctic – will A clever country with clever leadership, given such a border configuration, would also have pursue good relations on all borders, taken notes. minimizing the probability for outright collision on any border, and always leaving openings for solving problems. In the event, you have set us off on a logic of self-isolation along our two ‘newest’ and most complex borders. Presumably, you think that the fates will always be on our side. If we are self-isolating at our borders, then Canada today also enjoys only six embassies among the 15 post-Soviet states; 21 embassies on an African continent comprising 54 countries; and nine embassies among the 16 or so countries of the Middle East (including one expelled ambassador). Already highly underinvested in international assets, capabilities and relationships – given our country’s size and wealth – you, sir, are presiding over a period of decisive shrinking, formally and figuratively, of the Canadian strategic imagination.

QUESTION 8: How can Canada get out of this strategic box? Can we do so without disturbing the domestic peace or creating extremely confrontational conditions with the US –

given that we would have to signal expressly to Washington that we are interested in striking deeper economic relationships with major and rising powers on our own terms? Answer: with great difficulty. For now, we do not even realize the box into which we have got ourselves. By the time we do realize it, the cost of exit – in terms of political effort, economic and strategic threats and penalties from Washington, and domestic discord – may be so high as to discourage any brave set of Canadian political or economic leaders from doing so. The national instinct – one that you have promoted – may be to settle for what John A. Macdonald saw as ‘secondary people’ status. But perhaps we are not a secondary people? Perhaps we may, at some point this century, be the second largest country, demographically, in the Western world, with the second largest territory, having direct borders with three continents? Unless we wish to explicitly accept or enshrine vassal or colonial status, how could we break from our behavioural cage? As mentioned, you have set our country off on a strategic and political logic that foretells, over the medium term, domestic discord – even revolutionary debates – and potentially great confrontation with the US. If I were an American leader, why would I let us out of the box into which they have cleverly placed us, and into which we have foolishly allowed ourselves to be placed? In the immediate term, I ask that you avoid ratification for as long as possible. If you have not the wisdom and temerity to do this, then I ask that your cabinet and caucus colleagues, as well as independent senators, apply the requisite pressure. I ask the same of our provincial premiers and leaders: delay and block ratification. It may well be, as you know full well, that President Trump does not even last the term (which also begs the question of why we would sign onto this agreement with him). A possible weakening of the American president after the mid-term elections or after the publication of the findings of the Mueller investigation could give you enough tactical wiggle room to delay and dither. And still, even if we end up not ratifying USMCA in its present form, the damage to our strategic reputation in the eyes of serious people in serious capitals will have already been done by dint of your signature alone. If we do end up ratifying, then the earliest opportunity to renegotiate would seem to be the six-year review window articulated in the treaty. That is when you or your successor will have to push ruthlessly for Canada to remove Article 32.10 in its entirety. By then, of course, we Canadians will have been so locked into the American decision-making gravity – especially in psychological terms – that the national appetite for some species of exit will have been suppressed almost irreversibly. We might by then even wonder whatever the problem was – so unconscious will we have become of the cage in which we operate (and think). And indeed by that time, we will have lost nearly a decade’s worth of time and policy work that we should have been investing, and that our competitors globally will have been using, in pressing the national interest in other major markets – starting with China, by then the world’s economic leader – on our own terms. Bref, future Canadian political leaders will have a major public education campaign on their hands to try to create a more muscular national consensus in favour of needing to

break from this cage. Such a consensus-building campaign could involve elements such as a national languages strategy – employed by the Australians as they built their own pro-Asian consensus over the course of several decades in order to break from their colonial attachment to a very distant UK – to a nation-wide programme of regular exchanges between Canada and China (and other major countries) in government, business, academia, science and culture. One thing seems clear to me, even if it is not yet so in your eyes: Canada’s break from this cage will not manifest itself in a declaration of national intent to negotiate a free-trade agreement with China or any other major country deemed non-market by the US. Nay, it will be far more gradual, growing (I hope) as the national consciousness of our size, potential and national imperatives this century grows.

QUESTION 9: Why are you, to this day, pretending that Article 32.10 is a trivial part of the agreement that you have negotiated and signed? If it is indeed trivial, then what is your strategy – in all seriousness – for China in the coming year or years? And can we now be assured that the Americans will not press us again, even ruthlessly, for more concessions – economic or other – through tariffs or other means? Have you received such assurances in any credible form?

QUESTION 10: The biggest challenge in global governance today is how the world’s major strategic and economic blocs interact with one another: will they interact as blocks of coal, banging against each other until one disintegrates (while the other hopefully survives), or will they be able to create what I call ‘interstitial tendons’ that can serve as buffers and connective tissue between the blocs – averting frontal conflict and, in extremis, war?

it may one day have a leadership class that wishes for the country to behave according to its proper dimensions and potential. Washington will not allow this to happen without substantial cost.

If the Ukrainian revolution and the Donbass war were the result of the general absence of interstitial tendons between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union – an absence that continues to threaten war across that interstitial space – then the USMCA has boxed Canada into what is becoming a hard North American bloc that, on Washington’s view of the world, should be banging up hard against China or any China-led bloc, even if this hostile logic should issue before long in direct or proxy conflict. I am sure you do not yet realize this, but you will soon. Canada should have been playing an essential part in building the interstitial tissue between the North American bloc and Asian blocs to our west, and indeed between the North American bloc and the post-Soviet bloc across our Arctic space. We have forfeited this critical role in setting this century’s new international architecture before the game has even begun. There is perhaps no better proof of your happy subordination to the term-setters of Washington. The good news is, Prime Minister, that even major mistakes in the history of a successful country like Canada need not be determinant of a painful future. They may be predictive, but not determinant. Corrective leadership, by you or a future government, can turn the tables. But it will be that much more difficult over time – and so very unnecessarily so. | GB

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You cannot have undertaken to negotiate a trade agreement, only to presume to give away sovereign decision-making without a full and proper explanation to the Canadian public or even debates among experts and in Parliament. This is politically unacceptable and dishonourable – especially for a public gentleman of your history and pedigree. You and your foreign minister owe the Canadian public a clear explanation of why this article was allowed to be included in the structure and constitution of this treaty, why it does not harm Canada (or even benefits the public) or, as I would contend, why you now understand it to be a historic mistake and what the immediate plan is to correct and reverse it to the fullest extent possible – the reputational damage to Canada having already been done. Your foreign minister, for all her talents and qualities, spent the lion’s share of her time over the last two years in Washington, DC. She negotiated this treaty in the office of the US Trade Representative; not in Ottawa. The intellectual and policy traffic was largely one-way. During this period, Canada committed almost no serious resources or energy to any other international or global issue or problem, presuming that NAFTA or USMCA was the centre of any and all relevant public activity outside of our borders. In the end, she concluded a treaty that, in strategic terms, signed Canada up to the American framing of the world. Canada will play its dutiful part. Not having our own theory of the world, we have signed up to the theory provided by the senior partner, whatever its manifest flaws and inconsistencies, and holding constant any essential difference in national interests. If one needed any further evidence of this absence of Canadian theory, then I might suggest re-reading the speech we delivered at the UN General Assembly this past fall. That speech was to be delivered, with great fanfare, by your foreign minister. I myself had been looking forward to her speech to

the world, as Canada was overdue for an ambitious articulation of clear strategic direction for the country, given the state of the world, the peculiar disposition of our American ally, and our own apparent strategic disorientation. Alas, the speech was given instead by our distinguished permanent representative to the UN. With the greatest respect for the representative, the speech was a cipher: it told the world, and the Canadian public, nothing about what Canada planned to achieve concretely, and nothing about how we essentially saw the world. The word ‘China’ – tellingly – did not appear once in the entire speech; quite a feat for a country trying to seriously explain its position in today’s world to a serious If Canada is audience. Meanwhile, on the very day of banged back that speech, you and the foreign minister were holding a joint press conference in into its box Ottawa, publicly proclaiming Canadian several times, success in signing the USMCA.

Today’s Russian-Western conflict need not mean a difficult Russian-Western century. What are the scenarios? And can Moscow return to Europe via Asia? BY ANDREY KORTUNOV

RUSSIA’S TROUBLES & OPTIONS Andrey Kortunov is research director of the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow.

an Russia return to the European fold in the foreseeable future? I ask this not in the geographic sense, of course – for Russia has always been, and remains, on all the evidence – a predominantly European country. But what of a new communion, in terms of institutions and values, between Russia and the EU, with which Moscow fell out in scandal several years ago? The question is neither academic nor abstract; it has extremely practical consequences, for the prospects of some species of reconciliation between Russia and Europe in the coming years will determine, in very real terms, the larger near-term and medium-term strategies of both Moscow and Brussels, and indeed those of major countries around the world in this early new century.

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Please Come Back – All is Forgiven

In the more liberal circles of Europe and Russia, there is a general predisposition to view a Russian return to the European fold as foreordained. The return is believed to be inevitable, and any argument therefore turns on the timing of the next Russian pivot or repivot to the West, as well as on the effective cost that the Russian state and Russian society will be required to pay in order to be welcomed back by Europe. In terms of timing, optimists often reference the year 2024, which is when the fourth presidential term of Vladimir Putin ends, and when the country will again find itself at a historical fork in the road.

Pessimists prefer to speak of a later date – to wit, the early or even mid-2030s, when the so-called ‘Putin generation’ will, for reasons obvious, depart the Russian political scene. At that point, the core of Russian society will consist of people born after the fall of the Soviet Union. The gap between the optimistic and pessimistic prognoses amounts to between six and 10 years. This may well seem a significant period of time in today’s politics. But in European and Russian history, this is evidently but a glimmer in historical space-time. As for the economic and strategic price to be paid by Russia (leaving the European price aside), the assessments vary widely. Some might suggest that the path of gradual economic and political reform for post-Putin Russia, working toward a European social-democratic model and pluralistic political regime, remains very apposite and appropriate. Others will argue that the window of historical opportunity for evolutionary development in Russia has closed, and that the only possible path for the world’s biggest country is that of a complete and total break with the ‘wrong’ institutions of state and property that were created in the aftermath of the disintegration of the USSR. On this logic, the ‘revolutionary’ path of liberation from the legacy of the Soviet period must at last address the fundamental challenges of Russian transformation – challenges left unaddressed from the early 1990s. Bref, national catharsis must precede real national transformation. Still, the wide variation in estimates for the timelines and trajectories of Russia’s ‘historical return’ to Europe does not change the general determinism in the conclusions: the resuscitation of Russia’s European vector as a strategic priority for Moscow is inevitable. This determinism turns on at least three arguments. First, Russians (not only Orthodox Russians, but also members of Russia’s many non-Orthodox minorities), according to their history, culture, lifestyle and core values, are fundamentally Europeans – not Asians. Europe remains the principal magnet for Russia’s students, cultural figures, artists, business people, scientists, intellectuals and civil servants. Europe has the world’s largest Russian and Russianspeaking diasporas, including mixed marriages be-

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ILLUSTRATION: HEIDI YOUNGER

tween people with two or more cultural identities (one of them Russian). In short, Russia is a part of European civilization. As such, it is pointless to speak of the ‘European option’ for Russia. This is not a choice, but rather destiny. Second, only Europe can serve as an effective motor for Russian economic and social modernization. Russia already has aggregate scientifictechnological potential that, for all practical intents and purposes, has, with the exception of China, no real match in Asia for the foreseeable future. Even more importantly, Europe is genuinely interested in Russia’s technological market, which could well serve as a catalyst for the continent’s own technological and economic development. (By contrast, Russia’s Asian partners remain perfectly content to continue to use Russia strictly for its

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Pessimists prefer to speak of a later date – to wit, the early or even mid-2030s, when the so-called ‘Putin generation’ will, for reasons obvious, depart the Russian political scene.

practically inexhaustible reserves of raw materials and its extant technological capabilities – especially in the defence realm, preserved from the Soviet period. For Asia, the development of Russian human capital is not a priority.) Third, only in concert with Europe – where Russia would find itself in the company of highly comparable states in terms of economic weight and demographic potential – can Russia remain a veritably influential player in global politics. On its own, it is clear that Russia does not have any near- or medium-term potential to claim for itself the role of a bona fide ‘power centre’ of global rank. And yet in the exclusive company of the rising giants of Asia (China and India), which significantly outpace Russia in economic growth, Moscow would inevitably soon find itself in the arrière-plan, regardless of the geopolitical constructions that will determine the Eurasian world. Indeed, the relegation of Russia to the second tier of Asian politics would be merely a function of the rapidity of the depreciation of Russia’s remaining foreign policy assets (nuclear weapons, P5 membership of the UN Security Council, and energy resources). On this historically driven logic, then, Europe has no need for worry. Russia, like a disobedient teenager who runs away from home, will soon have to face up to the strange, harsh and not very friendly world of Eurasia, and will before long

draw the appropriate conclusions and return to where it belongs. The main task for Europe, then, is to ensure that the rebellious teenager does not harm himself and others in the interim or, more concretely, does not get involved in risky and dangerous enterprises. And in the meantime, the doors to the European household should remain open. Having said this, one can hardly blame Europe for the fact that – over more than four years – it has not been able to work out a comprehensive strategy vis-à-vis Moscow. Why? Because so much depends on processes happening principally on the Russian side of the Eurasian fault line. In the best case, perhaps, from the Western side of the fault line, systematic support can be offered to accelerate the inevitable changes to come inside Russia through the expansion of contacts at the civil society level, as well as through targeted collaboration with specific groups in Russia – to wit, young Russians, small business and technocrats in Moscow and in the regional and local governments. At the same time, Russia should be invited to cooperate with the West along those vectors where the interests of all sides manifestly coincide – notably, the fight against international terrorism, countering nuclear weapons proliferation and, inter alia, the regulation of regional crises. Brussels should also maintain in its arsenal a sufficiently large number of ‘negative stimuli’ – sanctions or other instruments of pressure – such that Russia can understand that there are certain ‘red lines’ beyond which it cannot go. One can argue about the relative balance of negative versus positive stimuli or incentives, but the EU must show strategic patience and be prepared for future changes in Russian politics and policy.

Where Are You Summoning Us?

he liberal narrative of inevitable Russian re-communion with Europe or the EU would be persuasive but for one important complication: Europe is itself not unchanging over time (see the Tête à Tête interview with Nathalie Tocci at p. 10). The more Western-oriented discourses in Russia would have some believe that Russia could simply return to the European world and order that existed 15, 20 or even 30 years ago. In that European order, there was no conflict over Ukraine, no sharp Eurozone crisis, no migration crisis on the present scale, no Brexit, and no rise of right-wing populism. That world order had no transatlantic fault or split, no comparable economic dominance by China, no return to international protectionism, and no Arab Spring with its tragic consequences. Bref, that European order had none of that which today determines the priorities of the EU. The vulnerability of the liberal narrative in respect of the evolution of cooperation between

of the states of Central Europe. But the erstwhile enthusiasm for Europe in Kiev, Lviv and other Ukrainian cities has now largely dried up, the country’s financial resources have been greatly diminished, and the influence of right-wing populists, who have questioned the EU’s constant geographical expansion, has grown. Even the biggest enthusiasts of the ‘European path’ in Ukraine today are forced to push back the timelines for the country’s probable entry into the EU – at a minimum, to the fourth decade of this century (other things being equal). And all of this is occurring in the context of a general disposition today in Brussels that has arguably become no more favourable toward Kiev than it is toward Moscow. Now, let us suppose for a moment that in Moscow, somewhere between the years 2030 and 2035, eve n t s t a k e p l a c e that are analogous to Ukraine’s Maidan revolution of 20132014. Supporters of a ‘European path’ for Russia take power in the Kremlin and solemnly proclaim there to be no alternative to the course of eventual Russian entry into the EU. Question: how many decades will Moscow have to wait for its turn to enter? How many insurmountable political, economic and psychological barriers will, in practice, inevitably stand in Moscow’s way? How many European politicians will call for delays and waiting, or otherwise require Moscow to undergo endless additional verifications? Answer: There is every reason to suppose that a reformed and democratic Russia will be in the position not of Ukraine, but rather of Turkey, which has waited in vain for a half-century for the question of its full entry into the EU to be decided (see the Nez à Nez debate between Balkan Devlen and Katerina Dalacoura at p. 46). So whither, all things considered, should Russia return: to the romantic Europe of 1995, full of optimism and courage, or to the triumphant, selfassured Europe of 2004 – confident in its power, legitimacy and historical rightness? Or should it return to the frightened and strategically disoriented Europe of 2016? Or perhaps to the wonderful and perfect Europe of 2030, which exists today only in the imaginations of a small handful of European visionaries and analysts? Of course, the exponents of a ‘return to Europe’ start from the premise that time is on the side of the European project. Having coped with and survived the diseases of growth and expansion, the EU will emerge, on this logic, from its tests, crises

