Author Archives: Tom Arms

Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Turkish Elections

By Tom Arms | Sat 6th May 2023 - 10:19 am

Turkey is the ultimate political straddler. It straddles the Dardanelles – Eastern Europe’s gateway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. It also straddles the continents of Europe and Asia and has historically bridged the cultures of East and West.

For all those reasons and more any Turkish election would be important. But the vote next weekend (14 May) is crucial for Turkey, Europe, the Middle East, NATO, and the Ukraine War and beyond. For the first time, Turkish voters have a clear choice between a populist Islamist autocrat and a politician who promises to return the country to the secular democratic roots that Kemal Ataturk introduced exactly 100 years ago.  Opinion polls indicate that the result could go either way.

The most likely scenario for this weekend is that none of the four candidates will win an outright majority this weekend. In that case, there will be a second round on 28 May which will almost certainly be between incumbent Recep Tayip Erdogan, populist leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Kemal Kilidaroglu, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and representing a six-party anti-Erdogan coalition.

For most Turkish voters the key issues are the economy and the recent earthquake that killed more than 50,000 and displaced an estimated 6 million. On the first, Erdogan suffers. In the past two years, the Turkish lira has lost 60 percent of its value against the dollar. Runaway inflation at a peak of 86 percent through millions into poverty. It is currently 50 percent. Unemployment is running at 9.7 percent. Erdogan is universally blamed for mismanaging the economy.

The earthquake is another matter. The president was quick to visit the disaster-struck zones, organise relief operations and allocate money for rebuilding. But the quake was in Erdogan’s political heartland which means up to a million displaced people will be unable to vote for him.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 30th April 2023 - 8:30 am

China’s mis-step

China has made a rare and serious diplomatic misstep. It came from its ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, who told a television interviewer that the former Soviet states “don’t exist” because “they don’t have effective status in international law.”—Oops.

The result was an immediate outcry and demand for   clarification/retraction from foreign ministries across Europe, especially the former Soviet states who live in perpetual fear of the reimposition of the Russian yoke.

The Chinese obliged. The embassy in Paris said that the ambassador’s remarks were “personal” rather than “official policy.” In Beijing the official spokesperson more or less disowned the comments stressing that China was among the first to recognise the former Soviet republics as “sovereign states” and has refused to  recognise the Russian annexation of Crimea.

But the Europeans were not mollified. Lu Shaye is a prominent “Wolf Warrior” – a moniker attached to a Chinese official who advocates a hard line against the West. It was thought that the hardliners were sidelined at the end of last year. Lu Shaye’s flammable comments have re-ignited their presence.

One of President Xi Jinping’s reasons for sidelining the hardliners was a policy of improving relations with Europe. This would drive a wedge between Europe and America, weaken NATO and the US position in the world and improve China’s position.

The fly in this diplomatic ointment is Russia. A strong alliance with Russia is important to both XI and the wolf warriors. But good relations with Europe is more important to XI then Lu Shaye and the wolf warriors.

Ambassador Lu Shaye’s comments indicate that the Wolf Warriors are still prowling the corridors of Beijing and the problem for Europe is that the Chinese could be a Trojan horse filled with Russians.

Taiwan

Meanwhile, back in China, the Communist Party has been again been rattling its Taiwan sabres. This time it arrested two Taiwanese while they were visiting relatives in Mainland China.

Both arrests are designed emphasise the Chinese Communist Party’s position that Taiwan is party of China and thus the law of the Peoples Republic of China applies to the residents of Taiwan as well as those on Mainland China.

The more prominent of the two arrestees was the publisher Li Yanke. He was born in Shanghai and left in 2009 to set up a publishing business in Taipei. Many of his books are highly critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Li Yanke was visiting relatives in Shanghai when police arrested him for “endangering state security.”

Perhaps more significant was the arrest of the less well-known 33-year-old Yang Chih-yuan. He was actually detained in August but was not formally arrested and charged until this week. The crime: “suspicion of secession.” He is the first to be charged with this alleged crime.

In 2019 Yang Chih-yuan helped to found the Taiwan National Party which proposed that Taiwan drop its claims to be the legitimate government of all of China and declare itself a separate, independent country. The TNP failed to make any headway in elections and has since been dissolved. Yang Chih-yuan himself is seen as fringe political figure in Taiwan.

But Beijing is concerned that the fringe may become the mainstream unless it is brutally stamped out.

The competing claims to China date back to 1949 and the Chinese Civil War. In that year, Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang army fled to Taiwan and established what was effectively a “government-in-exile.” Only twelve countries (including the Vatican) recognise that 1949 claim and have full diplomatic relations with Taipei. It is impossible for any country to have diplomatic relations with Beijing and Taipei.

Reunification is the top foreign policy priority of the Chinese Communist Party. As long as both entities claim to be the legitimate government of all of China then Beijing can assert that it has the right to unite Taiwan with the mainland—by force, if necessary.

