Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

You have to say though that shock therapy is required if you believe the Bretton Woods era is over and needs replacing with something else. Talking heads often say, quite correctly, that Trump and his team don't know what they are doing. Those people should bear in mind they wouldn't be going in for shock therapy if they did.

On the whole I am rather pleased with The Hundred Days. The chief danger is that things will get so much worse before they get better that Trump (or anyway, Trumpism) will be removed before the experiment is complete and we will return to Bretton Woods.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Not sure, it seems to me that the most likely end result is the exact opposite of what Trump wants to acheive ie accelerated liberalism, globalism, a stronger BRICS, China, EU, etc.

Wiley sees very little chance of Trump being sucessful, its dewey eyed nostalgic, national idealism.

Dont get me wrong I love this sort of stuff, but how many folks on AE wanted/want their son or daughter, not to go to university, or to get a job in manufacturing, even at the rates we currenttly pay let alone at China or Indian rates. We all support Steel, Mining, Car production, nobility of Labour etc but we dont want it for our children.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

One of the great intractable puzzles of international politics is how to deal with minorities in one country that are adjacent to their kith and kin that form the majority (or substantial minority) in the country next door. Right now this is bedevilling relationships between the following (off the top of my head)

[Mick Harper]

At one level, the solution seems simple enough. If Population A finds itself on the wrong side of the A/B border, then just shift B's boundary in A's favour. If B does not feel best pleased at the prospect of losing territory, then no doubt A will compensate B by ceding some less sensitive but equally valuable territory elsewhere. If no such territory is available, a cash settlement or similar is always welcome.

Notice, it is win/win/win/win/win
* Population A is now living in the country of its choice
* Country A has 'brought its people home'
* Country B has rid itself of an an actual or potential source of destability
* Countries A and B have rid themselves of a complication in their relationship
* The world has one less trouble spot to worry about.

It never happens.

[Mick Harper]

The cause is always the same.

[Mick Harper]

As it happens, a good example is being offered to us right now with the American peace proposals in Ukraine.

1. America has essentially offered (and Russia appears to have accepted) that the war ends with the new Ukraine/Russia boundary being the current battle line.
2. Both Ukraine and Europe are angry with this on the grounds 'America has given Russia everything Russia wants'.
3. This is not true. America has 'given' what Russia already has and which no practical circumstance can alter. Nor is it what Russia wants--they wanted Ukraine.
4. Europe and Ukraine understand this--and which is why it may lead to the end of the war--but have got hung up on a principle, the difference between de jure and de facto.

Which is something we may be able to help with.

[Mick Harper]

Do you want to know the root of all evil?

[Wile E. Coyote]

Just a note to remind myself that if you base your citizenship on Jus Sanguinis, kith and kin becomes mightily important, if the principle is Jus soli, the right of soil, where you were born becomes the key factor.

To take an example to my limited knowledge, Latvia and Estonia refused to give citizenship automatically for all their residents, when the Soviet Union disintergated. They only recognized descedents of people who lived in their country before the Soviet occupation in 1940. Those other soviet citizens were not forgiven for their (sic) occupation and mass deportations, to gulags of native folks who they had identified as resistance fighters/class traiors etc.....

This left a sizeable minority of former Soviet passport holders without citizenship. These minorities hold official Alien passports, and are, for example denied voting rights and not considered EU nationals.

All the other republics decided to give all citizenship based on residence, so essentially all Soviet passport holders irrespective of nationality, became citizens. This was actually quite a simple process because the Soviet Union monitored all comrades, and insisted on visas between cities, so it was very clear where everyone had been living as the State had monitored them. At the end of the Soviet Union it was clear (with the exception of Estonia and Latvia) who lived where, and to which state each citizen belonged as their old passport proved exactly where they had been living.

What could go wrong?

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

It is what all the ex Soviet republics did. And why not? Folks had a Soviet passport, it might have one of many nationalities on it, but it made clear they had lived in Baku, Azerbajan for 30 years so why not let them be Azerbaijani citizens if they wanted to stay, alternately they could go back to Russia, Armenia whatever....because the passport had a nationality on it.

[Mick Harper]

Since you mention it... yes, Russian citizens in Azerbaijan can get to choose, they've got dear old Russia watching their backs. But Armenians... not so much.

Nagorno-Karabakh summed up everything bad about the rules-based world-order. This decent sized slab of territory has been Armenian since before there were Armenians. It has no significant Azerbaijani element. Then suddenly the Soviets shoved it into the Azerbaijan SSR. But this had no effect either, the Russians were in charge whatever the name on the label.

Thus, when the music stopped and the USSR was no more, the Azerbaijanis were sitting in the Karabakh chair and wouldn't budge. It was part of their 'internationally-recognised borders'. Except the Armenians understandably took umbrage, both inside and outside the enclave. (Not to mention the wealthy worldwide Armenian emigre population.)

So the Armenians fought a war against the Azeris, won it, and incorporated Nagorno-Karabakh into metropolitan Armenia. But took a whole bunch of Azeri territory along with it 'to round things off'. Why not, what the hell, get it while the going's good because one day they will be your 'internationally-recognised borders'.

When the going got bad the Azeris came back, beat the Armenians and this time decided to end the matter once and for all by throwing all the Armenians bodily out of Nagorno-Karabakh. I shouldn't think there is a single one left out of an original population of 100,000. (But at least the Azeris had the sense not to genocide them. A mistake the Turks made. If it was a mistake, it is often very effective.)

So Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijani, just like the people running the world said it should be. What's a few thousand years of history between friends?

[Mick Harper]

There is a reason why Trump is taking care to differentiate Crimea from the rest of Russia's 'illegal conquests'. The fact of the matter is that Ukraine did not lift a finger when the 'little green men' started showing up in 2014. They so thoroughly acquiesced in the Russian takeover of Crimea that they can be said to have recognised it de facto as de jure.

Trump--and the world community--is entitled to take this into account when applying its 'rules-based' system to Crimea. Zelensky would be well-advised to do so as well.

It is quite different in the other parts of Ukraine infected with little green men and, after February 2022, with regular formations of them. These were strenuously resisted by the Ukrainians. Over-strenuously before 2022 in my view, but that is another matter.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

This is a case in point, though not perhaps in the direction you favour. The strip of land Israel has occupied, with blatant illegality, is meaningless in overall terms. So...

* Syria, 'the Arabs', the world community can go ape shit, fight might and main to get the Israelis out.
* Or they can shrug. "It's meaningless. let them keep it. They know we know that everyone knows they are there illegally and, what's more...
* The Israelis can't withdraw. Not now. It's meaningless for them too but a permanent embarrassment.

Now understand, I'm not advocating this. I'm just pointing out if you stop operating a 'rules-based world-order' that obliges you to follow a pre-ordained set of attitudes--and ones known to anyone who is not signed up to them--you put yourself at a severe disadvantage.

I will set out some alternatives...