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Russia and Europe becomes especially glaring when we compare the political dynamics of Russia and Poland. When Russian liberals speak of the growing estrangement of Russia from Europe, they typically advance two explanations. The first is institutional in nature – to wit, that for a quarter-century Russia has not been able to insert itself adequately into the European (EU) and Atlantic (NATO) structures as a full participant or equal partner. One can debate who bears responsibility for this failure, but the fact remains: Russia found itself on the sidelines of the European security order in particular and the ‘European project’ in general, without becoming a serious stakeholder in the project. This, in turn, predetermined the country’s turn toward Asia. The second explanation is a systems one. Over this same quarter-century, Russia has not succeeded in its search for an effective new model of socioeconomic development – all the while effectively exhausting the potential of its resource economy, resulting in economic stagnation and social stasis. The original, tenuous post-Soviet social contract between society and state was ruptured by the state. Nationalism and militarism became the principal new sources of legitimacy for state and government, and this led, predictably, to the collapse of relations between Moscow and Brussels. In the event, Warsaw serves as a perfect counterexample to Moscow. Without a doubt, Poland has achieved an impressive victory exactly where Russia has suffered crushing defeat. Polish integration into the structures of the EU and the North Atlantic alliance had a clear signalling effect: the rapid socioeconomic development of Poland over the last two decades has evoked envy not only from all of the other newer members of the EU, but indeed among most of the representatives of ‘old Europe.’ As such, Poland would, until recently, have seemed like the last place in Europe in which to expect a rise in nationalism, the triumph of Euroskepticism, and doubts about the immutability of liberal European values. And yet there are major changes underway in modern Poland that are forcing many liberal Varsovian intellectuals to draw parallels with Russian processes. If but a few years ago Russian liberals dreamed of transforming Russia into a ‘big Poland,’ then this vector is today patently irrelevant (see the Feature article by Fyodor Lukyanov in GB’s Winter 2016 issue). The long-term trajectory of Poland’s political system and the values that will prevail in Polish society over even the medium run have become highly unpredictable. The other, no less illustrative example of the weakening of the European gravitational field visà-vis Russia is modern Ukraine. The present political elite of that country is struggling desperately to repeat the successful integration experience

and problems seasoned, renewed and filled with new energy. To be sure, most Europeans and most Russians should only wish for this to happen. But today, at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, such an optimistic scenario is driven more by faith than anything else. And the coming years will tell us whether Europe can convert this belief into concrete actions and results.

To Europe – on the Chinese Bandwagon

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Only in concert with Europe – where Russia would find itself in the company of highly comparable states in terms of economic weight and demographic potential – can Russia remain a veritably influential player in global politics.

ven in the best or ‘honeymoon’ periods of Russian-European cooperation, Moscow was never prepared to fully support the concept of a ‘Big Europe’ or ‘Greater Europe’ – that is, one based on the full or even partial participation by all countries on the continent in the normative and regulatory foundations of the EU. Moscow’s support, over the foreseeable future, for this concept, under the existing conditions of systemic crises in Europe and the general uncertainty over the historical prospects of the European project, seems even less probable. This is all the more true now that the centre of global economic activity has moved increasingly to Asia, creating new, alternative integration opportunities for Russia and other Eurasian countries. In turn, the Russian vision of a Greater Europe that would consist in a collaboration of approximate equals between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union – building on existing areas of collaboration like sectoral and visa dialogues, energy compromises and transboundary cooperation – elicited very little enthusiasm on the European side. This was so not only because European bureaucrats do not view the Eurasian Economic Union as an integration project that is at all comparable to the EU – not least because most of the members of the Eurasian Economic Union would, at the very first opportunity, be prepared to exchange Moscow in favour of Brussels. Rather, this was because the EU is poorly equipped to envision and advance a dialogue of equals with any opposite number whatsoever – including the US and China. The traditional, almost genetic strategy of the EU has always consisted in the geographical expansion of its standards, rules and norms to other participants in the international system, rather than in any adaptation of its internal algorithms to the particularities of other participants. Today, on the present vector and logic, a clean exit from the dead-end at which EU-Russia relations find themselves is nearly impossible. Europe, in its current circumstances, does not have persuasive arguments to return Russia to the idiom of the relations that existed between the two sides at the start of this century. Moscow, for its part (even accounting for the not insignificant aggregate economic and strategic potential of the Eurasian

Economic Union), does not have enough power to force Brussels (even when it is significantly weakened vis-à-vis its position a decade or two ago) to undertake a dialogue of equals with it. This stalemate will not break for the foreseeable future, even if by some miracle one succeeds in removing the main obstacle to Russian-European cooperation – to wit, the ongoing conflict in and around Ukraine. Paradoxically, the only realistic path for a Russian return to Europe today is via Asia. In other words, if Russia cannot effectuate a return to Europe – on acceptable terms – on its own, then it may only be through the creation, jointly with China, India and other Asian partners, of a ‘Greater Eurasia’ that Russia can acquire the expanded negotiating positions and potential it would need for its eventual dialogue with Brussels. The idea of a Russian ‘pivot to the East’ – as it were – obviously has a long history. It was tried in different historical conditions and in various forms over the course of at least the last century and a half. The results of these efforts were inconsistent. On the whole, despite a number of policy and societal achievements, Russia has never been able to become a full-throated player in the AsiaPacific region. The role of the East for Russian foreign policy and economic strategy grew substantially in reaction to the breakdown in Russia-West relations from 2014. Over the last four years, much strategic and policy work has been advanced along this vector of activities. Nevertheless, the prospect of creating a unified Eurasian economic, strategic, socio-cultural and humanitarian space with the participation of Russia as one of the founding partners of a Greater Eurasia remains unclear. Moreover, the long-term possibility of Russia being pushed to the margins of many of the ‘system-forming’ integration projects in Eurasia remains very real. Of particular concern is the fact that the pivot to Asia is often seen in Moscow as an opportunity for Russia’s leaders and elites to deviate from addressing the country’s fundamental problems – that is, the pro-Asian pivot removes the necessity or reduces the urgency of undertaking deep structural reforms in the Russian economy, in Russian government, and in Russian society more generally. And in practice, of course, the pivot places even higher demands on Russian diplomacy and the country’s political economy. For the construction of a Greater Eurasia is an extremely complex undertaking – more difficult and complex, in fact, than the construction of a Greater Europe (which itself was not successful in spite of Russia’s attention to it during its first two post-Cold War decades). Identifying and overcoming the multiple obstacles (geopolitical, strategic, economic, social

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and cultural-anthropological) along the way to creating a Greater Eurasia will prove a major challenge not only for Russia’s foreign policy, but also for its internal development. To have any chance of success, then, Russia will need more than good relations with China, or for that matter more to show for its efforts than showcase multilateral institutions like BRICS and the SCO. And it will need more than the simple expansion of traditional economic ties with its Asian partners. For the current significant lag in Russian growth rates as compared with leading Asian rates, Russia’s exclusion from the technological revolution in Asia, and its marginal participation in Asia’s scientific, educational and cultural-humanitarian spaces together suggest that full-fledged membership in a Greater Eurasia would be even less realistic than in Greater Europe. Bref, Russia cannot join a Greater Europe via the Asian pivot, or via Greater Eurasia, except as a decidedly secondary player. Still, for the time being, the Eurasian project presents at least two clear advantages for Russia over the European project: first, for the majority of Asian countries, despite the complexities of bilateral relations with Moscow, there are not, in respect of Russia, as many historical grievances, grudges and negative stereotypes as there are with many European partners, and Russia is not seen as an existential threat; second, unlike the European project, the Eurasian project is still just beginning. The rules of the game have not yet been set firmly, procedures not made permanent, and strict bureaucratic mechanisms not yet established. This means that Russia can ensconce itself far more easily and simply in Eurasian processes on an equal-to-equal basis, and in certain areas even as a leader. Moreover, it stands to reason that, at least for now, Russian leaders and elites better understand and work more effectively with authoritarian governments, which Moscow tends to find, aesthetics aside, more reliable and faster in making and implementing decisions than Western governments and democracies. To be sure, the European project, whatever its present difficulties with Russia, remains extremely important for the world entire – including for Russia. It is still the most successful integration project of the past several centuries. And the builders of the new world order, undoubtedly, will draw much – successes and failures alike – from the European legacy. But the future of relations between Europe and Russia depends first and foremost on what will become of the EU in five to 10 years’ time – that is, by the time the new Russian political cycle will have begun. The question of Russia’s return to Europe will perhaps have become less topical by then. Indeed, it may by then have been replaced by a different, no less fundamental and interesting question about how Moscow and Brussels will cooperate in the context of a Greater Eurasia. In that case, even with the European part of Russia included, Europe will, in toto, be understood to hold merely peninsular status just beyond the western tip of the colossal Asian continent. | GB

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What Does a Future CanadaRussia Relationship Look Like?

QUERY

How Canada, in occasional partnership with Russia, could begin to drive higher-order issues on a global basis. BY ZACHARY PAIKIN

Zachary Paikin is a Senior Editor

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of Global Brief.

elations between Ottawa and Moscow are today tightly circumscribed by the limits imposed since 2014 by the RussianWestern confrontation. Indeed, the general legacy of the Cold War, combined with the specific tensions that followed the Ukrainian Revolution, the annexation of Crimea and the eruption of the Donbass war have only served to reinforce Canadians’ ‘East versus West’ conception of the world. Canada is fully able to conceive of and construct a comprehensive bilateral agenda with the US and, to a far lesser extent, with China. Yet when it comes to Russia – also a great power at Canada’s borders – a serious bilateral policy framework is largely absent. The only place where Ottawa imagines – if only periodically – cooperating with Russia is in the Arctic theatre, which is governed not by a bilateral but rather a multilateral logic that includes, most importantly, the Arctic Council. But why a deeper relationship between Ottawa and Moscow? Answer: It is essential not only if Canada wishes to manage its northern border, but also if Canada is genuinely interested in becoming a builder of international order this century, rather than a mere bystander operating on terms set by other countries. What would be the contours of a deeper bilateral relationship and policy agenda? Very few analysts realize that the similarities between Canada and Russia go beyond easily observable features and extend into the realm of macro-level foreign policy and grand strategy. The Arctic, being the one issue on which it is comparatively easy for Canada to gain the attention of officials in Moscow (not least because of the sheer length of the two countries’ combined coastline), is evidently a useful starting point for the development of a broader bilateral dialogue that focusses on both domestic governance and international strategy, including the potential harmonization of the trade and economic blocs to which both countries belong. Canada and Russia share the stated aim of cooperating on circumpolar affairs and ensuring that the Arctic remains a zone of peace over the course of this century. Of course, the key to this peace has traditionally been to insulate circumpolar issues completely from political disputes involving Arctic states in other geopolitical theatres. What is not

often acknowledged is that a protracted confrontation between Russia and Western states may well test the limits of this strategy. Deteriorating trust between Moscow and Western capitals could soon turn the Arctic into a theatre of aggressive geopolitical behaviour, contrary to its current status as one where the international rule of law and international norms play a dominant role. Today’s world consists of many different – sometimes rival – economic blocs and integration projects, often featuring competing regulatory frameworks and espousing conflicting norms. The conflict in and over Ukraine is evidence that competition between some of these blocs – in this case, between the EU and the younger Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) – can lead to political crisis and even military conflict. What’s to be done to reckon with these inter-bloc frictions? Answer: Develop interstitial tendons linking the various regional projects in order to supply the necessary economic, strategic and institutional sinews, understandings and mechanisms to render the interactions between them more stable, predictable and flexible. Bref, these interstitial tendons must have shock-absorbing qualities, ensuring that the competing or contradictory gravities of the economic blocs do not collide bluntly or brutally – resulting potentially in shockwaves that are felt well beyond the immediate blocs in question (see the Feature article by Irvin Studin in the Winter 2016 issue of GB). In the Arctic theatre, this would require the creation of ligaments across the circumpolar region, connecting North American markets (say, the new USMCA agreement) with the EEU. Whether these ligaments assume a de minimis form or, over the course of increased mutual trust, evolve into a thicker ‘Arctic Union’ would be a matter of significant debate – both within the North American and post-Soviet spaces. As Liudmila Filippova and I discussed in the Nez à Nez debate in the Spring 2017 issue of GB, such an Arctic Union would necessarily cover more than the still quite narrow scientific, environmental and indigenous questions currently treated by the Arctic Council. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, Canada is woefully unprepared for the task of deepening its engagement with the EEU (or with Russia on its own) or for building any more sophisticated and comprehensive international architecture to govern

the Arctic space well into this century. For starters, excluding the three Baltic countries, which have been fully integrated into Western economic and political institutions, Canada boasts an embassy in only three of the remaining 12 former Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan), and in only two of the five member states of the EEU. More generally, Canada and Russia also share a conspicuous need to develop (and potentially populate) underpopulated parts of their respective territories: the Canadian Arctic and the Russian Far East (RFE). Both countries generally view this challenge through the prism of ‘use it or lose it.’ Canada’s underinvestment in the Arctic threatens to undermine its claims of national sovereignty as various countries begin to show interest in, and project power through the Northwest Passage (not to mention the Arctic Ocean seabed), while some Russians fear potential Chinese encroachment – strateg ic, economic and demographic – on their territory. In the Putin era, Moscow has made a clear decision to tackle this fear of encroachment by developing the RFE with the help of foreign (and particularly Asian) investment, on the logic that cooperative rather than antagonistic ties with Beijing are a more reliable means of addressing irritants in Sino-Russian relations and – more importantly – advancing basic Russian strategic goals.

Canada is fully able to conceive of and construct a comprehensive bilateral agenda with the US and, to a far lesser extent, with China. Yet when it comes to Russia – also a great power at Canada’s borders – a serious bilateral policy framework is largely absent.

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s Russia shares the Canadian vision of the Arctic as a zone of peace and prosperity, it stands to reason that Moscow would likely welcome a mutually beneficial Arctic development project in pursuit of this goal – even if Ottawa makes the first moves and acts as the initial term-setter. On the same logic, the establishment of a joint Canada-Russia economic and development forum would help to build trust between the two countries, and create a standing mechanism to advance their shared interests. Indeed, within this forum, Canada would be well placed to articulate and elaborate its immediate and growing interest in developing closer trade and investment links with Asian markets, which should ostensibly include Russian and Eurasian markets,

given Moscow’s very public interest in integrating Russia into a ‘Greater Eurasian’ supercontinentwide economy (even if skeptics within both the Russian government and Russian intelligentsia remain unconvinced of Moscow’s ability to deliver or even to sustain interest in integration outside of Western structures). Canada and Russia, both possessing massive territories, also face not dissimilar challenges in centre-region relations. Canadian federalism is no stranger to jurisdictional contests and squabbles, while lingering disagreements between regional governments and the Kremlin, despite the strong power vertical developed under President Putin, have complicated the advancement of the more complex reform projects in Russia – most notably in infrastructure, economic development and social policy. A bilateral parliamentary council on practices in federalism, featuring legislators from the different levels of government in both countries, could allow the Canadian and Russian political classes to learn from each other.This learning and dialogue could be supplemented by formalized exchange programmes between civil servants, academics and policy experts on federalism, governance and regional development. Russia’s jurisprudential interest in real federalism could also create openings for Canadian jurists to share their expertise with Russia’s still nascent justice sector. At the centre of a sprawling, diverse and often unstable empire, Moscow prefers to operate through formalized mechanisms, both in its interactions with Russia’s peripheries and in its international relations. (This preference for formalism may surprise many Canadian observers.) A dearth of such formal institutional ties across the Moscow-Brussels-Kiev axis was, in part, what led to the central misunderstandings that helped to produce the Ukraine crisis in 2014. Of course, such ties do not guarantee solutions, but they do create more entrenched processes, and Russian foreign policy, ranging from the Iran nuclear deal to its de-escalation efforts in the Syrian conflict in tandem with Jerusalem, Tehran and Ankara, regularly demonstrates that Moscow deals most comfortably in procedural terms (even if it has significant capacity, through the office of the president, to move and

even scale up with great administrative speed when circumstances require it). Still, Moscow’s record of participating in a rulesbased order has been a decidedly mixed one – partly due to occasional, precedent-setting Western abuses of the rules, and partly because Russia’s self-proclaimed great-power status often makes the country more interested in who makes the rules than in their content. In any case, the gradual repairing of East-West mistrust and the easing of Moscow’s post-imperial anxiety (or even anomie) is best pursued through a slow but steady commitment to institutionalized cooperation between Russia and Western states. Beyond cooperation on domestic policy, which could even include working together to strengthen indigenous communities and develop a CanadaRussia-led global agenda for the growing international refugee challenge – something that would bring with it the added benefit of helping Russia to arrest its demographic decline, while giving Canada bona fide global term-setting status on a critical international file – there also exists a strong rationale for dialogue