But if Taipei drops its claim to represent all of China and declares itself an independent political entity, then the number of countries prepared to diplomatically recognise it would increase. Taiwan would then become an even bigger problem for the Chinese Communist Party.

Biden v Trump

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Educate

By Tom Arms | Sat 29th April 2023 - 12:15 pm

When I was a young foreign affairs writer I foolishly suggested to my editor that the newspaper should print more foreign news. It was important, I argued, to educate our readers about the wider world.

His eyes literally bulged from his head as he slowly rose from behind his desk, to bellow: “Educate!? Educate!? Your job is to write stories that sell newspapers, thus making money for our owner. Now get out and do just that.”

He was right. A free and informative press is a cornerstone of our democracy. But to be free and provide accurate information it must be financially viable. To be financially viable it must produce stories that its readers/viewers/listeners want.

Today’s editors and publishers face major problems. As do the burgeoning army of podcasters, bloggers, vloggers and social influencers. The world of the internet and global communications has lowered the cost of entry into the publishing/broadcasting world while the size of the advertising pie which finances the media world has remained static.

Local newspapers have been particularly hard hit. Since 2005, Britain has lost about 300 titles. But this is nothing compared to the US where a staggering 2.514 local newspapers have either merged or disappeared over the same period. Those that survive cling to life with frustrated and underpaid skeleton newsrooms unable to adequately serve their communities.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th April 2023 - 9:22 am

France

It is a case of mixed messages coming out of Paris. On the one hand, we have President Emmanuel Macron telling homeward bound journalists that Taiwan should not be a European concern and that France (and Europe by extension) should not let its China policy be determined by American “extremists”.

On the other hand, while Macron was speaking after his state visit to China, the French frigate Prairial was steaming through the Taiwan Straits while the Chinese Communist Party was flexing its muscles with an encirclement exercise of the island.

France,  is unique as the only European nation with substantial holdings in the Indo-Pacific region. It has seven territories with 7000 troops protecting a total population of 1.65 million. Ninety percent of France’s exclusive economic zone is in the region.

China is a clear threat to French interests. That is why the French navy regularly conducts exercises with its American equivalent and military equipment sold to Taiwan in the 1990s is still maintained by French technicians.

But Macron wants a bigger slice of the growing Chinese pie. This is why 53 business executives accompanied the president on his state visit. He also does see France as a counter balance to America—allied with but independent of the super power, a foreign policy that France has pursued in varying degrees since the days of Charles deGaulle.

In short, the French are doing what they do best: Juggling a dozen diplomatic balls at the same time.

USA

1.25 million Americans have top secret clearance. They include contractors as well as military personnel, civil servants and politicians. Therefore it is not surprising that one of them was a low-level 21-year-old right-wing, racist, gun enthusiast who decided to be Mr Big to his friends by posting secrets on an internet gaming site.

Jack Texeira, who worked in the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, will have the rest of his life to regret his vanity.

So will millions in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world. Texeira’s leak disclosed CIA assessments of the Ukraine military on the eve of their counter offensive against Russian forces in the Donbas. It revealed which brigades are the best equipped and trained. It exposed both weaknesses and strengths which the Russians can now exploit.

Texeira also released a CIA assessment of the political machinations within the Kremlin. There were probably few surprises for Moscow, but knowing that the CIA knew something enables the FSB (Russian intelligence) to track the information back to its source and thus endangers American agents in Russia.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Africa

By Tom Arms | Sat 15th April 2023 - 10:19 am

It is big. It has deserts, jungles and rolling veldt. It is wracked with disease, poverty, tribal divisions, civil wars, political instability and corruption. Millions are trying to escape it.

It is Africa. It is the future. Or at least its natural resources are.

The US Geological Survey has identified 34 key minerals that a 21st century developed country needs. Twenty-nine of them are in Africa.

In the case of one of them – cobalt – 70 percent of the world’s known resources is in the war-wracked Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Africa’s potential, and the West’s growing dependence on its resources is the major reason for a string of recent high-profile American visits to the continent. Vice President Kamala Harris has just returned from a three-nation tour. She was preceded in the recent past by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas- Greenfield. In December, the Biden Administration hosted an Africa Summit in Washington for the continent’s political and business leaders.

But the America’s African initiative could be too little too late. Twenty years ago the US was Africa’s biggest trading partner followed by Britain, France and Germany. Today the West’s trading figures with Africa are dwarfed by China.

And with trade comes political influence and access to the minerals needed for computers and batteries for a green, prosperous and secure future.

The West is big with aid. The US leads the pack. Last year it gave African countries a staggering $6.2 billion in humanitarian aid – twenty percent of all the aid received. European countries and institutions combined provided about half of the continent’s aid. China was not even in the top ten.

Beijing is not big on aid. It is ginormous on win/win investment and trade. Chinese investments in Africa are currently estimated to be worth $2 trillion and are generating $200 billion a year in trade. There are an estimated 20,000 Chinese technicians and managers nursing Beijing’s investments which are primarily in infrastructure projects such as ports, airports, roads and railways.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th April 2023 - 10:17 am

USA

America’s looking glass politics dominated the news agenda again this week. Donald Trump is not a perp. He is a victim. And he is exploiting his victimhood to the maximum political advantage.