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Canada and Russia share an interest in avoiding the emergence of a logic of bipolar confrontation between the US and China in the Asia-Pacific region. For Moscow, this is to avoid unambiguously becoming Beijing’s junior partner in a polycentric world.

between Ottawa and Moscow in the realm of pure foreign policy. Contrary to popular and even official belief, Canada and Russia share several important similarities when it comes to their respective positions in contemporary global affairs – great enough to warrant the establishment of serious fora for regular exchanges on international strategy between Canadian and Russian parliamentarians, diplomats, academics and university students. First, the geographic and strategic positions of both countries on their respective continents is identical. Canada sits at the northern end of the Americas. It secured its southern flank by stabilizing its political relationship and integrating its economy with that of the US, thus leaving it largely free to pursue economic ties with other countries free of geopolitical considerations at the existential level. Such stability in North America has not always been a given over the course of modern history. Everything from the 1871 Treaty of Washington to the 1989 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement helped to secure the foundations of a continent-wide political-strategic consensus

(see the Feature article by Irvin Studin in the Spring 2011 issue of GB). For its part, Russia sits at the top of Eurasia, having pledged, following the effective suspension of all serious efforts between Moscow and Brussels to create a Greater Europe, to coordinate the EEU with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which purports to integrate the Eurasian landmass and its environs by way of a chain of new infrastructure and trade agreements. In other words, Russia has begun to create interstitial tendons with the Asian blocs. (Its westward and northward tendons must still be built.) Second, Canada and Russia share an interest in avoiding the emergence of a logic of bipolar confrontation between the US and China in the Asia-Pacific region. For Moscow, this is to avoid unambiguously becoming Beijing’s junior partner – or to become as equal a player as possible with Beijing – in a polycentric world. The Russians have sought to accomplish this by binding China into multilateral frameworks such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS, while also deepening ties with other Asian markets such as Japan, India and ASEAN. Ottawa, for its part, seeks to diversify its trading relationships and to maintain a rules-based order in the region, but does not, in principle, wish to see either of these subjected to restrictions imposed by Sino-American great-power rivalry. Finally, Russia and, to a growing extent, Canada are both interested in pursuing multi-vector foreign policies. Canada, whose first instinct should be to use its neighbour to the south as a power multiplier, is now deepening ties with the EU and China on issues ranging from climate change to trade while the US has, perhaps temporarily, locked itself into largely inward-looking policy debates. As for Russia, until recently, its major post-Soviet project was to establish a ‘Greater Europe’ – or Europe 2.0 – from Lisbon to Vladivostok, in part to create an entity that could serve as an independent pillar of international order and a bulwark against China, but primarily to find institutional and economic openings for the young Russian state as a substitute for the Soviet imperial space. In the wake of its collision with the West over Ukraine, Russia has begun to pivot partially to Asia, while doing its utmost to consolidate whatever can be accomplished within the smaller EEU and, from 2015, imposing itself in key Middle Eastern theatres.

lthough weakened since the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s sprawling geography, imperial legacy, strategic assets and culture still give it the ability to project power and make the country’s presence felt in several neighbouring theatres: Europe, the South Caucasus, the Middle East, Central Asia, East Asia and the Arctic. A closer relationship with Moscow, therefore, could allow Canada, power multiplier oblige, to play a greater role in shaping regional

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affairs in those theatres that are situated on Russia’s borders – starting with Europe and China. The successful harmonization of the EEU with both the BRI and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – which includes China, Japan, India and ASEAN – could produce a massive Eurasian trading bloc that ultimately surpasses the transatlantic structures in economic clout. To help shape this emerging regional architecture in a way that navigates the contours of both China’s rise and the Sino-American rivalry, Canada, as the second-largest economy in the TPP11 grouping, could propose to integrate the recently signed TPP11 deal with this fledgling Eurasian club. Such integration would not be easy or fast. But the initiative could be led in partnership with Russia – a leading Eurasian power whose vision for integrating the supercontinent is still lacking in content and indeed confidence, and thus still open to being shaped. The strategy would balance engaging with and hedging against a rising China, while securing the foundations of a peaceful trading order in the Asia-Pacific – all in keeping, insofar as practicable, with Canadian regulatory standards and laying the groundwork for the future establishment of a bona fide Pacific Community. Despite its present discord with the West and the troubles in and over Ukraine, Russia remains open to pursuing integration with Europe over the medium to long term. Holding constant the prospect of a succession crisis in Moscow and growing domestic contradictions, if it one day succeeds in this endeavour, then we will witness the emergence of a united Eurasian supercontinent that includes Europe – a unit that, in the aggregate, would easily overshadow the Western Hemisphere in material and term-setting power. If it fails, the world could drift closer to dangerous and unstable bipolarity between transatlantic and Sino-Russian alliances – much like during the early days of the Cold War. There is, of course, a third option. Canada, in keeping with its Cold War-era tradition of promoting peace between rival blocs, could lead the way in proposing, facilitating or supporting the creation of separate interstitial tendons between Europe and Russia, China and Russia, North America and Russia, and between both sides of the Pacific. Russia abuts all four of these potential global friction points and would therefore be an indispensable partner for Canada on this macro-level geopolitical challenge. Bref, if well played, Canada, in occasional partnership or collaboration with Russia, could begin to drive higher-order issues on a global basis. This strategy turns, of course, on a Canada that thinks of itself not as a mere constituent element of the West, but rather as a rising power capable of crafting independent grand strategy. It also requires a Russia that begins to see Canada not as an automatic addendum of American power, but rather as a neighbour with which it can do business – strategically, economically and, to be sure, on a people-to-people basis. | GB

TÊTE À TÊTE

On the State and Future of US Politics GB sits down with one of America’s leading presidential thinkers to discuss the Trump presidency – its likely evolution and its consequences Conversation with JEREMI SURI

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His latest book is The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office.

GB: How would you describe the current state of American politics? JS: I would say that American politics today are characterized by disruption, division and profound uncertainty about the future.

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GB: Why?

and objectivity have broken down. There is no longer an agreed factual framework for the ways in which we discuss policy, and the ways in which we discuss many important national issues. GB: Have American media institutions broken down?

JS: It is a combination of longstanding ideological differences in American society, as well as the breakdown or decay in long-established institutions. Most importantly, however, we are seeing a new generation entering American politics and an older generation, represented by the Trumps and the Clintons, holding on to power as long as they can. This demographic transition in America is a key source of much of our difficulty right now.

JS: The media have been heroic in recent months. One of the best protections of American democracy is a long-established, vibrant and independent media, and much of what we know and what is, to some extent, holding President Trump accountable is due to the courageous investigative reporting of the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. We can point to media entities on the right and the left that are actually doing more than other national institutions to preserve democracy in the country.

GB: Which American institutions have broken down?

GB: Will the US survive this century as a country?

JS: To some extent, our electoral system has broken down. Our public markers of political acceptability

JS: If the US and our democracy can weather the present difficulties and stress test, in a few years we PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF JEREMI SURI

could be stronger and more democratic than we have ever been. What this moment is doing is mobilizing and engaging young people and others, in a largely unprecedented way, with the political system and forcing them to appreciate the importance of preserving the democratic system. So there is, today, a new generation of idealists in America – a new generation of committed democrats (lower case ‘d’) – throughout our society. We are seeing them in demonstrations. We are seeing them out voting in places like Alabama and Pennsylvania. And they are bringing a new democratic energy to our politics. We just have to get them into power and get this older generation out. GB: But will the US, as a state – democratic or not – weather this century? JS: Yes, but it will do so with scars. There will be many who will suffer in the process, as they did in the 19th century development of American democracy. We will also see the US losing some of its lustre around the world as a consequence. GB: How do you see the next year of the Trump presidency unfolding? JS: On the home front, the investigations and scandals surrounding the presidency will only deepen (as they do nearly every day). The Republican Party will continue to split apart. We will see a major victory for Democratic candidates in November. The Trump administration will likely become more alienated, more isolated, and more stymied on domestic policy. On foreign policy, we will likely see continued lurching from crisis to crisis. More often than not, we will see bombastic rhetoric without much follow through, as we have seen in Syria and, arguably, in respect of North Korea, Turkey and, most recently, Saudi Arabia. GB: What crises, in international or foreign policy, do you see over the next year for America?

GB: How would you characterize the mentality of the American political class today across the spectrum? What is their belief system? JS: The mainstream policy experts and professionals advising Congressional and federal leaders, as well as state leaders, are committed to free trade. They are committed to an international stance that is less militarized than it has been for the last 20 years or so. They are committed to a set of alliances – particularly the NATO alliance. So there is, in my view, a traditional liberal internationalism that is still quite strong in America. What we are witnessing and experiencing is a revolt against this liberal internationalism from a minority – an organized minority – across the country that puts Trump and other politicians like him into positions of power. In the short run, those antiinternationalist or hyper-nationalistic voices still have a great deal of day-to-day influence over American policy. They are holding certain politicians – especially Republican politicians, who otherwise know better – hostage because our primary system gives these minority voices a great deal of influence in the electoral process. GB: You have written about the ‘Impossible Presidency.’ What do you find ‘impossible’ about the modern American presidency, and how do you see that institution evolving over the next couple of decades? JS: I argue that the presidency has become impossible because American presidents are simultaneously asked to do more internationally and at home, and given fewer sources of effective leverage than executives in others contemporary settings. The expectations of the presidency are astronomical, while the resources for getting things done are actually minimal. This contradiction is a major problem. The solution to the contradiction is to rethink what we are looking for in the president. The solution should not be to give him or her enormous powers, or to reduce the office. The solution is going to be to focus the office on what it should be focussed on – that is, the issues that matter the most to the country. These issues – internationally or domestically – are the ones where national leadership is most consequential and needed. These are issues relating to core national security interests, core economic growth, and domestic welfare interests. We need a more strategic presidency – not a ‘stronger’ presidency, as it were.

To some extent, our electoral system has broken down. Our public markers of political acceptability and objectivity have broken down. There is no longer an agreed factual framework for the ways in which we discuss policy, and the ways in which we discuss many important national issues.

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JS: The North Korean question will not go away, despite the superficial amity between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in. The Singapore summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un has not magically eradicated what remains a security crisis surrounding the intercontinental nuclear capabilities that North Korea has developed (see the Feature article by Barthélémy Courmont at p. 40). Iran, for its part, will continue to adhere to the nuclear agreement with the European powers, but at the same time also continue to support Assad and his other supporters and proxies in the region. So those are two theatres where we will see continued tension and conflict, which will bring Vladimir Putin

and the Russian leadership into closer conflict with the US, as Russia continues to pursue a separate set of interests in both theatres.

GB: What are the top five issues on which the presidency should focus?

China is, today, a regional and sometimes global strategic and economic competitor with the US. This is not necessarily a threatening thing. On the contrary, it could actually be a source of stability. The Chinese are as invested in global capitalism as the US.

JS: A future president will do a much better job than recent and current presidents by defining his or her office less through involvement in every part of the world than through a keen focus on American relations with China, Europe and Russia. Those will be the core international issues. Those issues will involve security as well as environmental and trade matters. At home, the president will not focus on cultural issues like abortion or guns or religion. He or she will instead focus on infrastructure development. This will require an emphasis on providing a climate that encourages mobility and also economic opportunity for citizens. By the way, these were core Republican values in the 19th century, before the office grew into much more of an imperial institution than an actual leadership office. GB: How do you see the evolution of the continental relationship with Canada and Mexico? JS: The continental relationship will continue to be dominated, as always, by state relationships and other subnational relations. What makes the enduring peace and prosperity across these two borders so significant is that there is so much investment in the continental relationship across American party lines from figures like governors, mayors and business leaders. (This is reciprocated by Canadian provincial premiers and city mayors, and by Mexico’s governors and mayors.) The best thing that the US federal government can do today is what it has always done – namely, to provide a stable climate, including through a modernized trilateral trade and investment regime (like the new USMCA Agreement), for subnational actors to do the good work that they do in the service of economic growth, development and peaceable relations across these borders.

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GB: Should Americans be impressed by the return of China to the centre of international affairs?

JS: Americans have to come to grips with the fact that we are no longer in the world of the late 1990s and 2000s, where there were really no peer competitors with the US. China is, today, a regional and sometimes global strategic and economic competitor with the US. This is not necessarily a threatening thing. On the contrary, it could actually be a source of stability. The Chinese are as invested in global capitalism as the US. We evidently have differences – significant differences – in how we manage things like intellectual property rights. There are differences over currency at times. Nonetheless, unlike during the Cold War, the US and China have the same interest in the growth of the global economy. In the long run,

fundamentally, that will provide many opportunities for cooperation and controlled, peaceful competition. Peaceful competition is good. The US got into a lot of trouble when it did not have a peer competitor. Having a peer competitor might well be better for us this century, in economic and in military terms. GB: What are the sources of the present American conflict – even obsession – with Russia? JS: The Russia controversy in American politics is large, and will get larger still over the next year. It has three elements. The first has to do with the clear evidence that the Russian leadership has defined its interest as limiting the spread of American influence in theatres like Ukraine (and the broader post-Soviet space) and the Middle East. Without having to declare who is right and who is wrong, it is obvious that there is a conflict in the approaches privileged by the two countries as to how these theatres should develop over the next decade. Indeed, the visions of the US and Russia about the future development of these regions are arguably more in conflict with each other than are the visions of the US and China with respect to the future of East Asia. The second major element is the degree to which the Russian government uses cyberspace as an arena to exert influence. Russians would say that this is something the US has done in the past, including through Voice of America during the Cold War. But Americans do not see Russian cyber operations – especially as they concern internal American matters – as legitimate. We view them as illegitimate, almost terroristic actions. The third element – not unrelated – has to do with the 2016 presidential election and the very serious evidence that the Russian government tried to interfere in the election. The combination of geopolitical differences, differences in the use and perception of cyberspace, along with the 2016 election amounts to a cocktail for political, if not strategic, obsession with Russia in the US today and for the foreseeable future. GB: How do you see the relationship between Washington and Moscow evolving over the next few years? JS: We will see continuing tension, and probably increased US sanctions on Moscow. There will be further retaliation by Russia, and we will see more hostility and more mutual isolation. We will see more militarized actions by Russia in places where it can get away with it. We will also see efforts by the US to support those in Ukraine and elsewhere who are fighting proxy wars against Russia. In short, there will be more conflict, short of direct conflict between the US and Russia.

GB: Do you see any prospect of direct conflict? JS: There is, of course, a possibility. Neither side wants this, but we could well bumble into conflict. Again, this would be unintentional. Both sides may want to come to the edge, but as good historians we know that it is very hard to manage that edge – short of direct hostilities – without actually falling into war. So I can certainly imagine us bumbling into direct warfare with Russia in Syria, the broader Middle East or somewhere else. To be clear, however, once again, I do not believe that there is any interest or intent on either side for such direct conflict. GB: How do you see the evolution of American policy in the Middle East for the remainder of this presidency? JS: We will see continued American disengagement from the Middle East and continued reliance by this president on proxies in general, and Saudi Arabia and Israel in particular. We are going to invest more heavily in those two states, and perhaps Egypt as well, to do much of the work for us in the region. But those states evidently have their own agendas, which often do not align with America’s agenda and interests in the region. GB: What about America’s relationship with Iran, and specifically around the Iran nuclear agreement (see The Definition at p. 60)? JS: Working very closely with the Israelis and the Saudis is, by implication, working against Iran. That is why the US pulled out of the nuclear deal, against the wishes of all our European allies. We will see a return to nuclear proliferation by Iran, and we might very well see Iran coming closer to having a viable nuclear weapon within the next few years. GB: How do you see the evolution of social media in the US, including possible additional regulation of that sector?