The ex-president has re-galvanised his base with classic hyperbolic claims about Democratic witch hunts. The sad thing is that in the case of this week’s indictment – the first of a past or present American president – he may actually be right.

The office of District Attorney for South Manhattan is an elected one, and Alvin Bragg won the vote on the back of a promise to bring Donald Trump to trial and convict him. Lady Justice is portrayed blindfolded with her sword and balancing scales. She is not elected.

The law is meant to be based on precedent.  No man (or woman) should be protected by their political position but neither should their political position be the determining factor in their innocence or guilt.

Of course, Donald Trump, is more than prepared to play both sides of the legal coin. His 2016 campaign rallies were marked by the endless chant/rant of “Lock her up” related to Hillary Clinton’s use of private emails for government use. The demand was dropped as soon as Trump entered the White House.

Possibly the saddest aspect of Trump’s indictment is that DA Bragg’s case is the weakest against the ex-president. Secret documents at Mar-a-Lago, the January 6 riots and attempts to fix the Georgia election returns all look more promising. Legal eagles believe he can beat the rap on the Stormy Daniels case – if only on one of several technicalities. If Trump is acquitted then he could use that acquittal to fight off other legal challenges and ride the victimhood express all the way to the Republican Party nomination and possibly beyond.

China

Diplomats say interesting things sometimes. Fu Cong, Beijing’s ambassador to the EU was certainly in expansive and interesting mode when he spoke to the New York Times on the eve of the Macron/von de Leyen state visit to China.

At the top of President Emmanuel Macron’s agenda in Beijing was Ukraine. In fact, his feet had barely touched Chinese soil when he was telling Xi Jinping: “I am counting on you to bring Russia to its senses.”

France, America and the rest of the West are terrified that the Xi/Putin “friendship without limits” will eventually lead to Chinese weaponry supporting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Ambassador Fu, however, dismissed the “limitless” phrase as “rhetoric.” He also pointed out that Beijing has refused to recognise the 2014 annexation of Crimea or the more recent Russian land grabs in the Donbas.

All of the above is true. It is also encouraging that a senior Chinese diplomat has gone on record to try and balance the debate. But friendship with Russia and Putin remains at or near the centre of Xi’s world strategy. To put it bluntly, Xi sees Russia as key to his plan of eroding the Western-oriented world order and replacing it with one that is more autocracy-friendly.

The Chinese president hinted at his big picture plan in his opening remarks to Macron’s visit when he said that China and France have the responsibility to transcend their differences “as the world undergoes proposed historical changes.”

To realise this plan, Xi wants to drive a wedge between European and American policymakers. To do this he is dangling the financial incentive of improved Sino-European trade links. That is why EU Commission President Ursula von de Leyen and an accompanying herd of French businessmen have been tacked onto Macron’s state visit.

The question remains whether the fine words that come out of the Macron/von de Leyen visit will be mere “rhetoric.”

Finland

Russia’s border with NATO is now 800-miles longer. Finland has ended decades of neutrality and joined the Western Alliance. Simultaneously it has changed its government.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Israel’s political demographics

By Tom Arms | Sat 8th April 2023 - 8:30 am

Supreme Court changes. West Bank settlers. Fighting on Temple Mount and renewed missile exchanges between Israel, Lebanon and Gaza.

They are the result of growing divisions within Israeli society and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is as much a reflection of these realities as he is a driver and exploiter of the splits.

Roughly a quarter of Israel’s 9.2 million Jews are Orthodox. Another quarter regard themselves as Secular. The 50 percent balance are a variety of in-between shades which means a more or less even split between the two sides of the debate.

And it is a debate. A vicious and increasingly divisive one. Virtually everyone is agreed on Israel’s role as the Jewish homeland. A big majority support the 2018 law which defines Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and were pleased that the Israeli Supreme Court upheld that law with a 10-1 vote.

But there are heated arguments about what should be the values of the state of Israel and how to achieve them.

One big difference is the special treatment handed out to religious Jews. Until 2014 they were exempt from military service– a big deal in a country which prides itself on a semi-professional citizen’s army. In that year the Supreme Court ruled the exemption unconstitutional. They have, however, allowed postponements for the purposes of religious studies. They have also allowed the exemption for Orthodox Jewish women to continue.

Unsurprisingly, secular Jews are angry that they bear the brunt of physically protecting their homeland.

The situation is exacerbated by generous welfare subsidies paid to Orthodox men to allow them full-time study of the Torah. Sixty percent of Orthodox Jewish men live on welfare compared to 10 percent in the population as a whole.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 2nd April 2023 - 8:25 am

USA – Trump

I may have written too early and ill-advisedly when last week I predicted the political decline of Donald Trump.

His delayed indictment in the Stormy Daniels case has finally hit the newsstands and the ex-president is deftly using his victimhood to rally his political base. “This is,” he said “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history.”

Clearly the man never studied the classics or medieval European history.

But this has not stopped the conspiracy theorists from flooding cyber space with outlandish claims and threats of civil war. Qanon was quick to tweet that Trump is waging a secret war “against a network of Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and the media.” It added ominously: “We are ready when you are…Mr President.”

Trump’s opponents in the race for the Republican nomination – Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis – are also lining up behind the ex-president to condemn the indictment as a witch hunt. They are all afraid of alienating Trump’s political base.

But how big is that base? For a start, a significant proportion of Trump’s base in the 2016 and 2020 elections were White evangelical Christians. They comprise roughly a quarter of the American population and 80 percent of them voted for Trump.

However, a large proportion of the Evangelicals are one issue voters – abortion. They have won that battle with Trump’s Supreme Court nominees. They are unlikely to shift their allegiance to “socialist” Joe Biden but Trump’s apparent lack of morals could pull them towards one of the other Republican hopefuls, an independent third candidate or abstention.

That still leaves a sizable chunk of Trump supporters who have now been galvanised by their leader’s imminent arrest. Their reaction is the major unknown in American politics, and, following the Capitol Hill riots, potentially worrying. There may even be enough Trump supporters within the Republican Party to secure him the nomination. In fact, as of this week, he is 30 points ahead of his nearest challenger Ron DeSantis. But that could be the end of Trump’s political road. The country is hopelessly split between Republicans and Democrats. The balance lies with the roughly thirty percent of the voting population who are registered independents. They, and disenchanted evangelicals and moderate Republicans are unlikely to cast their vote for a felon, or even an alleged felon.

USA – guns

There are lots of reasons Americans have more guns than people – 395 million shooters for 336 million people.

There is the pioneer Wild West culture, Hollywood’s glorification of gun culture, personal and family protection, law enforcement, recreational target shooting, hunting and, of course, the pursuit of criminal objectives.

To my mind, the most worrying reason is protection of the individual from the government. This is one of the arguments by the National Rifle Association and politicians such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. It is a justification which dates back to the 1689 English Bill of Rights when citizens were guaranteed the right to carry guns as a defense against the imposition of a Catholic monarch.

This fear of “big government” using its power to deny Americans basic human rights was one of the reasons for the Second Amendment. They had, after all, just fought a revolution against a government which had blocked their liberties.

The problem for gun advocates is that society and politics has moved on from the 18th century. We have now had 240 years of American governments elected by universal franchise (except for women who did not secure the right to vote until 1920) to pass laws to protect them. If the gun lobby has a problem with lack of representation in federal government then it should use the legal instruments in the US constitution to amend it.

Instead its solution is more guns. Guns in schools. Guns in churches. Guns in shops and theatres and guns in homes. Following the latest school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, there are new reasons. Shootings are not a gun problem. They are a mental health problem. There are also, it is being argued post-Nashville, now a transgender problem because the shooter was a transgender person.

Very few Americans dare to suggest that the guns themselves are the problem. This is because the Second Amendment has become a political sacred cow.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Asian Stew

By Tom Arms | Fri 31st March 2023 - 7:18 pm

The current president of Taiwan is in America. Her immediate predecessor is in China. Meanwhile Beijing and Washington are slipping deeper into a dangerous stew of suspicion, enmity and mutual recriminations.

The visit to America by President Tsai Ing-wen is unofficial. It has to be to mute Chinese objections. But even unofficial visits by the Taiwanese raise the ire of Beijing and in this case the protests will be louder than usual because on April 5th President Tsai flies to California to meet Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and other Republican leaders.

President Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party are not flavour of the decade in Beijing. They lean towards a separate and independent Taiwan, although President Tsai is careful to avoid an explicit policy. She has cautiously declared: “Taiwan is already an independent state, thus rendering a formal declaration of independence is unnecessary.”

President Ma Ying-jeou was Taiwanese president from 2008 to 20016. He and his Kuomintang party lean towards a rapprochement with Beijing. Ma is currently on a 12-day unofficial visit to Mainland China. The first such visit by a past or present president of Taiwan. Like Tsai, he hedges his bets on relations with Beijing. In his first inaugural address he pledged: “No reunification, no independence, and no war.” He might have added: no commitments in any direction.

It was during Ma’s administration that shipping and other transport links with the mainland were re-established as well as a family reunification plan and a number of commercial ties. Some of those ties have been suspended by the Chinese Communist Party during Tsai’s administration.

Elections are scheduled in Taiwan in January and relations with the mainland are likely to dominate debates.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 26th March 2023 - 10:31 am

UK

The appearance of ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson before the House of Commons Privileges Committee has echoes of the fate of Charles the First and James the Second.

Each of the above cases helped to establish the supremacy of parliament over the monarchy, or the executive.