GB: Do you think the Trump presidency will survive the entire first term? JS: No. GB: How will it end? JS: There are several pathways by which it could end. It could end in a legal proceeding surrounding impeachment. It could end in a resignation. And it could end in a health incident. These are all distinct possibilities. None of these three pathways has a likelihood of greater than 50 percent, but put together I would assert that a premature end to the presidency is more likely than not. The real, underlying reason for which I do not believe that the administration will make its way through is that, at some level, as I argue in The Impossible Presidency, the president needs people to do things for him. He cannot do everything himself. This is the most incredibly powerful-looking office with very weak enforcement and execution capabilities in practice. As the president becomes more and more isolated, it will be harder for him to get things done. He can keep tweeting, but can he actually change law? Can he actually change events on the ground or overseas? So far, he has proven unable to do that. It is going to get far more difficult for him, and that will make it more difficult for him to survive. Revelations from Bob Woodward and the anonymous New York Times op-ed show that parts of the team that the president has chosen to advise him are actually revolting against him. GB: If President Trump were to leave prematurely, would there be a destabilization of the American political system, or would there be a return to the status quo ante? JS: The American political system is extraordinarily resilient. It is filled with warts and inequities and undemocratic elements, but in the end, the long departure of someone like Donald Trump, as with the long departure of Richard Nixon, will lead to a pullback toward the political centre. (continued) For the rest of the interview with Jeremi Suri, please

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JS: We are in a moment with those platforms that is similar to where we were with the railroad in the mid19th century. The railroad companies were, as with today’s internet giants, largely unregulated entities that had enormous, earthquake-like influence and destabilizing impacts on politics. But then they were quickly regulated by legal structures, leading to the Progressive Movement in the early 20th century. We are entering another moment like that, when the US, Canada and their European partners will be working to build state structures to regulate and manage these social media institutions and social media outlets of one kind or another. What that regulation will look like we do not yet know, but it seems clear that, in

future, companies like Facebook will not be able to take advertising money and share data willy-nilly in the way they have for the past few years.

visit the GB website at: www.globalbrief.ca

AMLO and the Future of Mexico-US Relations

IN SITU

The future is pragmatic, provincial and opportunistic, rhetoric and reputations notwithstanding ALEJANDRO MAGOS and TAMIR BAR-ON from Mexico City

Alejandro Magos is a GB Geo-Blogger in Spanish. Tamir Bar-On is a professor in the School of Social Sciences and Government, Tec de Monterrey, Campus Queretaro,

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Mexico.

he last couple of years have marked the lowest point in Mexico-US relations since 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson ordered the occupation of the port of Veracruz by the US Navy. The election of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, or AMLO, as president clearly opens the possibility of significantly improved relations between two of North America’s three giants. To understand why this is so, one first needs to ditch the notion that AMLO’s victory in the presidential race was some sort of Mexican response to the election of President Trump in 2016 – an oft-repeated supposition in the English-speaking media grounded in the mistaken idea that anti-Americanism is second nature to Mexicans. While the Mexico-US relationship – much like the Canada-US relationship – has always been complex, defined by a long, shared border redrawn by war in the 19th century, the facts on the ground speak to the Mexican people having established enduring bonds with el Norte. To be sure, the reverse is also true. As the former US ambassador to Mexico, Jeffrey Davidow, wrote in his memoirs, The Bear and the Porcupine, there is no other country that is as important to the US as Mexico. According to Davidow, the number of daily economic, political and cultural exchanges between these two countries is unmatched in the world. In the build-up to the 2018 Mexican presidential election, commentators on both sides of the border repeatedly pointed out the similarities in style between AMLO and Trump – both inflammatory and anti-establishment – and anticipated a head-on collision between the two leaders. And yet these commentators may have underestimated AMLO’s principal characteristic – that of a pragmatic, professional and, by reputation, calculating politician. As such, we believe that, on the balance of probabilities, the new president of Mexico is better placed to improve the relationship between Mexico City and Washington than his predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto. But how and to what end for Mexico? Despite running for president as a populist outsider, AMLO is in fact a full-blooded political animal, with more than 40 years of experience in the craft. He became involved in politics as early as 1976 in his native Tabasco after completing a degree in political science at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. Shortly after returning to

his home state, he joined the local chapter of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). He has been involved in party politics ever since: with the PRI for 12 years until 1988, after which he joined Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and his leftist National Democratic Front (FDN), which would eventually become the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). For the next 24 years, AMLO was a key PRD figure, having twice been candidate for governor of Tabasco (1988 and 1994), the party’s national president (1996 to 1999), mayor of Mexico City (2000 to 2005), and a presidential candidate in both 2006 and 2012. It was only after his second attempt at the presidency that he parted ways with the PRD in order to found his own political fraction – the Movement of National Regeneration, or MORENA, which obtained legal recognition from the electoral authorities in 2014. And it was under the MORENA – for all practical intents and purposes, a one-man party – that AMLO won the presidential elections in July 2018. Bref, AMLO has been able to survive the ups and downs of his profession. While he has been in the Mexican national limelight for an extended period, he has also been able and happy to jump ship when necessary – opportunistically, as it were. One could reasonably presume, then, that the new Mexican president enters office with the working hypothesis that there is little to be gained, politically and in policy terms, from an open confrontation with President Trump – and perhaps a great deal to lose. His own approval ratings will largely depend on the strength of the Mexican economy, which is wholly dependent on the preservation and management of a robust commercial relationship with the US, its largest trading partner. (Mexican exports to the US totalled US$340 billion, or nearly 80 percent of the country’s total exports, in 2017.) AMLO has already given some indication of an interest in avoiding friction with the Trump administration. Shortly after his election victory, he hosted a delegation at his Mexico City headquarters that included top US officials like Jared Kushner, Mike Pompeo, Steven Mnuchin and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. He named Jesus Seade as his representative during the now concluded talks on the new USMCA trade agreement between Mexico, the US and Canada. Seade, a former WTO economist, is believed to have played a decisive role in softening Mexico’s demands, helping to push Mexico City and Washington – after

PHOTOGRAPH: THE CANADIAN PRESS / EPA / SASHENKA GUTIERREZ

violence in the Northern Triangle countries – a driver that makes migrants less susceptible to deterrence by enhanced security measures at the Mexico-US border, and explains why the US has put pressure on the Mexican government to ‘thicken’ its southern border with Guatemala and ramp up security in the border states of Tabasco and Chiapas. Mexican-American cooperation on migration is effectively guaranteed under AMLO. He will be happy to allow Washington to set the macro-logic of border relations in exchange for trade and other economic

rents for Mexico – or at least in order to avoid tariffs and commercial restrictions. This dynamic will likely contradict AMLO’s electoral pledge to the effect that he would not detain Central Americans crossing Mexican territory to get to the US border. But this also means that, despite AMLO’s larger disinterest in foreign affairs and external strategy, Central American countries will definitively need to be at the negotiating table on migration, and that both the US and Mexico will need to work with them to curb the high levels of criminal violence in the region. There are – to be sure – still many unknowns about how AMLO and Trump will conduct the Mexico-US relationship. AMLO once proposed amnesty for drug cartel leaders – something that could not possibly sit well with President Trump, who has famously said that the US receives many “bad hombres” from Mexico. Both men will be keen to continue to cultivate their anti-establishment bases, but their pragmatic tendencies might just produce a better relationship than many would expect. We expect no state visit to Washington or Mexico City anytime soon, but we do expect an intense bilateral, technical agenda driven by top officials working on the political oxygen provided by both national leaders – other things being equal even after the American mid-term elections. Let us call this la diplomacia del silencio. Even on the subject of the dividing wall between Mexico and the US, so coveted by President Trump, AMLO’s governing instinct will be to stay busy at home and avoid frontal collisions with the US – allowing Mexico to steer toward new horizons in the medium term while weathering any continental storms in the shorter run. | GB

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at a press conference in Mexico City, August 2018.

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lengthy negotiations – to a preliminary bilateral agreement ahead of the more general trilateral agreement with Ottawa. The US President tweeted shortly after the agreement: “New President of Mexico has been an absolute gentleman.” So whence the idea of AMLO as a political outsider? Answer: from AMLO himself. During his many years in politics, the new Mexican president has been very good at presenting himself as if on the margins of political power, and specifically as the only moral man (left standing) in Mexican politics, whose life goal is to take on the corrupt and powerful elites (or what he calls the “mafia of power”). And yet, as mentioned, AMLO has been at the heart of Mexico’s traditional political elite since at least 1996, when he first entered the national political stage as the president of the PRD. In terms of foreign policy, this will likely translate into an inward-looking Mexican government with little interaction with world leaders and heads of state – other than as strictly necessary, as with President Trump. At the margin, the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela will likely force AMLO to take a position in respect of the Maduro regime. The relationship between Mexico and the Vatican may also be tested, as AMLO tackles domestic issues like same-sex marriage, women’s rights and, further to the new USMCA, labour rights. Of course, on the meta-relationship between Mexico and the US, the central question for Mexico is whether the initial mutual goodwill between AMLO and Trump will endure. The new USMCA trade agreement suggests that both AMLO and Trump are at core political pragmatists – rhetoric notwithstanding. But if pragmatism reigns in matters economic, what of immigration and migration – a key issue for both Mexico and the US, and one on which bilateral cooperation is indispensable and unavoidable? If Trump was elected on the commitment to ‘Make America Great Again,’ promising to solidify the US southern border against undocumented migrants (with particular emphasis on Mexican nationals), then AMLO vowed during his campaign to stand up to Trump’s anti-Mexican rhetoric and provide assistance to Mexicans living in the US. Still, both leaders are now hinting at the possibility of framing undocumented migration not as a US-Mexico bilateral issue, but rather a hemispheric one. On the evidence, a hemispheric approach to American border preoccupation would appear to be sensible. According to a 2018 report by the Pew Research Center, Mexican migration to the US has been negative since 2014.The main source of undocumented migrants moving into the US today is Central America’s Northern Triangle, comprising El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Unlike the Mexican diaspora that is pulled into the US by higher wages, the primary driver of this Central American migration is the criminal

Quatre scénarios que pourrait prendre la Corée du Nord, à condition que le président américain ne change pas de position PAR BARTHÉLÉMY COURMONT

QUEL AVENIR POUR LA CORÉE DU NORD Barthélémy Courmont est maître de conférences à l’Université catholique de Lille et directeur de recherche à l’IRIS. Son nouveau livre est intitulé

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Identités mineures.

UI l’eut cru? Après une année 2017 marquée par un vif regain de tensions entre Pyongyang et Washington, dont le point d’orgue fut le discours de Donald Trump à l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies en septembre, les événements se sont enchainés de manière presque incontrôlable depuis janvier 2018: participation de la Corée du Nord aux Jeux olympiques d’hiver de Pyeongchang (Corée du Sud); rencontre historique entre les dirigeants des deux Corées à Panmunjom (suivie d’une autre); annonce du gel des activités nucléaires; et – sommet de cette séquence qualifiée de «diplomatie express» – rencontre entre Kim Jong-un et Donald Trump à Singapour le 12 juin dernier. Cet emballement assez mal contrôlé, mais qui ouvre des perspectives encore inespérées il y a quelques mois en matière de pacification de la péninsule – et de dénucléarisation, ajouteraient les plus optimistes (ou les plus naïfs) – impose de réfléchir à l’avenir de la Corée du Nord, celui-ci étant à la fois déterminé par des tendances lourdes, aussi bien que par une actualité riche. La rencontre, à Pyongyang cette fois, entre Kim Jong-un et Moon Jae-in, le président sud-coréen, et l’ouverture d’un bureau de liaison dans la ville nord-coréenne de Kaesong, sont les signes indiquant que la dynamique pourrait s’accélérer. Ou pas. Car si les espoirs sont grands, ils doivent être modérés par la précarité de la relation entre Pyongyang et Séoul d’une part, et entre Pyongyang et Washington d’autre part. Plus que jamais, la question de l’avenir de la Corée du Nord mérite ainsi d’être posée. Voici la prémisse de quatre possibles lignes que la Corée du Nord pourrait adopter, du moins au plus probable.

ILLUSTRATION: JEAN TUTTLE

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Scénario 1: Dénucléarisation, effondrement du régime et démocratisation (probabilité très faible)

Ce premier scénario ferait la joie des libéraux, partisans du regime change et partisans de valeurs universelles prenant le dessus sur l’intérêt national. Le simple fait que la dénucléarisation fut mentionnée lors des différentes séquences diplomatiques depuis le début de l’année a suffi à raviver la flamme de la «dés-invention» de la bombe atomique (jamais observée). Et, pourquoi pas, d’un effondrement du régime et d’une démocratisation de la Corée du Nord? Le fait est que depuis la fin de la Guerre froide, et selon des thèses de Francis Fukuyama et des prophéties formulées par des experts américains comme Nicholas Eberstadt ou Victor Cha, qui annonçaient l’effondrement de la dynastie des Kim comme une évidence, les études consacrées à la Corée du Nord ne sont que rarement parvenues à sortir du piège consistant à confondre le régime et le pays. Et si les regards portés sur la Corée du Nord cherchent aujourd’hui de plus en plus à faire la part des choses, les libéraux sont ressortis de leur torpeur, en voyant dans les développements récents la marque d’incontournables changements politiques profonds. Les limites de ce scénario se situent à plusieurs niveaux. D’abord, la dénucléarisation reste un espoir plus qu’un objectif, et il serait extrêmement naïf de considérer que Kim Jong-un accepte de se priver de la principale assurance-vie de son régime. Il n’y a pas de feuille de route, ni même d’engagements clairs, sinon celui seul de reprendre le dialogue. Ensuite, l’effondrement du régime est une perspective plus faible aujourd’hui qu’il y a quelques années. Cette réalité que l’on peut déplorer s’explique par le résultat des réformes économiques engagées par Kim Jong-un. Ces réformes restent modestes et évidemment insuffisantes, mais elles s’alignent sur le modèle chinois, et les conditions de vie sont infiniment meilleures en Corée du Nord en 2018 qu’elles ne l’étaient dans les années 1990. La légitimité du régime s’en trouve confortée, et à moins de l’émergence d’une conscience démocratique, l’effondrement de la dynastie Kim n’est pas à l’ordre du jour – sauf accident du jeune dirigeant ou crise de succession dont on voit mal, actuellement, les contours. Reste la démocratisation justement, qui serait donc orchestrée par le régime lui-même, et non consécutif à l’effondrement du régime. Là aussi, il convient de rester très prudent, voire fataliste. La Corée du Nord est un régime totalitaire qui pourrait, à la manière de ce que la Chine proposa,

se muer progressivement en régime autoritaire, avec des espaces de liberté plus importants, mais tout en maintenant les institutions de l’État-parti inchangées. Mais une telle mutation ne se fera pas en quelques mois, ni même en quelques années, et elle ne pourra aboutir qu’à partir du moment où la Corée du Nord sort de l’isolement dans lequel elle est plongée. La responsabilité relève à la fois du régime et de la communauté internationale, qui est incapable de repenser un cadre de sanctions ayant prouvé ses limites et son incapacité à faire évoluer le dossier. Tant qu’aucune réflexion ne sera menée de ce côté, l’espoir de voir le régime sortir du totalitarisme et évoluer vers une plus grande souplesse restera infécond.

Scénario 2: Ouverture du régime et réunification (probabilité faible) Plus que la rencontre, certes historique, entre Kim Jong-un et Donald Trump, l’événement le plus important de ces derniers mois est la reprise du dialogue entre les deux Corées, que portent à la fois Pyongyang et Séoul, avec le soutien de Washington et, plus encore, de Pékin. D’abord parce que cette reprise referme une parenthèse d’une décennie d’absence totale de relations entre Pyongyang et Séoul. Ensuite parce qu’elle dépasse très largement les symboles de la poignée de main entre Kim Jongun et Moon Jae-in à Panmunjom, en attendant celle de Pyongyang. Les échanges se multiplient à tous les niveaux, et la confiance s’est considérablement accrue entre les deux entités rivales. Est-elle au point que la perspective d’une réunification soit envisageable? Il convient ici encore de rester très prudent. Ainsi, si la réunification reste inscrite dans les discours officiels au Nord comme au Sud, elle se heurte à des obstacles, pour certains infranchissables dans le contexte actuel. D’une part, une réunification est rare, voire quasi impossible, en relations internationales, et ce sont plutôt des extensions de domaines politiques qui furent observées, de l’Allemagne au Vietnam. Difficile d’envisager dans le cas coréen une réunification qui se traduirait par la mise en place d’un nouveau système politique, a fortiori synthèse des deux modèles existants. Au Nord, cette fusion se traduirait par la fin des privilèges de la caste dirigeante. Et comme il n’y a ni opposition, ni alternative politique, elle n’est pas à l’ordre du jour. D’autre part, la réunification ne fait plus rêver, au Sud en particulier. Les jeunes générations, qui ont porté Moon Jae-in au pouvoir, ne manifestent pas de grand intérêt pour la Corée du Nord, après sept décennies de séparation. Ils se montrent par ailleurs, comme l’indiquent de très nombreuses études en Corée du Sud, hostiles à une réunification dont le coût serait très prohibitif, et dont la symbolique n’est pas pour eux aussi forte que pour

la génération de leurs grands-parents. La société sud-coréenne est en mutation, comme l’ont indiqué les rassemblements populaires massifs pour réclamer la destitution de l’ancienne présidente Park Geun-hye. La société sort peu à peu d’un système articulé autour d’une relation étroite entre le pouvoir politique et les chaebols (conglomérats), qui a permis le miracle économique de ce pays, mais qui impose des conditions d’existence à laquelle il n’aspire plus. En clair, les jeunes Sud-coréens ne cautionnent pas une réunification dont ils seraient les principaux débiteurs. Moon Jae-in en a d’autant plus conscience que si sa politique nord-coréenne est majoritairement approuvée, il est attendu au tournant. C’est pourquoi il se garde bien d’évoquer une réunification très improbable dans le contexte actuel, préférant mettre l’accent sur une pacification pour laquelle il trouve un écho favorable au Nord.

Scénario 3: Dialogue renforcé et pacification durable de la péninsule (probabilité moyenne)

La crédibilité des États-Unis en Asie du Nord-Est est aujourd’hui fortement remise en question, à Séoul et à Tokyo notamment, et on imagine difficilement la Chine valider le principe d’un accord bilatéral dont elle serait exclue. Les rencontres à répétition entre Kim Jong-un et Xi Jinping ne font que confirmer cette idée. De fait, les risques de voir les espoirs du cabinet Moon déçus restent importants, et ne reposent pas uniquement sur des critères objectifs, mais aussi sur les perceptions de la Corée du Nord et de ses gesticulations au sein de la société sud-coréenne. En clair et dans un contexte de désir de pacification exprimé par les dirigeants au Sud, l’avenir de la relation entre les deux Corées dépend de la bonne volonté de Pyongyang, tout autant que de la confiance perçue au sein de la population sud-coréenne. Cette équation reste fragile, mais l’espoir est permis.

Scénario 4: Dialogue fragile et des avancées quasi nulles (probabilité élevée) La rencontre de Singapour du 12 juin dernier, dont l’organisation resta jusqu’au bout incertaine par un revirement de l’une ou l’autre des parties, fut historique. Pour la première fois, un président américain en exercice rencontrait un dirigeant nord-coréen. Elle est porteuse d’espoir dans la

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Après une année 2017 très difficile et une mise à l’écart systématique par Washington du dossier nord-coréen, la Corée du Sud est revenue sur le devant de la scène. C’est une excellente nouvelle en vue de l’établissement d’un dialogue renforcé et d’une pacification qui s’inscrira dans la durée. Le pari de Moon Jae-in est ainsi surtout un succès en ce qu’il émancipe Séoul des turpitudes de l’administration Trump, et replace la diplomatie sud-coréenne au centre de toutes les discussions sur l’avenir de la péninsule. L’annonce de multiples initiatives, qui dépassent les symboles puisqu’elles concernent la mise en place de dispositifs visant à maintenir un dialogue à plusieurs niveaux, entretient l’espoir d’une pacification durable dans la péninsule. Même le principe d’un traité de paix (qui n’a jamais été signé depuis la fin des combats en 1953) est évoqué. Moon Jae-in fut l’un des artisans de la Sunshine Policy qui, dans les années 2000, se caractérisa par une politique d’engagement de la Corée du Sud en direction du Nord, avec en toile de fond des efforts de réconciliation que les rencontres entre familles divisées symbolisèrent. Mais c’est surtout le site industriel de Kaesong, porte d’entrée de la Corée du Nord aux entreprises et investisseurs du Sud, qui fut la plus grande avancée de cette politique, avant d’être fermé sous le mandat de Park Geun-hye en représailles des provocations nord-coréennes. Si le président sud-coréen se refuse à faire mention d’une Sunshine Policy 2.0 pour qualifier sa politique nord-coréenne, la réouverture de Kaesong fait partie de ses objectifs, et la reprise du dialogue se fait en grande partie sur les bases de cette politique abandonnée par Lee Myung-bak après son élection en 2008. Moon semble même aller encore plus loin

en estimant qu’une pacification durable – c’est-àdire à la fois inscrite dans le temps et qui ne soit pas une simple déclaration d’intention mais un acte concret – est à portée de main. Ces espoirs se heurtent cependant à l’attitude et à la bonne volonté de Pyongyang. Si l’échec de la Sunshine Policy fut prononcé par Lee Myung-bak, il fut surtout provoqué par le maintien du programme nucléaire nord-coréen et l’absence de réciprocité dans les efforts fournis par les deux Corées. Cette politique est d’ailleurs aujourd’hui jugée avec méfiance en Corée du Sud, où l’opinion publique pointe du doigt le risque d’une trop grande naïveté de Séoul à l’égard de Pyongyang. Les plus optimistes rétorqueront que le leadership a changé en Corée du Nord depuis une décennie, et que Kim Jong-un saisit mieux que son père les enjeux et les avantages à répondre favorablement aux efforts du Sud. Les plus pessimistes mettront pour leur part en avant les tactiques de Pyongyang et la stratégie sur le fil qui permet au régime de se maintenir, sans engager la moindre réforme de ses institutions.

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Pour la première fois depuis l’arrivée au pouvoir de George W. Bush en 2001, le déploiement de la diplomatie américaine à l’égard de la Corée du Nord est suivi par la Corée du Sud – pas parce que Trump est considéré comme l’homme de la situation à Séoul, mais simplement par pragmatisme.

mesure où les deux dirigeants se sont entendus sur des engagements visant à désamorcer une crise qui avait empoisonné la sécurité internationale en 2017. Au-delà du symbole, elle reste cependant très modeste sur le fond, et aucune feuille de route – et encore moins un agenda – n’a été adoptée. On remarque aussi que dans l’équipe accompagnante de Donald Trump à Singapour aucun expert de questions nucléaires était présent, ce qui est pour le moins étonnant compte tenu du haut degré de technicité d’un tel dossier. Les rencontres entre Kim Jong-un et le chef d’État américain Mike Pompeo à Singapour furent par ailleurs révélatrices des obstacles qui restent à franchir pour parvenir à un accord, le Secrétaire d’Etat américain indiquant même qu’il faudrait des années pour parvenir à un accord. Si le décalage est donc perceptible entre l’enthousiasme suscité par les symboles et une réalité plus complexe et moins optimiste, vient s’y ajouter le risque d’une décadence du dossier au niveau régional et international. La crédibilité des États-Unis en Asie du Nord-Est est aujourd’hui fortement remise en question, à Séoul et à Tokyo notamment, et on imagine difficilement la Chine valider le principe d’un accord bilatéral dont elle serait exclue. Les rencontres à répétition entre Kim Jong-un et Xi Jinping ne font que confirmer cette idée. Le dialogue reste fragile. Se trouve enfin posée la question des avancées sur le dossier nord-coréen. Il convient à ce titre d’indiquer que les attentes ne sont pas les mêmes entre les différents acteurs impliqués dans la sécurité de la péninsule, et moins encore parmi ceux qui se penchent sur l’avenir de la Corée du Nord. Washington a fait de la dénucléarisation la priorité absolue. C’est juridiquement (au respect du droit international) et moralement (au risque de voir une guerre nucléaire se déclencher) tout à fait acceptable, mais c’est à la fois irraisonné, car c’est ignorer la stratégie de Pyongyang et l’importance accordée à l’arme nucléaire, et limité car la sécurité dans la péninsule reste précaire, même sans l’arme nucléaire. Côté nord-coréen, tout est question de reconnaissance internationale, ce qui est assez improbable dans le contexte actuel. En Corée du Sud, on mise sur la pacification, mais tout en conservant taboue la question de la réunification. Au Japon, le retour des kidnappés est le sujet central, et la menace nord-coréenne est très utile à un cabinet Abe désireux d’augmenter son budget de défense, mais qui dans le même temps ne veut pas se mettre à dos son allié américain. En Chine, la levée des sanctions reste cruciale, ce qui permettra aux investisseurs chinois de déferler dans toute la péninsule, ainsi que la pacification qui rendra la présence militaire américaine injustifiée. Difficile de voir à moyen terme une possible convergence des agendas aussi divers,

étant donné qu’il soit peu probable que le statu quo soit profondément modifié.

Trump, héros coréen malgré lui Reste l’espoir que la raison l’emporte, et que les intérêts des uns et des autres parviennent à trouver un terrain mutuel d’entente, à défaut de converger. Ainsi, s’il est légitime de s’interroger sur les effets de la rencontre de Singapour et de rester méfiant face aux annonces de Pyongyang, il ne faut pas non plus bouder le plaisir de voir le dossier nord-coréen moins figé qu’il y a quelques mois. Ainsi, ne peuton estimer que c’est l’amateurisme de l’équipe de Donald Trump et l’absence de réelle vision sur le dossier nord-coréen qui pourraient, paradoxalement, être à l’origine d’une sortie de crise? Là où ses prédécesseurs, trop exigeants et rigoureux sur des éléments de détail, se sont heurtés à la détermination et au sens de la négociation des dirigeants nord-coréens, Donald Trump semble prêt à apporter des garanties, sans demande de réciprocité, simplement pour défaire le nœud. Cette approche affole les juristes internationaux – soucieux de maintenir les traités à un niveau de sacralisation – et inquiète ceux qui y voient un signe de faiblesse de la diplomatie américaine. Sans doute ont-ils raison sur le fond. Mais quelles solutions les Américains étaient-ils capables d’apporter quand leur approche était divisée, personnifiée par les prédécesseurs du président américain? En répondant aux demandes de Pyongyang, l’administration Trump participe à la dédiabolisation du régime nord-coréen, au point que Kim Jong-un est devenu un des dirigeants les plus sollicités, lui qui a eu très peu de visites officielles ou de rencontres au sommet depuis son arrivée au pouvoir en 2011. Certes il ne s’agit là que d’un symbole, mais les symboles ont justement une importance toute particulière pour Pyongyang. En se mettant au niveau de la Corée du Nord, Donald Trump ne fait pas honneur à la diplomatie américaine, mais il peut espérer des avancées sur un dossier dont l’asymétrie entre les différents acteurs avait rendu insoluble. S’il bénéficie d’un écho évidemment favorable en Corée du Nord, il est aussi porté par un agenda qui joue en sa faveur. Pour la première fois depuis l’arrivée au pouvoir de George W. Bush en janvier 2001, le déploiement de la diplomatie américaine à l’égard de la Corée du Nord est suivi par la Corée du Sud – pas parce que Trump est considéré comme l’homme de la situation à Séoul, mais simplement par pragmatisme. À condition toutefois que le président américain ne change pas une nouvelle fois de position sur le dossier nord-coréen – scénario qui n’est pas à exclure et qui donne des sueurs froides non seulement aux dirigeants sud-coréens, mais aussi à des diplomates américains pris de court. | GB

IN THE CABINET ROOM

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ILLUSTRATION: DUSAN PETRICIC

NEZ À NEZ Whither the Ankara-Washington Standoff? PROPOSITION:

The Turkish-American dispute signals the end of Turkey’s Western project.

BALKAN DEVLEN vs KATERINA DALACOURA

BD (in favour): The recent spat between Turkey

Balkan Devlen is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.

Katerina Dalacoura is Associate Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and

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Political Science.

and the US is not a cause but instead a symptom of a growing divide between Turkey and the West. To be sure, there are real disagreements between Turkey and the US – particularly in respect of how to deal with the PYD/YPG in Syria, which Turkey sees as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, a terrorist organization that has been recognized as such by Turkey, the US and the EU. The issue of the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish national living in the US, after the failed putsch in July 2016 in Turkey also grates on the relationship between Ankara and Washington (see the In Situ article by Mitat Celikpala and Sinem Akgul Acikmese in the Fall 2016 issue of GB). Still, disagreements – even serious ones such as these – are not uncommon between allies, and Turkish-American relations have had their ups and downs over the years since 1945. Three things make the current crisis different from previous disagreements, and may signal the end of Turkey’s ‘Western orientation’ – at least for the short to medium term. First, the current crisis with the US has come at the end of a decade-long transformation of Turkey in which power has been concentrated in the hands of President Erdogan, while institutional and societal checks and balances have been progressively dismantled. The June 2018 Turkish general elections completed the country’s transformation from a parliamentary system to a presidential one – a transformation that moved Turkey far from its traditional post-WW2 aspiration of becoming a liberal democracy and a part of Europe. Bref, the gulf between Turkey and the West has been growing for a while, but it is only now that some in the West have begun to realize it. Second, domestically, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) has, for a variety of reasons, been amping up the nationalist rhetoric since 2015. AntiAmericanism – or, more broadly, anti-Westernism – is a cornerstone of this nationalist turn, as it runs deep across the political spectrum, from the left and their Cold-War-era ‘anti-imperialism’ to the Islamists who see the US as modern-day ‘Crusaders’ (and the protector of Israel) and indeed anyone in between, including those who disagree with

Erdogan on everything else. The US (and the West more generally) has, for all practical intents and purposes, been the party to blame for all of Turkey’s domestic and international problems. Such sentiments were largely kept in check by the country’s staunchly pro-Western civilian and military elite throughout most of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. However, the rise of the AKP after 2002 and the gradual replacement of the old elite within the state made it possible for those deep currents to surface. Bref, President Erdogan seems to have broad public support for pursuing an antagonistic policy vis-à-vis the West, and the present crisis provides the opportunity for political exploitation. Of course, the genie of anti-Americanism in Turkey will not be easy to put back into the bottle. Third, this latest crisis between Turkey and the US is embedded within the broader crisis of the Western-led liberal international order – one that includes ‘internal’ challenges like the rise of populism and nativism across Europe and the US. Intra-Western disputes that would in the past have been sorted out without much damage have become harder to resolve. President Trump is openly hostile to the post-WW2 liberal international order, and his dealings with US allies have often been hostile. Given his penchant for Twitter outbursts and other unpredictable behaviour against adversaries and allies alike, it becomes very difficult to negotiate a solution that provides face-saving options for both parties. The US president’s style not only forces President Erdogan to adopt a more rigid position in this crisis, but also provides Erdogan with a useful foil to rail against ‘Western schemes’ of intervention in Turkish domestic politics. Erdogan is able and willing to shift the blame for Turkey’s economic woes to ‘foreign powers.’

KD (opposed): Anti-Westernism is deeply rooted in Turkish history and in the Turkish psyche. The project of the Kemalist elite was to turn the new republic, after its establishment in 1923, westward in terms of values and general orientation. But Turkey did not join the Western alliance – that is,

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine greet supporters of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara, August, 2018.

PHOTOGRAPH: THE CANADIAN PRESS / OSKAN ARSLAN / DHA

past. This has increasingly become the case with each year they have stayed in power. At present, the West is an easy target – a punching bag that allows the government to whip up popular (and populist) support in its favour, and that comes in handy as the economic situation worsens. President Trump’s lack of political foresight and disregard for the rules of diplomacy and diplomatic decorum make this all the easier. And yet it is easy to forget, in the current climate, that the relationship between Turkey and the West (both the US and Europe) has suffered – and survived – tremendous hits, not least around the Cyprus crisis in the 1960s and 1970s, the military coup of 1980, and the complex Kurdish issue with its multiple ramifications for Turkish domestic

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in the formal sense of joining NATO – until 1952. Throughout the Cold War and in the post-Cold War period, Turkey’s firm commitment to the West in security terms has always co-existed with a profound suspiciousness and occasional dislike of the West – particularly of the US. This was the case even among the Kemalist military and bureaucratic elites, who may have been pro-Western in their military, political and ‘civilizational’ preferences – in spite of their own authoritarian inclinations – but were also, at times, anti-Western, abhorring the imperialistic designs of the West, real or imagined. Granted, the present-day dominant elite around the AKP does not have the same civilizational commitment to the West that the Kemalists had in the

politics and external relations. What reduces the likelihood of the current conflict between Turkey and the US becoming a permanent divorce is the same set of factors as in the past: membership in NATO remains the mainstay of Turkish foreign policy, as the alliance continues to provide Turkey with a security umbrella that is, for the time being, irreplaceable. President Erdogan, for all the concentration of power in his hands, will find it impossible to extract Turkey from NATO without putting both domestic stability and the country’s security at serious risk. Furthermore, the Turkish economy’s dependence on Europe and the US, combined with Turkey’s embeddedness in (and reliance on) the global financial architecture – which, for all of President Trump’s efforts, is still underwritten by US structural power – will make the cost of a divorce exceedingly high for Turkey. Erdogan will therefore continue to employ antiAmerican rhetoric, but he will not push things to extremes in a concrete sense.

President Erdogan seems to have broad public support for pursuing an antagonistic policy vis-à-vis the West, and the present crisis provides

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the opportunity for political exploitation.