The modern-day British Prime Minister straddles both institutions. They must be a member of parliament and command the support of a majority of the House of Commons. But at the same time they are officially appointed by the monarch to represent them in parliament. They are accountable to both institutions, but as the 1689 Bill of Rights makes clear, more accountable to parliament which is “supreme.”

But if parliament is expected to do its job properly, it must be able to rely on the information that is provided by the executive branch (i.e. government ministers, including the prime minister). For that reason it is vital that ministers – especially the prime minister – do not intentionally or recklessly mislead or lie to the House of Commons or House of Lords.

To do so, completely undermines the principle of the supremacy of parliament and rocks the foundations of the British constitution. That is why Boris Johnson is in deep political hot water. It is not that he broke Covid rules. It is that he appears to have lied to parliament about it.

Charles I lost his head for challenging the supremacy of parliament and James II was forced to abdicate and fled to France. Boris Johnson is unlikely to suffer either fate. The worst that could happen to him is be suspended from parliament which is the 21st century equivalent of decapitation.

Such a move could easily split the Conservative Party. Boris has a strong personal following and Conservatives and despite the current ascendancy of the extreme right, they are divided between anti-European libertarian ideologues and one-nation tax-cutting businessmen.

France

State visits are a big deal. They require months, sometimes years, of careful protocol-driven planning. That is why the last minute cancellation of a state visit is an even bigger deal.

Next week King Charles III was scheduled to make his first ever state visit. It was to be to France to restore the Entente Cordiale to its pre-Brexit cordiality. On Friday it was announced that the visit had been postponed

For a change, the dramatic shift in protocol had nothing to do with Britain’s post-Brexit positions on Northern Ireland, fishing, immigration, Australian submarines or a thousand other potential Anglo-French flashpoints. It had everything to do with violent demonstrations sweeping across France in the wake of President Emmanuel Macron’s decreed legislation to increase the French retirement age from 62 to 64.

The result of the presidential decree has been a wave of violence and strikes across France. Rubbish is piling up in the streets of Paris. The entrance to Bordeaux Town Hall was set alight. 903 fires were started in the capital on Thursday, 400 people were arrested and police used tear gas against the demonstrators.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Trump declines (hopefully)

By Tom Arms | Sat 25th March 2023 - 9:07 am

Former President of the United States Donald Trump was on Tuesday expected to be arrested for one of his many alleged crimes.

He, of course, claimed that the arrest was another chapter in a long-running political witch hunt and called on his supporters to take to the streets and protest. And they did – all ten of them.

Ten is an exaggeration, but not by much. It was certainly true that there were more police officers and people demonstrating against Trump outside the Manhattan court house then there were those protesting his innocence.

The opinion polls show him leading challenger Ron DeSantis in the race for the Republican nomination. But if bodies on the street are an indication, Donald Trump’s pulling power is on the wane.

The Stormy Daniels case is only one of several legal challenges facing the former occupant of the White House. His business—the Trump Organisation—is accused of fraud. Any day now a Georgia Grand Jury is expected to indict him for solicitation of election fraud. The Justice Department is investigating his role in the January 6 Capitol Hill Riots and he is may still be charged under the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice for unlawful possession of top secret documents after he left the White House.

But the case that could do Donald Trump the most damage does not directly involve the ex-president as either defendant or plaintiff. But it cuts to the very heart of Trump’s political structure – his claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th March 2023 - 10:10 am

United States

US presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis this week said Ukraine is a territorial dispute. He also said that Ukraine is not one of America’s vital national interests. This puts him seriously at odds with President Joe Biden, America’s NATO allies and about 50 other countries who firmly believe that the war in Ukraine is a battle between democracy and autocracy, good and evil.

DeSantis was not always of this opinion. In 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimea, the Florida governor was in the forefront of those calling for Ukraine to be armed. The reason for the shift appears to be his political ambitions.

First hurdle in the race to the White House is securing the Republican Party nomination and at the moment  the opinion polls show him trailing his main opponent – Donald Trump, who is well known for his pro-Russian, anti-NATO and anti-Ukraine politics.

DeSantis clearly reckons that the only way to beat Trump is to out-Trump the former president. The problem he will face – once in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave – is moving from an anti to pro-Ukraine policy. De Santis’s rhetoric is a strategic gift to Vladimir Putin. He and his Kremlin coterie are banking heavily on a Republican victory in 2024. This means they only have to hold on for another 18 months or so before American disenchantment becomes official foreign policy.

France

The French, it is said, work to live. Americans, Brits, Japanese, Germans … live to work. This basic difference in outlook goes a long way to explaining why millions of Frenchmen and women are protesting and striking against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to raise the start of the state pension from 62 to 64 years. It will deprive them of two years “living time” or, as the neighbouring Italians would say: “La Dolce Vita.”

The problem with this idyllic view of life is that it clashes with hard-nosed demographics. France’s population is growing older and less productive. The French Treasury can’t afford to arm Ukraine, switch to a green economy and pay for the pandemic as well as continue to pay for one of the world’s most generous pension schemes. Especially as the French population is clinging to life much longer than the insurance actuaries estimated when today’s retirees entered the workforce.