BD: We broadly agree on the deeper roots of antiWesternism in Turkey, or at least on the ambivalent relationship of Turkey vis-à-vis the West – including among the Kemalist elite, whose orientation may be described as ‘Westernization in spite of the West.’ However, the lack of ‘civilizational’ commitment by the current elite is crucial to assessing whether today’s crisis is different from the many others that you have pointed out. One of the key elements of those previous crises was the perceived betrayal of Turkey by the West among the Turkish elite. This perceived betrayal involved a sense of being abandoned by key allies in the case of, say, Cyprus, and of not being treated as a ‘true’ member of the West, while not having Turkish interests and concerns taken into account in Western decision-making. Whether such a betrayal was real or imagined is beside the point. What was indubitably real was the sense of injury – not only to the material interests of Turkey, but also to the country’s sense of identity. The cultural-civilizational commitment to the West was the cornerstone of Turkey’s ‘Western project’ from the early days of the Turkish Republic. The security dimension came later on with the Cold War. As such, during those earlier crises, Turkey’s fundamental civilizational

choice had not been seriously questioned – apart from some rhetorical moves by Turkish leaders at the height of the various crises. That culturalcivilizational commitment also underlies – or used to underlie – Turkey’s decades-long quest to be part of the European Commission and then the EU. Without that cultural-civilizational commitment, all that is left is a transactional relationship – something that would put Turkey in the same category as other Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia, with which the West does business or that the West befriends or courts for security or economic purposes. Even with its nominal membership in NATO – at least for now – this transactional turn means an end to Turkey’s century-long ‘Western project.’ Such a state of affairs might even be welcomed by the current elite in Turkey, as it could imply less pressure or fewer demands to adopt or implement Western norms in Turkey’s domestic affairs.

KD: It may well be that the AKP elite and leadership do not have the same cultural-civilizational commitment to the West that the Kemalist elite did. Still, they do not totally reject the West. For one, this elite is not uniform in its ideas and values. Like all politically successful movements, the AKP is an umbrella organization comprising individuals with a range of views and positions. Erdogan may be a very powerful leader, but even he has no complete dominance over the AKP elite – or any ability to enforce a single line, for that matter. More to the point, rather than a tilt to the ‘East,’ the AKP has tried to put forward the proposition of ‘making Turkey great again’ by appealing to both East and West, thereby resuscitating and trying to put into effect a new variant of the old idea of Turkey as a ‘bridge’ between the two. To this end, what the AKP wants is not to abandon the West, but rather to renegotiate Turkey’s relationship with it from a position of greater strength. It may be true that, for many of the AKP cadres, Turkey must reclaim its Islamic past and the orientation from which the nation had been severed by the Kemalists. However, for some of these cadres Islam is conceptualized as modern and modernized – not necessarily in antithesis to the West. In other words, the West, as such, is not rejected, but Turkey is seen as being in the unique position of speaking to all of the civilizations and regions surrounding it. We see here a strong Turkish nationalist strand – albeit one that is distinct from the Kemalist one – pervading the AKP discourse. The AKP has not severed itself from Kemalism – which has, after all, successfully revolutionized Turkish society’s attitudes and approaches over the decades – but has instead appropriated strands of it to widen its appeal. Herein, after all, in its partial appropriation

of Turkish nationalism and its ability to (partly) build on Kemalism, lies one of the secrets of the AKP’s spectacular political success. Another secret of AKP success is a keen awareness of, and ability to pursue, the party’s own material and political interests. For this reason – more than anything else – the AKP would be reluctant to sever relations with the West. This is true even at times like the present, when relations appear to be at their lowest point. Bref, the Turkish economy is too closely tied to Europe, and Turkish security is too closely tied to the US for the severing of ties to happen without tremendous costs. Of course, economic relations with Europe do not necessarily entail formal membership within the EU. Indeed, it could be argued that the AKP could sustain the former while seeking the latter. However, the political cost of Turkey withdrawing from the accession process would be high, given that the majority of the Turkish public remains consistently in favour of EU membership. As for abandoning the American or NATO security umbrella, this would render Turkey dangerously vulnerable to outside threats by undermining the country’s military infrastructure. Such a move could also trigger domestic political turmoil and even violence. One must remember that, in terms of its economy and national security, Turkey does not have many other options: Russia, Central Asia, the Middle East and even China can each offer trade deals, weapons systems or ad hoc alliances, but not enough to commend themselves as bona fide alternatives to the US, NATO, Europe and the West.

BD: Let me make four points – two by way of dis-

Far more than economic, political or cultural issues, the main obstacle in the relationship between Turkey and the EU has been the conflict over Cyprus – a nationalist Turkish issue par excellence. percent of the vote in the June 2018 elections. Fourth, I agree that structural factors – specifically, in terms of national security and the economy – make it unlikely and irrational for Turkey to effectuate a complete break with the West. Still, I have concerns. To reiterate a point made above, the abandonment of the cultural-civilizational component of Turkey’s national disposition is, for all practical intents and purposes, the abandonment of Turkey’s Western project – even if transactional relations with the West on economic issues and security are maintained. Moreover, at this stage, Turkey-EU relations are a game of chicken, with each side waiting for the other to blink first – that is, to give up on the accession process. We may well see one of the parties blink in the coming few years. If Turkey blinks first, I do not believe that the domestic political cost of such a move would be high for the AKP, given that EU membership is not among the leading concerns for its power base or for the nationalists that the party has been courting over the past couple of years. (continued) To read the rest of this debate, visit the GB website

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agreement, and two by way of agreement. First, the idea of the AKP as an umbrella organization might have been apposite before 2011, but it has not been so since then. Any potential alternative power centre within the party has been, since 2011, gradually tamed or expunged by Erdogan. Some would even argue that this process started in 2007, but it is also true that it picked up steam from the 2015 elections. Bref, the current AKP is one and the same with President Erdogan. This was the case even before Turkey switched to a presidential system. The members of the parliament and the party officials derive their power not from their constituents or from their role within the party organization, but instead from their proximity to the president. The rise and fall of Ahmet Davutoglu as prime minister is perhaps among the clearest examples of this dynamic. Second, and relatedly, I do not think that the cadres within the AKP advocating for a modernizing Islam are relevant any more. Even when they were to be found, in the early years of AKP rule, they were a small minority within the party – window dress-

ing, as it were. Their most prominent members – such as Abdullatif Sener, one of the co-founders of the AKP and deputy prime minister between 2002 and 2007 – are long gone from the party. Indeed, to have expected Westernization of a different kind – ‘Westernization with Islamic characteristics,’ as it were – from the AKP cadres turned out to be a mirage that was exposed since at least the Gezi Park protests in 2013. Third, I do agree that the rhetoric of the AKP has become increasingly nationalistic – albeit through a species of religious nationalism that highlights the Sunni component of Turkish identity. This rhetoric does, in a way, harken back to the ‘Turkish-Islamic synthesis’ of the 1970s and 1980s, and therefore manages to forge an alliance with the MHP, the traditional Turkish nationalist party. However, it is also important to note that this new alliance between the MHP and the AKP has not necessarily sat well with all of the nationalists – thereby leading to the establishment of a new nationalist party, the Iyi, which managed to win over 10

at: www.globalbrief.ca

How to Game Syria’s Endgame?

QUERY

Why Assad will and must remain in power, and how Russia, Iran, Israel and the US can bring the civil war to a close BY ZACH BATTAT

Zach Battat is a Junior Editor

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of Global Brief.

or more than seven years, the Assad government has been fighting for its survival. The struggle began with a genuine protest against the government in Damascus but has spread into a brutal civil war that has displaced almost seven million within Syria, with nearly half a million dead and 5.6 million having fled abroad. Will Assad survive? In what form, and under which conditions? And what’s to be done, besides? For nearly half a century, the Assad family has been governing Syria – first under Hafez al-Assad until 2000, and then under his son Bashar al-Assad, the current Syrian president, leader of the ruling Baath Party, and commander-in-chief of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces. In 1971, Hafez al-Assad became president of Syria – the first Alawi president in Syrian history. As a member of the Alawi minority sect in a country with a Sunni majority, he faced significant obstacles in legitimizing his rule in Syria. The Alawi community in Syria has traditionally lived at the geographic periphery of the country – in the mountains, coastal areas and lower plains. Today, the overwhelming majority of the country’s Alawis are still concentrated in the coastal Latakia province. When Syria gained independence in 1946, Alawis were seen as outsiders – ‘imperfect Arabs,’ as it were – by other Syrians. Nevertheless, in the 1940s and 1950s, the Alawis were able to integrate into Syrian society and even enter the political mainstream and government institutions. Reforms in Syrian education and the economy paved the way for a mobilized and educated Alawi sect that eventually dominated Syrian political echelons. The Alawis’ path to power in Syrian political life was articulated through the military and the Baath Party – a political party whose platform brought together Arab nationalism and socialism. When Syria and Egypt combined to form the United Arab Republic in 1958, Assad, then an officer in the Syrian army, alongside fellow officers Muhammad Umran and Salah Jadid, decided to create a secret military committee to protest the civilian leadership of the Syrian Baath Party. In particular, the committee’s members resented Egypt’s firm control over the new union state – a state that would dissolve after only three years of existence. The three officers led a successful coup that brought the Baath Party to power in 1963. Three years later,

Assad and Jadid successfully overthrew the civilian leadership and toppled the government of Amin al-Hafiz. By the late 1960s, tensions would emerge between Assad and Jadid, stemming mostly from the failures of the 1967 war against Israel and from disagreements in respect of the Syrian intervention in the Jordanian-Palestinian Black September conflict. By the time Jadid realized the threat from Assad and his loyalists, it was too late. In 1970, they launched a bloodless coup, which would later be called the Syrian Corrective Movement. Assad put his loyalists in key government posts and, with Jadid jailed, became president of Syria on February 22nd, 1971. In the early years of his rule, Assad was busy consolidating his power. In order to quell any opposition, he formed the Progressive National Front, which brought all of his political rivals together under one umbrella. However, he still faced challenges of a religious nature. In 1973, Syria adopted a new constitution that eliminated the stipulation that the president must be a Sunni Muslim. Indeed, the constitution omitted all references to Islam, and specifically to Islam as the official religion of the state. This outraged the Sunni population. Protests broke out and general strikes shut down Hama, Homs and Aleppo. Taken aback by the popular protest, Assad inserted an amendment into the constitution that stated the president must be a Muslim. Assad still had to address the critical issue of the Alawis being viewed as non-Muslims by Syria’s Sunnis – a view that, to be sure, affected Assad’s own status as a Muslim. The solution appeared to come from an imam in Lebanon named Musa al-Sadr – an Iranian-Lebanese imam of the Twelver branch of Shia Islam. Al-Sadr wanted to unite all Muslims under one umbrella. This included bringing the Alawis in Lebanon and Syria under the banner of Islam. But the religious leaders of Assad’s own Alawi community in Syria, fearing the loss of influence among their followers, opposed the initiative. The violence that ensued after Assad unveiled the draft constitution unsettled the Alawi elite and middle class. The elite, comprised of individuals who benefitted from the educational reforms of the 1950s, sensed that if Assad did not triumph, they would lose their newly come social status in Syrian society. They pressured the religious sheikhs to acquiesce to the agreement between al-Sadr and Assad. In 1973, Sadr issued a fatwa declaring the Alawi sect to be

PHOTOGRAPH: THE CANADIAN PRESS / UGUR CAN / DHA / AP

has been critical in driving ceasefires between the Syrian government and armed opposition groups as the government began slowly to retake lost territory. Moscow created the Sochi National Dialogue Congress in the hope of resolving differences between the Syrian government and the limited Syrian opposition present in Sochi. The Sochi Congress agreed that a new Syrian constitution should be created, and urged the UN-led Geneva process to include

the ‘Sochi conditions’ in any final agreement. (The now defunct Geneva peace talks, backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, excluded the Assad government because it was thought to be on its last legs.) A new Syrian constitution is being actively discussed, consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2254. These constitutional discussions include Iran, Turkey and Russia, while Saudi Arabia remains absent – both because its archenemy Iran is at the table, and given that Riyadh continues to contest the presumption that the Assad government should remain in power. Critical to bringing the Saudis to the table is an amelioration in relations between Washington and Moscow – something that would reduce tensions between Riyadh and Tehran in the context of future constitution-making for the next Syrian republic. Any future agreement on governance must include a strong voice for all sects and confessions – Sunni (the majority) and Shia Muslims, Alawis, Druze, Christians, Kurds and Yazidis – and the leader of the country must be required and able to protect them all, consistent with the nearly four decade-long compact between the Assad government, Syria’s

Buildings destroyed during the fighting in the northern town of Ariha, in Idlib governorate, Syria, September 2018.

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an offshoot of Shia Islam. The fatwa also declared that Assad was a Muslim. Hafez al-Assad would govern the country until his death in 2000. In that same year, his son Bashar took over from his late father. He has ruled Syria ever since. Where are we now? At the time of this writing, the Syrian government is, in the context of the country’s ongoing civil war, successfully pushing the Salafi jihadis – Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat alNusra), Ahrar al-Sham, Daesh and many others linked, directly or indirectly, to Al Qaeda – out of Syria. These jihadis have as their goal to create a (Sunni) Islamic State, which would put many Alawis, Christians and other minorities in Syria at risk of slaughter. There are still pockets of the country – namely in Idlib – where the jihadis remain, but over the last three years the Syrian Arab Armed Forces have made significant gains, in large part due to assistance from Russia and Syria’s other partners in the region (notably Iran; see Definition at p. 60). Still, the Syrian government is clearly not as strong as it was before the revolution began in 2011. As a government headed by a minority, it had always protected other minorities, including the Druze, Christians and even Jews. And yet the current structure of the Baath Party as the permanent governing party militates manifestly against fair governance in Syria. As the civil war approaches a potential dénouement, all belligerents and parties, within and outside of Syria, would be wise to avoid the mistakes of Iraq (or even Libya and Afghanistan). Unilateral de-Baathification would be foolish. To the contrary, the Syrian Baath Party should be preserved and allowed to partake in elections along with other future political parties in Syria. Even if Bashar al-Assad bears a significant share of the blame for the Syrian tragedy, his leadership and government remain – seven years into the civil war – firmly part of the solution. Countries like Russia, Iran, Turkey (see the Nez à Nez debate between Balkan Devlen and Katerina Dalacoura at p. 46) and Saudi Arabia are actively working to come to a solution. The Astana Process and the Sochi National Dialogue Congress have played a major role in this regard. The Astana Process, led by Russia from 2017,

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Speed of implementation will also be important, as the ‘Lebanese model’ as a serious governance regime in Syria only has a chance in the context of the present military dynamics on the ground.

minorities and the Sunni elite. Absent such a logic, no government can command legitimacy in Syria, and the country will disintegrate altogether, leading only to further bloodshed. The power-sharing framework in today’s Lebanon, while highly imperfect, offers a possible future exit for Syria. The Lebanese system, which finds its roots in late Ottoman rule, requires that different positions of government be allocated to different confessions – in the event, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim. A certain percentage of the seats in the national parliament, elected by the people, are allocated to each confession. The percentage allocation in Lebanon’s parliament is famously determined by the census of 1932. That census is by now, evidently, not at all representative of Lebanon’s demographic reality among the confessions. To avoid Lebanon’s well-documented problems in this regard, the new Syrian republic should have a functioning census every few years, supported by annual national demographic estimates to ensure that parliament and, by extension, the executive branch are stably representative of the various confessions. All of this clearly presumes that the Salafi jihadist organizations are removed from Syrian politics, and that the country’s population more generally accepts this new constitutional arrangement. Speed of implementation will also be important, as the ‘Lebanese model’ as a serious governance regime in Syria only has a chance in the context of the present military dynamics on the ground. A brute reversion to one-party rule by Assad or conspicuous changes in the balance of military power on the ground would quickly extinguish the opportunity for a new Syrian constitutionalism. Domestic instability in any of the key external capitals – from Moscow to Tehran, Riyadh and Washington – would also play a role in potentially disrupting this balance of power. Of course, the near-term survival and stability of the Assad government turn fundamentally on the continued military support of Russia and Iran. While Moscow and the Assad government appear to have little appetite for Iranian and Iranian-backed forces to remain in Syria for the long run, they are effectively willing – because of Assad’s essential weakness and Moscow’s lack of decisive influence over Tehran – to accept their short-run presence in order to remove the various Salafi organizations operating in Syria. Bref, as long as the civil war endures, both Moscow and Tehran intend to keep forces in Syria, and both will be influential in the decision-making of Damascus after the war ends. Whether Moscow and Tehran want Assad in power over the long run is difficult to assess, but both countries understand that there is no serious alternative

in the short run. As for Israel, although it is happy to unofficially accept the Assad government in the short run if it is willing to not destabilize the Golan Heights border, the continued presence of Iranian and Iranian-backed forces doubtless risks future Israeli and Israeli-backed interventions in the Syrian theatre. And yet such interventions run counter to the logic of Russia being the senior external player in the Syrian theatre – that is, the one that will, for all practical intents and purposes, dictate the macro rules of the endgame, including in respect of any opportunities for Israeli strikes or disruption.

n the meantime, the rhetoric in the West and Israel to the effect that ‘Assad must go’ should cease. Even if certain powerful voices and interests in Brussels and Washington still wish to see the back of him, the Syrian president and the Baath party will, pragmatism oblige, almost certainly have to remain in power until the next election, and stand for election along with other candidates and parties in Syria. There is a legitimate role for key outside countries in creating an international body to observe the elections, or otherwise to support the UN as the best-placed institution to oversee the transition from wartime emergency to reasonably representative civilian national government in the coming years. Whoever oversees the transition in Syria, cooperation among the major global and regional powers will be critical to delivering the humanitarian relief and resources for reconstruction that are so desperately needed. The US, EU, Russia and other regional countries can help create a fund, under the supervision of an international organization, to assist the many families that have lost their homes and their sources of income as a result of the civil war. Finally, although this was never tried under Hafez or Bashar al-Assad, a reconciliation panel and process should be launched to begin the healing from the wounds – individual, familial and confessional alike – that have been opened wide over the course of Syria’s national tragedy. Finally, if the US, as appears to be the instinct of President Trump, quits its role as military disrupter in respect of what appears to be the endgame in Syria – that of a Syrian government victory followed by a new constitution and new elections, accompanied by a reconciliation process – then Washington would be an important partner in the peace process. This would be particularly true in terms of the financial resources needed to rebuild Syria for this new century. For the next Syrian government, whatever its head and form, will require massive financial assistance, and will, as with the foreign military forces on the ground, be existentially dependent on the suppliers of this assistance. And even then, given the blood on everyone’s hands, it is unlikely to be a very stable government for generations to come. | GB

Analyser. Former. Diffuser. 4 observatoires 30 chercheurs en résidence Un réseau international de 100 chercheurs associés Une expertise bilingue

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www.dandurand.uqam.ca facebook.com/ChaireRaoulDandurand/ twitter.com/@RDandurand/

Douglas Sanderson,

What is justice for Canada’s Indigenous people? Will a just Canada still be governable? Why modern treaties and a new domestic imagination may still save the day

of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, is

BY DOUGLAS SANDERSON

Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.