In fact, when estimating premiums and pay-outs, insurance companies calculate that their customers will live for five years after they start taking their pension. The current average life expectancy of a Frenchman is 82. The maths no longer work.

The demographic problems faced by France, are common throughout the developed world. Which is why governments are pushing up state retirement ages. But this has not stopped the French from arguing that their national motto of “Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité” makes them a special case.

As a result, for the last few weeks they have been out in their hundreds of thousands to protest against Macron’s plans. They were heard. More importantly, the Deputies to the National Assembly listened. This week Macron failed to garner the necessary Assembly votes to push through his pension plans. So he used Article 49:3 of the constitution which permits the government to enact legislation without parliamentary approval, but allows the opposition to table a quick vote of no confidence.

The reaction was immediate and brutal. Opposition Deputies banged their desks, waved flags and placards and sang the Marsellaise. They also tabled the aforementioned vote of no confidence in the government. Outside the National Assembly riots broke out across the country. More than 150 people were arrested by Friday morning.

If the no confidence vote is passed then the government of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will fall and parliamentary elections will be held. Macron’s Renaissance party is already in a minority in the National Assembly. After an election with the pension age as the only issue, his representation will almost certainly fall further. This will make it more difficult for him to govern and be grist for the mill of his far-right opponent Jean-Marine LePen.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Shifting playing field

By Tom Arms | Sat 18th March 2023 - 8:55 am

The diplomatic playing field has shifted this week. The cause is China’s successful brokering of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Middle East arch-enemies and regional super powers Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Of course, the fact that new embassies will appear in Riyadh and Tehran does not mean that all will now be sweetness and light. Deep-seated differences remain between the founts of Sunni Islam and the world’s Shi-ites. But there is no doubt that jaw jaw is better than the undeclared war that has existed in the Gulf region for decades.

The biggest regional winner is Saudi Arabia. Iran has been sniping away at the kingdom’s oil and communications infrastructure and backing Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The eight-year Yemeni civil war has cost an estimated 300,000 lives; badly tarnished Saudi Arabia’s international reputation and drained the treasury. If diplomatic communications can shift the Iranian position on Yemen then it will enable Crown Prince to focus more on his economic plans as well as improving his platform on the world stage.

A definite loser in the current shift is Israel. Jerusalem’s implacable enemy is Iran. The Iranians support Hezbollah and Hamas and are on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapon which they say would be an existential threat to their existence.  Maintaining tensions between Arabs and Persians was a key element in Jerusalem’s divide and conquer diplomacy in the Persian Gulf.

The biggest loser, however, is the US. The biggest winner is China.  From 1945 to 1990 there were two super powers who competed for dominance on the world stage—America and the Soviet Union. Since the end of the Cold War the United States has been the go-to nation for any government seeking support in a diplomatic struggle.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th March 2023 - 9:42 am

UK

British Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s “Stop the Boats” policy is in danger of being torpedoed by the European Convention on Human Rights. But then Ms Braverman may have an answer to that problem: Withdraw from the convention and the jurisdiction of the administering European Court of Human Rights.

The Illegal Migration Bill – as it is officially called – is aimed at stopping the estimated 50,000-plus people who are expected to cross the English Channel in small boats this year. It is one of the five cornerstone goals of Rishi Sunak’s premiership.

A key element of the policy is that any small boat refugee crossing the channel to seek asylum in Britain will be detained for 28 days without access to the law. At the end of that period, if they are not granted asylum, they will be flown to Rwanda or transported back to their home country. There will be no right of appeal and anyone deported will be banned from future asylum applications.

Most legal eagles agree that the proposed law is a breach of the International Convention on Refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights which binds the British government to protect people (including refugees) from being killed or subject to inhumane and degrading treatment. It also exposes the Home Secretary to the charge of unlawful imprisonment and the denial of basic legal rights.

In anticipation of these obstacles, Ms Braverman has said that the European Court of Human Rights is “at odds with British values” and the “will of the British people,” thus raising the spectre of British withdrawal. It was British lawyers in the early post-war years who were largely responsible for drafting the European Convention of Human Rights and establishing the court. For their template they used Magna Carta and the 1689 English Bill of Rights with the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, the US Bill of Rights and the UN Declaration of Human Rights thrown in for good measure. Ms Braverman would appear to be “at odds” with legal history.

Ukraine

Russian missile attacks on Ukraine reached new levels this week and raised the danger levels at Europe’s largest nuclear reactor at Zaporizhzhia.  The missiles temporarily knocked out the outside power source which was needed to cool the reactors.

Power was restored on Thursday, but this was the sixth time that outside power has been cut off and workers have been forced to switch to emergency diesel generators to protect the reactors. Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN’s International Atomic Entergy Agency, said: “Each time this happens we are rolling the dice. One day our luck will run out.”

He accused the international community of complacency over the fate of the Zaporizhzhia power plant and urged the Russians, Ukrainians and all other interested parties to “commit to protect the supply and safety of the plant.”

Not all, nuclear experts agree with Senor Grossi’s dire warning. Some say that the reactors have been shut down to such an extent that they require little or no power to stay safe. They all agree that the ones in greatest danger are the Russian soldiers guarding the site and the Ukrainians working there.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Adjusting the thermostat

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th March 2023 - 8:33 am

European thermometers dropped this week. But generally speaking it has been a relatively mild winter and temperatures are starting to rise. This is good news for Ukraine. Good news for Europe. Bad news for Russia and great news for America.

Twelve months ago the Western Alliance was seriously worried that Europe’s reliance on Russian gas and oil would render it powerless to stand up to Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The outlook is now considerably brighter. Cash-strapped consumers turned down thermostats. Russian gas supplies have been cut by two-thirds. Nordstream pipelines have shut down (thank you saboteurs whomever you  may be). New storage facilities have been built for liquefied natural gas (LNG). The US has increased its shipments of LNG and Europe is moving faster towards renewable energy sources.

Glitches remain. Landlocked countries such as Austria, Hungary and Slovakia remain heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas and some 20 billion cubic metres (BCM) of Russian gas is still being pumped by pipeline into the EU. Ironically, the pipeline runs through Ukraine. Also, Europeans have increased purchases of Russian LNG, but moves are afoot to reverse that.

The bulk of Europe’s gas is now coming from America. Exports from the US are up 137 percent from a year ago. Companies such as Chevron and Exxon have stepped up fracking operations in Texas, Appalachia, New Mexico and Louisiana. They freeze the gas in terminals and then ship it to Europe. There it is transferred to either newly built storage facilities or specially adapted ships where it is returned to its gaseous state and piped to homes, power stations and factories.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 5th March 2023 - 9:15 am

Northern Ireland

It may be that the British lion may be learning how to wag its Irish tail instead of the reverse. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has negotiated a settlement of the Northern Ireland Protocol which has bedevilled UK-EU and UK-US relations and Britain’s standing in the world since the 2016 Brexit Referendum.

The chief stumbling block has been Northern Ireland’s ultra-nationalist, ultra-conservative, ultra-protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). For them Brexit was an opportunity to reverse the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which they never liked even though it ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The DUP’s hopes were seemingly dashed by Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit it Done” settlement which moved the UK-EU border to the Irish Sea and left Northern Ireland in Europe’s Single Market and Customs Union. Then faith was restored by Johnson’s threat to withdraw from the agreement he made, damaging relations with the EU; undermining belief in British adherence to international law and, because the US is a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, making an eagerly-sought US-UK trade deal a distant prospect.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has replaced ideologically-driven threats with pragmatic compromise and negotiations and come up with what is called the “Windsor Framework.” It is not perfect. It leaves the EU with a great deal of say in Northern Irish affairs, but is possibly the best deal that could be secured with a weak British hand.

For a start, the Windsor Framework establishes “red and green lanes” for goods entering Northern Ireland from mainland Britain. The green lanes are for goods staying in the province and are customs free. The red lanes for goods transiting on to Eire and are subject to EU tariffs.

Of perhaps greater importance is the sovereignty issue. Disputes will now be discussed by a joint EU-UK consultative body with final arbitration by an independent arbitrator working within the framework of international law. The Stormont Assembly will have a say through a mechanism called “The Stormont Brake”, but this cannot be used for “trivial reasons” and Westminster can veto Stormont.

The “Stormont Brake” can be used if the Assembly is in session. At the moment it is not because the DUP refuses to attend as a protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The DUP has neither accepted nor rejected the “Windsor Framework.” It has said it wants time – lots of it – to consider its options. Sunak has said fair enough. Take all the time you want. But the framework will be approved with or without your support. This is no empty threat. The prime minister has support from the Opposition Labour Party and Liberal Democrats and can easily outvote the DUP and any rebel right-wing Tories.

Covid-19

Donald Trump’s number one conspiracy theory may be right. That is according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.  Covid-19 may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory specialising in coronavirus research. America’s Department of Energy agrees with Christopher Wray and even the World Health Organisation is making noises about reversing its previous position and saying that the claims are worth a fresh investigation.

However, the CIA and other US intelligence agencies continue to report that the most likely scenario is that the virus jumped from animals to humans via the Wuhan food market. The vast majority of the world’s scientists agree with the spooks at Langley, Virginia and the White House says there is no firm proof either way.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese steadfastly maintain that the virus started in animals, not their lab. In fact, some officials have come up with a counter conspiracy claim that the virus was manufactured in a US research facility in Ft. Derick, Maryland and released in Wuhan by American agents.

Beijing is determined to avoid any blame. Not only does it undermine their claims to scientific competency, it also lays them open to lawsuits. Notoriously litiginous Trump has demanded that the Chinese pay $10 trillion and thousands of Floridians have signed up for a class action suit with Miami-based law firm the Bernard Law Group. Of course, the chances of collecting any money is nil.