NEW REFLECTIONS ON THE

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INDIGENOUS QUESTION

ohn Rawls once wrote that “the basic structure of society is the primary subject of justice.” Canada’s basic structure consists partly in a federation of provinces and territories, a federal crown, universal health care, the rule of law, bilingualism, multiculturalism, and an education system that is largely merit-based. And yet this basic structure has worked manifestly against Indigenous interests. Indigenous Canadians, in comparison to settler Canadians, suffer worse health outcomes, lower levels of income and education, greater exposure to violence, exceedingly high levels of suicide, and incarceration rates so high that Indigenous offenders comprise more than a quarter of the federal prison population, while accounting for less than five percent of the population of Canada. What, then, does justice look like for Canada’s Indigenous people? And can this justice coincide with a Canada that is still governable this century? Last July, Canada celebrated 150 years of modern existence. The country’s founding constitutional document is the Constitution Act, 1867. And one of the document’s key features, known as the division of powers, is set out in sections 91 and 92. These sections establish areas of exclusive jurisdiction as between the federal and provincial orders of government. A subject of near-constant litigation since the 19th century, the division of powers is coming under increasing strain in today’s Canada. Provinces are clamouring for a greater role in trade and national projects like pipelines, while Indigenous people are, at the same time, exercising growing influence over those same national priorities even in the absence of a clear constitutional role. The relationship between Indigenous and settler peoples has undergone many iterations. This means that there are many lessons to be learned from our shared history. One of the most important lessons concerns the fundamental question of how it is that we are

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ILLUSTRATION: ALENA SKARINA

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to live side by side. The era of peace and friendship treaties stands in stark contrast to later treaty regimes, and is echoed today in modern-day treaties between Indigenous people and settler governments. Relearning how to understand one another, while creating a shared political order in order to accommodate those interests, is increasingly necessary in a rapidly changing country operating in increasingly precarious international circumstances. Canada’s treaty-making history with Indigenous people is at once glorious and shameful. (An old joke has it that when it comes to treaty-making, First Nations think of it as a wedding, while the Crown sees it as a divorce.) Early treaties were powerful exercises that witnessed the creation of a shared political space – a species of proto-multiculturalism, as it were. Known as the peace and friendship treaties, these early agreements evidenced heartfelt commitment to work through the matter of what it meant for settler people to co-exist with Indigenous people. Settlers did not get to call the shots. Instead, colonial negotiators put on the table what they needed, and their Indigenous counterparts did the same. Together, they strove to work out a unique political relationship that accommodated the needs of all parties. Benjamin Franklin published a folio of these treaties, characterizing them as a unique form of literature. They are not contracts, nor are they documents of surrender; rather, they bear witness to a commitment to work together over time, establishing the contours of an ongoing political relationship known as the covenant chain. And although most of the peace and friendship treaties are simply records of dialogues – not signed documents – where claims and counterclaims were made against Indigenous and colonial representatives alike, these treaties were, for all practical intents and purposes, agreements between partners creating a political space to hold one another to account. These agreements ceased after 1763 – the year that the Royal Proclamation declared that lands not sold or ceded to the Imperial Crown were recognized as being ‘reserved for the Indians.’ The Crown worked somewhat half-heartedly to keep settler people from usurping Indigenous territories for the better part of half a century, but in the end the primary consequence of lands being reserved for the Indians was not the protection of Indigenous land. Instead, treaty-making became a mechanical and formalistic legal process for the purpose of turning Indigenous lands into property interests held by settlers and their corporate entities. Even the form of treaty-making underwent vast change. Gone were the long days and nights of working to understand one another; in their place came boilerplate documents laying the groundwork for the Crown to exercise its right to ‘take up treaty

lands’ as needed for settlement, or otherwise desired for resource exploitation. Indigenous people were given oral promises about how they would be able to preserve their way of life – their lands and systems of government – but these were, for all practical intents and purposes, lies and stratagems, unsupported by the written text of what came to be known as the numbered treaties. As the numbered treaty regime made its way across the country, Indigenous people became increasingly suspicious of Crown representatives. Of course, with the buffalo all gone by 1879, prairie First Nations lost their primary source of food and the raw materials for clothes and shelter. The federal Crown, led by John A. Macdonald, determined that it could simply starve Indigenous people into submission. Bref, the numbered treaty regime continued its westward march. British Columbia did not join Confederation until 1871. Until then, it was little more than a series of Hudson Bay trading posts – none of which were bound by the terms of the Royal Proclamation. As such, few treaties were ever made with the Indigenous people who surrounded the villages and the gold rush trails that marked out settler presence. By the time British Columbia became a province of Canada, all pretense of legal duty to Indigenous people had been put aside, and the province was surveyed as fee simple lands, handed out to the first non-Indigenous takers. What all of this means is that Crown officials have worked to engage with First Nation partners in a proper treaty regime (the peace and friendship treaties) but have also, through the numbered treaties, simply gone through the motions of an agreement in order to secure property rights in Indigenous lands. In addition, the near-absence of any treaties in British Columbia and the Canadian North has led to the third iteration of treaty-making between Indigenous peoples and the Crown: the modern-day treaty.

he modern-day treaty is more like the peace and friendship treaties of 300 years ago than the numbered treaties of the past century. These are comprehensive documents, drawn up by teams of lawyers, and negotiated over a period of years. Modern treaties are, however, complicated contracts, and in this way they diverge from the spirit of the peace and friendship treaties. Today’s treaties between First Nations and the Crown set out a global vision of how settler and Indigenous people will, in areas covered by the treaties, live side by side. Most importantly to present-day Indigenous signatories, modern treaties set out governmental powers to be

exercised exclusively by First Nations on the treaty territory in question. In other words, if peace and friendship treaties naturally assumed First Nations to be sovereign entities – free to do whatever they wanted in their own territories – while the numbered treaty regime assumed that First Nations exercised no rights of sovereignty, were wards of the state, and a broken people to whom limited municipal style authorities could be granted, then modern-day treaty agreements recognize a First Nation’s right to act as a sovereign – a government – with powers set out in the treaty and in respect of a territory that is clearly defined. It is easy for most Canadians to forget that the territory of Nunavut exists as a self-governing treaty land, or that nearly 40 percent of Canada’s land mass is covered by modern-day treaties – mostly in the north, and therefore out of sight for the denizens of Canada’s largest and entirely southern metropolises.

But can such an unruly mix of Canadian provinces, territories and First Nations be governed? Answer: it is not at all obvious that the federal government will be able to govern successfully or control such a revised constitutional or quasiconstitutional arrangement in Canada. negotiations with claimants that can help Canada to legitimize the reach of state power. At present, the federal and provincial governments exercise jurisdiction over unceded Indigenous lands as though their sovereign reach had some underlying legal justification. And yet even the Supreme Court of Canada has, in recent years, referred to Crown sovereignty over unceded Indigenous lands as merely ‘the assertion of Crown sovereignty’ and ‘de facto Crown sovereignty’ – in both cases hardly glowing endorsements for the legitimacy and exercise of state power. Indeed, the Court’s characterization of the Crown’s ‘de facto sovereignty’ is, in Ryan Beaton’s words, “somewhat like a suspended declaration of invalidity” – a situation in which the Court has essentially determined that the federal Crown’s assertion of sovereignty is invalid, but temporarily suspends this declaration until a legal process of treaty-making is completed. At that point, treaty lands are subject to the First Nation signatories, while the remaining lands are ceded into the sovereign reach of the federal Crown.

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odern treaties are no small challenge. Negotiations can, and often do, take decades to complete, and at considerable expense. First Nations in British Columbia finance these negotiations with funds advanced to them by Canada in the expectation that, upon settlement of the treaty, the Crown will be repaid 80 percent of what was borrowed. This would seem to create an incentive to come to agreement in a timely fashion, but that has not been the case. Since its founding in 1993, the British Columbia Treaty Commission has brought only three treaties to the point of ratification and implementation; nine more remain in the final stages of negotiation; and 45 First Nations are in the earlier stages of negotiations at a cost of more than a billion dollars to date. Negotiations have moved slowly in large measure due to the sheer complexity of setting out comprehensive agreements that necessarily include deliberations concerning questions such as whose law-making power is to be paramount when a conflict of laws arises; how to co-manage fisheries and forests; and, inter alia, the taxation powers of whom over whom and what. Behind these complex legal formulations and determinations is a much less complicated matter: federal Crown policy requires that First Nations entering into modern-day treaties agree to surrender all future claims to as much as 95 percent of their traditional territories. Official policy no longer refers to this as ‘extinguishment’ – relying instead on the euphemistic term ‘certainty.’ Either way, convincing your tribal brothers and sisters that giving up rights to more than 90 percent of their community’s traditional territory in exchange for recognition as legitimate sovereigns over the remain-

ing five or even 10 percent is, understandably, a hard sell. As such, having to agree to this surrender as a condition for advancing through the negotiation process is regarded by many First Nations as an excessively bitter pill to swallow. Modern-day treaties are nevertheless appearing – mostly in the West and the North of the country, but at least one negotiation is taking place in each of the three Maritime provinces. In Ontario, the Algonquin land claim is currently under negotiation for a treaty area that covers an enormous swath of the province, including Ottawa, capital of Canada, and stretching from the near north to the St. Lawrence River. What all these negotiations have in common – besides the presence of the federal Crown at the table – is that the treaties being negotiated cover lands that have not yet been the subject of treaties between First Nations and the Crown. In other words, modern treaties are being negotiated over lands that are ostensibly part of the Canadian state but that were never ceded to the Crown by Indigenous nations. Federal policy, it would appear, is to enter into

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The experience of First Nations in Yukon, in Canada’s northwest, suggests the counterexample: Yukon’s 13 First Nations are all signatories of comprehensive modern treaties, and generally enjoy better economic and health indicators and outcomes than their counterparts living under the Indian Act.

But what of those First Nations that, willingly or not, signed onto the numbered treaty regime rolled out more than a century ago? Those numbered treaties cover most of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The benefits of those treaty lands fall entirely to the provinces, while the First Nations that signed the agreements have been relegated to comparatively tiny reservations. (The federal government’s own numbers indicate that reservations make up approximately 0.3 percent of Canada’s land mass.) These First Nations are largely governed by the Indian Act – a federal statute that provides First Nations with minimal powers, akin to a municipal government. However, unlike municipalities, First Nations under the Indian Act have very limited powers of taxation and exceedingly small economies over which they can levy taxes. The structure conduces in practice to Aboriginal poverty and guarantees that the only way that First Nations can function as governments is to subsist on transfers from the federal treasury. The experience of First Nations in Yukon, in Canada’s northwest, suggests the counter-example: Yukon’s 13 First Nations are all signatories of comprehensive modern treaties, and generally enjoy better economic and health indicators and outcomes than their counterparts living under the Indian Act. Bref, First Nations subject to modern-day treaties generally do significantly better in socioeconomic measures than those First Nations without modern treaties, and who govern by Indian Act rules. Why? Answer: because First Nations living under the auspices of a modern treaty have the opportunity to act as governments. They can determine the course that they would like their community to pursue, they can set goals, and they can achieve those ends by passing laws and raising money through taxation of people, places and resources. By contrast, First Nations under the Indian Act are largely poor and exercise extremely constricted law-making powers, while sitting on reservations so small that virtually no resource activity can exist to be taxed. What’s to be done? The relationship of First Nations with the Crown is in desperate need of a wholesale overhaul. It makes sense to consider bringing at least some of the numbered-treaty First Nations into the modern treaty regime. One can imagine, in the coming years and decades, new Indigenous confederacies across the North, from Ontario to Alberta – willing amalgams of individual First Nations, bound together by the chance to act as able governments serving their citizens. Like the treaties negotiated in British Columbia and Yukon, these new Indigenous confederacies would have the ability to tax a resource base, and to use those funds to build schools, roads and water treatment facilities. Transfers from the federal Crown would largely be a thing of the past, just as we might reasonably expect these new treaty nations to contribute

to the federal equalization formula that evens out the ability to provide services as between have and have-not provinces.

ut can such an unruly mix of Canadian provinces, territories and First Nations be governed? What role would the federal government have in a confederation such as this? Answer: it is not at all clear or obvious that the federal government will be able to govern successfully or control such a revised constitutional or quasi-constitutional arrangement in Canada. Of course, it is also not obvious that Canada, in its current form, can be sustained for the long run. In the last 35 years, Quebec has twice held referenda to secede – once coming within a percentage point of voting to leave Canada. The Canadian military has been called in to quell Indigenous dissenters in Quebec (Oka) and British Columbia (Gustafsen Lake), while Ontario contented itself with a paramilitary police force to shoot and kill Dudley George, an unarmed Ojibway protester. In the past year, at Standing Rock, in the US, some 4,000 protesters came out in freezing cold conditions to resist a pipeline across Indigenous lands – a protest that was quelled with paramilitary forces using dogs, pepper spray and water cannons to douse protesters. To be sure, Standing Rock was just across the Canada-US border in North Dakota, but the protesters were international, and the energy and anger of that movement will rise again as the federal Crown moves to build similar pipelines across First Nation territories in Canada. International uncertainty and pressures – strategic and ideological alike – also put into question the capacity of the federal government to hold together, in the absence of meaningful internal reforms, in the decades to come. Bref, we must begin thinking about and planning for a Canada that can bind itself willingly together against a coming storm. Otherwise, it could well come apart, unwillingly. Treaty-making in Canada, done right, has always been about forging agreements and dialogues in challenging times. It is possible that still greater challenges lie ahead, which is why we should learn the lesson of the peace and friendship treaty regime: our agreements must underlie a commitment to continue living side by side, adapting to new circumstances, and respecting one another as sovereigns in a shared land. This does not mean the end of federalism, and there is no guarantee of success in terms of the long-term happiness of the country. But this will mean adapting, with great seriousness, to the needs of citizens and polities in a landscape much changed in the century and a half since Canada’s modern founding. | GB

Some see a university. We see a world of possibilities.

Explore how at www.yorku.ca

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At York University, our interdisciplinary approach engages diverse viewpoints and crosses traditional barriers to create new ways of learning.

THE DEFINITION acquire nuclear weapons if Iran were to have them demonstrates the stakes and tensions in the region. In truth, he was only articulating positions that neighbours, as well as the major powers, have articulated and asserted since the beginning of the Cold War. Both Israel and Iran have greatly enhanced their domestic military industrial capacity, including in nuclear technology, and have acquired sophisticated delivery systems. Dealing with nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East requires a principled determination to do so on a region-wide basis, the courage of conviction to address the issues without prejudice or exception, and the wisdom to accept concrete incremental steps, within a serious, transparent and public strategy. I suggest creating a working group of Middle Eastern states, under the auspices of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, to negotiate the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East (MEWMDFZ). The International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization should also participate. The objective of the working group would be to have a MEWMDFZ enter into force before the expiry of the 15-year provisions enshrined in the JCPOA. As a preliminary indication of seriousness, the negotiating parties should be asked to deposit letters with the UN Security Council, committing themselves to this objective and to abstain from further developing their weapons of mass destruction capabilities while negotiations are ongoing. Each of the three international technical agencies should be invited to propose confidence-building measures in their respective areas of expertise in order to create a better environment for negotiations. These agencies could also be called upon to assist in developing verification measures, and the P5 could constructively suggest a series of other measures in respect of good neighbourly relations in order to decrease bilateral tensions in the region. Bref, comprehensive nuclear disarmament measures in the Middle East are the answer.

Whither the Iran Nuclear Deal after the US Withdrawal?

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The most unfortunate impact of the US decision may be the damage to diplomacy itself, and to the belief that it can still address our planet’s most pressing problems.

Nabil Fahmy: US Secretary of State John Kerry and the P5+1 framed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran as a necessary measure to inhibit that country’s ability to quickly reach nuclear weapons breakout capacity. The JCPOA had the potential to become a major diplomatic accomplishment or an historic strategic miscalculation. Major reductions in the number of centrifuges possessed by Iran and its stockpile of nuclear materials would substantially curtail its immediate nuclear capacity to weaponize. However, there are justifiable concerns about what Iran may do when its nuclear programme is no longer bound by the terms of an agreement and by its present policies. In fact, there is no basis upon which to assume that the risk of nuclear proliferation in the region will have subsided 15 years hence. It is more likely that the asymmetries between the capacities of Arab and non-Arab states in the region will have increased. Israel, which is not a party to the Treaty on the NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), is presumed to have nuclear weapons and would continue to remain beyond any regional or international non-proliferation efforts. Iran would then have the right to enrich and repossess nuclear material, pursuant to the NPT itself. Only the Arab states – all NPT members – have non-controversial nuclear programmes. Such asymmetry could spark an all-consuming and destabilizing regional war that would intensify international security concerns. Also of concern, especially for the majority of the Arab littoral states of the Persian Gulf, is that Iran will become emboldened – including in theatres like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen – by its emergence from relative international isolation and the international sanctions regime. As Iran becomes even more assertive, and while Israel maintains its military deterrent capacity, Arab states remain uncomfortable about US policies – particularly in respect of Washington’s current and future security policies in the Persian Gulf region. President Obama had spoken about pivoting to Asia. President Trump, far more transactional, is emphasizing that more of the security burden should be covered by regional players themselves. The recent statement by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman that his country would

Nabil Fahmy is former foreign minister of Egypt, founding dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and Distinguished Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy at The American University in Cairo.

Jon Finer: There are few winners from the American withdrawal from the JCPOA, and a great many losers. Renewed confrontation between the US and Iran makes yet another conflict more likely

Behzad Saberi: In his announcement on the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, President Trump claimed that the deal does not address the threat of Iran’s ballistic missiles or its behaviour in the region, and that the sunset clauses would allow Iran to build a bomb down the road. Trump continues to call for negotiations with Iran aimed at what he calls a ‘real deal.’ Aside from the sunset clauses, he has intentionally neglected the fact that the JCPOA was all about ensuring that Iran’s nuclear programme would be exclusively peaceful and that, in return, all nuclearrelated sanctions against Iran would be lifted. Indeed, in the preface to the deal, the participants anticipated that “full implementation” of the JCPOA would “positively contribute to regional and international peace and security.” If left intact, the agreement could well contribute considerably to such aims. Moreover, if ‘fully implemented’ by all participants, it could provide a positive atmosphere and serve as a solid foundation upon which much more could be built. (continued)

Jon Finer was chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry, and is a former director of policy planning at the US State

For the remainder of Behzad Saberi’s and Kayhan

Department.

at: www.globalbrief.ca

PHOTOGRAPH: THE CANADIAN PRESS / EPA / CHRISTIAN BRUNA

Behzad Saberi is a counsellor in the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and was a member of the Iranian delegation during the negotiations leading to the JCPOA. This is written in his personal capacity, and cannot in any way be attributed to the Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Barzegar’s responses, please visit the GB website

Members of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) attend a ministerial meeting at the Palais Coburg, in Vienna, Austria, July 2018.

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in a region that already has far more than its share, and whose turbulence can quickly spread beyond its borders. The Iranian political leaders who made the nuclear deal have suffered a major blow, benefitting the hardliners who opposed it, while the country’s citizens, who have already endured decades of international sanctions, face deepening economic hardship. By violating the deal when Iran was complying, the US produced a major rupture with close allies, unanswerable questions about whether Washington can be counted on to keep its word beyond the next election cycle, and a self-generated nuclear crisis – even as Washington struggles to address one with North Korea that threatens the US far more directly. Of course, the most unfortunate impact of the US decision may be the damage to diplomacy itself, and to the belief that it can still address our planet’s most pressing problems. Like all negotiated accords, the nuclear deal was imperfect (all sides agreed on that), but it was the most consequential recent example of nations that agreed on little else uniting to defuse a global challenge without firing a shot. Spoiling the fruits of that effort may make future leaders more likely to forego such cumbersome and time-consuming negotiations, and turn to less elegant foreign policy tools, like force.

STRATEGIC FUTURES Which African Country Can Become a Term-Setter? Si l’indépendance de sa justice parvient à s’imposer, le Sénégal a les capacités de devenir un État africain porteur de l’idéal démocratique et républicain – d’abord au niveau de l’Union africaine, puis de manière croissante sur la scène internationale.

Niagalé Bagayoko Le Sénégal a la capacité d’être l’un des «term-setters» africains sur le plan international. Le Sénégal est, à n’en pas douter, le pays d’Afrique francophone dans lequel la démocratie est la plus solidement ancrée, en raison d’une trajectoire historique assez singulière. C’est en effet sous la période coloniale que les originaires des dites «quatre communes» (Dakar, Saint-Louis, Rufisque et Gorée) s’étaient vus attribuer certains droits politiques – tels que l’électorat et l’éligibilité – tandis qu’un décret de 1914 les avait exemptés du régime de l’indigénat. Après l’indépendance, l’armée sénégalaise s’est très tôt distinguée en refusant, pour l’essentiel, d’intervenir dans la grave crise politique qui opposa, en 1962, le premier Premier ministre Mamadou Dia au Président Léopold Sédar Senghor, inaugurant une tradition républicaine qui, au fil des années, s’est doublée d’un professionnalisme acquis notamment avec la participation de la totalité du personnel militaire sénégalais aux opérations de maintien de la paix, notamment onusiennes. Les élections de 2000, qui ont consacré l’alternance au pouvoir, ont démontré la vitalité et l’indépendance de la société civile et des médias sénégalais conquises sous le mandat du Président Abdou Diouf. Le pays s’est en outre modernisé sur le plan économique sous la présidence d’Abdoulaye Wade. Si l’indépendance de sa justice, fréquemment mise en doute, parvient à s’imposer, le Sénégal a les capacités de devenir un État africain porteur de l’idéal démocratique et républicain – d’abord au niveau de l’Union africaine, puis de manière croissante sur la scène internationale. Niagalé Bagayoko est présidente de l’African Security Sector

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Network à Accra, au Ghana.

Stephen Lamony The African country that can become a term-setter this century must be a country with effective political leadership, strong democratic principles, significant economic and military capabilities, and a solid human rights record. Six nations – Algeria, Egypt, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa and Nigeria – are, for all their imperfections, closest to achieving this status. While all of these countries have the potential to lead on the continent, such leadership would doubtless come with different types of challenges for each country.

Algeria and Egypt both have influence on the continent, but they struggle to be accepted in the region. Both countries have dual African and Arab identities. Their deep relationships and attachments in the Middle East naturally make it difficult for them to exert influence over sub-Saharan African countries. Rwanda’s experience of genocide allows it to claim the mantle of a country that can suffer from the worst possible conflict and still recover with a strong economy. It is a fact of African life today that Rwanda and its president, Paul Kagame, have been very influential in the region. Still, as a smaller economy, Rwanda’s change-making capacity is objectively limited. Moreover, the country lacks some of most fundamental rights in practice, including the right to free speech. Ethiopia, for its part, is much bigger in population than Rwanda and has a very serious overpopulation problem to boot. Absent deep social policy reform and economic innovation, it will struggle to be competitive and stable in the coming decades (see Cabinet Room at p. 45). South Africa’s economy is second only to that of Nigeria, and the country is the most industrialized country on the African continent. South Africa also wields the most heft outside of the region – as a BRICS member and as the lone African state in the G20. And yet corruption and post-apartheid domestic dislocations have clearly affected South Africa’s ability and confidence to lead. Nigeria, Africa’s economic powerhouse – with a GDP larger than most European countries outside of the top tier – is clearly able to exert significant political influence on the continent. The country has wielded its power in ECOWAS and the African Union. It has also represented the Africa Group on the UN Security Council five times – more than any other African country, indicating that African countries trust Nigeria (more than any other country on the continent) to represent their interests. Nevertheless, in the wake of Boko Haram, the Nigerian military has regularly violated international human rights and humanitarian law. A weak human rights reputation will, over the medium run, prevent the country from assuming a clear or uncontested term-setting role in Africa, and certainly beyond Africa – even if Nigeria will

remain the most important country in Africa for much of this century. Stephen Lamony is Senior UN Advocate for Africa, International Advocacy Programme of Amnesty International.

Herbert M’cleod The two African countries

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Herbert M’cleod is Director of the International Growth Centre in Liberia and Sierra Leone, prior to which

China’s President Xi Jinping with Senegal’s President Macky Sall during the first official visit by a Chinese leader in nearly a decade, Dakar, Senegal, July 2018.

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most likely to become term-setters this century are Ethiopia and Rwanda. It is instructive that their economies, while similar in some respects, also have peculiarly different characteristics. Both are poor and sit in the bottom quarter of the Human Development Index and global per-capita GDP rankings. On the other hand, both have enjoyed annual GDP growth rates of more than seven percent over the last 10 years. Ethiopia – population 105 million – is large, with a huge domestic market. Rwanda, with one-ninth the economy of Ethiopia, is small and must depend on international trade for any success in industrialization. And yet both enjoy strong leadership, with clearly articulated national development goals and relatively low levels of corruption. This, to be sure, is also the general view of a significant proportion of the international investment community. While not all sectors of the Ethiopian and Rwandan economies are open, the governments in Addis Ababa and Kigali are firm in their development strategies and plans, thereby projecting the high degree of internal stability that is attractive to investment. Both countries have invested heavily in infrastructure. Moreover, unlike many other African

countries that tend to respond – as if by instinct – to aid or business offers favourably regardless of whether these may fall within their national plans, Ethiopia and Rwanda tend to accept only what they want – that is, what is generally consistent with their national trajectories. Rwanda is quite active in pushing the East Africa Community to become a bona fide free-trade area. Ethiopia, for its part, appears to be playing an increasingly influential role in restoring stability to Somalia and Eritrea. Both countries evidently have serious governance challenges. Of course, it is debatable, in the African context, whether internal stability can be traded off satisfactorily for the trappings of Western democracy when the necessary political cultures and institutions for checks and balances are in most cases still embryonic. This is not a hagiography of the benevolent dictator. Still, to the extent that leadership is key to national success, both Ethiopia and Rwanda have heads of government that have delivered social services effectively to their respective populations. These same heads of government may well remain in power for several more years, consolidating the logic of strong, centralized governance – and for all practical intents and purposes, laying the groundwork for future term-setting on the continent.

he was an adviser to the president of Sierra Leone.

EPIGRAM

Coming to Terms... The time for Chinese term-setting and terms-ofengagement seems nigh BY GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE

A George Elliott Clarke is the 7th Parliamentary (Canadian) Poet Laureate (2016-2017), and Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. His latest book is The Merchant

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of Venice (Retried).

lthough term suggests definition, determination, rule-setting and time limits, it is not necessarily terminal, for chance events and charismatic personalities can redefine once-useful terminology to mirror drastic shifts in circumstances. Ah, the word is perilously slippery. Thirty years ago, when the Berlin Wall fell, a ‘New World Order’ arose, whose standard was meant to be ‘Prosperity-for-all’ (not Democracy), to be achieved via state deregulation of finance capital (but not labour); outsourcing of manufacturing (and pollution) to ‘developing’ nations (especially China); and the erection of new global trade – plus police/ surveillance – regimes. Citizens now had two roles: to be either apolitical consumers or ‘radicalized’ suspects (dissidents, ‘terrorists,’ etc.), with suspicion shifting only as one libertarian (anarcho-capitalist) or statist (regulatory and tax-and-spend) ideology held fraught sway over the other. This model served to heap wealth upon the upper half, Caucasian-dominated globe. Western (white) governments also felt empowered to dictate who could stockpile Weapons of Mass Destruction; who could join the G7, then the G8 and the G20; and who was rogue. The untrustworthy turned out to be, usually, people of colour. (See Turkey: trusted enough for NATO, but too swarthy and Muslim for the EU.) African, Arab and Asian nations were second-best and, at worst, deadweights – a drag on ‘Progress,’ sponsors of ‘Terror,’ ‘failed-states’ and ‘sh-t-holes,’ except for those nations that harmonized demonstrably with Western interests, or that had lots of hydrocarbons (dead and decayed dinosaurs) to market, or that joined the nuclear club (Pakistan and India) before they could be threatened with war (North Korea and Iran), or that were in fact blasted to smithereens (Iraq). But this New World Order term-setting also had terminal faults. First, as developing nations accepted the West’s cast-off factories – and garbage (literally) – so too did their economies expand, thanks to actual production, whereas the ye olde Christian states began to rely increasingly on consumer credit, real-estate speculation, ‘casino capitalism’ (or simple fraud), for ‘growth.’ So declared old-fashioned, Maoist propaganda: America was ‘a paper tiger.’ But in comparison with the Four Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan) and the PRC, in terms of a gold-standard versus a smoke-and-mirrors currency, America

has indeed been becoming a ‘paper tiger’ – if with rust-belt stripes. This hollowing out of industry, the gone-liquidity apocalypse of 2007-2008, along with foolhardy, bankrupting adventures in the Middle East (term-setting exercises for that region) helped to beggar (and bloody) enough of the American working-class to prompt their election of an unapologetic, America-First imperialist. But the wanton 2011 NATO bombing of Libya, the criminal invasion of Iraq, the short-circuiting of Arab Spring liberalizations, the feckless imping of civil wars (plural) in Syria, all helped to destabilize the Middle East, foster a sadistic ‘caliphate’ that truly did export terrorism, and create a world-encompassing refugee emergency in the Mediterranean. In turn, that crisis has served to propel the rise of Fascism-lite, anti-immigrant, populist parties across Europe, helping to exit Britain from the EU, and weaken the continent’s once-dominant, liberal – not libertarian – ideology. Concurrently, the revived, British-imperial, Victorian strategy of Russian containment, which has bordered that state with NATO members, their missiles aimed at the Kremlin, only served to coax Putin to annex Crimea and, in revenge, for Western meddling on his frontiers, to seek to divide Western ‘democracies’ (those police-state plutocracies that too often betray their own founding principles). But Nature abhors a vacuum, and out of the vacuous warmongering and self-vitiating economics of the North/West, there is rising, in its stead, China, still possessing an industrial base and a treasury of valuable renminbi, and thus the ability to intervene economically, diplomatically and militarily, wherever it sees its interests as paramount. To adapt a quotation from Chairman Mao, “To behave like ‘a blindfolded man catching sparrows,’ or ‘a blind man groping for fish,’ to be crude and careless, to indulge in verbiage, to rest content with a smattering of knowledge” – such is the vain and vulgar foreign policy of nations in decline. Some 53 years ago, in his Autobiography, the AfricanAmerican, Muslim public intellectual Malcolm X declared that the world languages of the future would be Arabic and Chinese. In his book, Leaders, Richard Nixon predicted, over 35 years ago, that China would overtake the US. The time for mastering Arabic terminology is not yet, but the time for Chinese term-setting and termsof-engagement seems nigh. | GB