Whether the virus started in a lab or a bat is important to know. The knowledge will help public health officials to prevent future pandemics. For that reason alone the lack of Chinese transparency is disturbing.

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Observations of an expat: A Chinese peace

By Tom Arms | Sat 4th March 2023 - 8:55 am

The Chinese Ukrainian peace kite is unlikely to remain aloft for long for several reasons:

  • Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are prepared – yet – to throw in the towel.
  • Vladimir Putin cannot afford failure.
  • Neither Ukraine nor its NATO backers can afford failure.
  • A Chinese brokered peace is unacceptable to the US because it increases Beijing’s position in the world at Washington’s expense.

However, both Volodomyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin will meet President Xiping, foreign minister Wang Yi and any other Chinese emissaries. Zelensky needs to be seen to be willing to talk to keep Beijing from supplying Putin with weapons and Putin must do the same to secure the weapons.

In one sense, the Chinese are the ideal peace brokers. Putin is the aggressor. He is the one who must be persuaded to stand down. The Chinese are the only ones with sufficient leverage over the Russian leader. The Turks have tried and failed. So have the Israelis. The US and its allies have ruled themselves out by supplying weapons to Ukraine.

In the best diplomatic traditions, Beijing’s 12-point proposal manages to annoy both sides in the conflict while at the same time projecting lofty aspirations with the minimum of detail.

The proposal calls for respecting sovereignty. Russia has clearly breached Ukraine’s sovereignty. Abandon the Cold War mentality. This is a state of mind for which both Russia and NATO could be blamed. Protect civilians and POWs. Great, and remember Bucha, Kharkhiv, Mariupol and Kherson. Resolve the humanitarian crisis, which has created 6.8 million Ukrainian refugees. Promote post-war reconstruction which so far is estimated to cost Ukraine $1 trillion. Stop threatening to use nuclear weapons; a threat which only Putin has used. And end unilateral sanctions which means sanctions not approved by the UN and would undermine Western sanctions against China.

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Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 26th February 2023 - 8:56 am

China

China has marked the first anniversary of the Ukraine War with a pair of unsurprising foreign policy papers. The first one concentrates on the Ukraine War and proposes a well-trod and contradictory solution: Russia respects Ukrainian national sovereignty. Everyone respects Russia’s security aspirations and nobody imposes sanctions against anyone.

The second paper is more about calls for a new world order. Again, no real surprises. China is trying to re-write the international rule book by playing to the interests of the developing world in Africa, Asia and South America.

The second paper is important but China’s position on Ukraine is of more immediate interests and whether Beijing likes it or not, the two issues are clearly linked. The outcome of the Ukraine War will influence which way the global South jumps: If Ukraine wins then American influence grows. If Russia stomps Ukraine then it is a victory for Beijing as well as Moscow.

But back to China’s Ukraine paper which was preceded by foreign minister Wang Yi’s tour of Europe and participation in the Munich Security Conference. The goal of the trip was to drive a wedge between the US and its NATO allies. He failed.

Hanging over Wang’s trip was the claim by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that China is on the cusp of supplying weaponry to Vladimir Putin. Wang Yi denied this to EU foreign affairs commissioner Josep Borrell. But at the same time, Chinese diplomats, are letting it be known that the option is on the table. And if the US pushes them too far they will use it.

START

START has stopped. To be more precise it has been suspended by Vladimir Putin. This means that the last of the US-Russian strategic arms agreements has crumbled. These treaties were key building blocks in the diplomatic structure that ended the Cold War and continues to govern East-West relations.

So what is START? Well, for a start, it is an acronym for Strategic Arms Reduction Talks. Its full name is actually New START and it replaces START One which expired in 2009 as well as START Two and three which never got off the ground and the Treaty of Moscow (aka SORT).

What does (or did) START do? It cut by 10 percent the number of strategic missile launchers of Russia and the US and set up a system of on-site inspections to verify that both sides were sticking to the agreement. The total number of launch platforms, which includes submarines, missile siloes and heavy bombers is limited to 1,550 each. It does not reduce the number of nuclear warheads they can hold, just the delivery systems. But then warheads are pretty useless if a country does not have the means to deliver them.

The START talks are the successor negotiations to the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation) talks which started with the 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty and limited the increase in the size of the super powers’ nuclear arsenals. At the height of the Cold War the Soviet Union had an estimated 40,000 nuclear warheads and the US 30,000.

President George W. Bush started unravelling the strategic arms structure in 2001 when he withdrew from the ABM Treaty over Russian objections. START was a major foreign policy victory for the Obama Administration but in 2019 Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty which limited the deployment of Intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.

New START was last treaty standing. It was due to expire in 2021, but was extended for another five years. However, the Russians have been in breach of the agreement since March 2020. That is the last time Americans were allowed to inspect Russian facilities. The initial excuse for refusing access was the pandemic. That was superseded by the Ukraine War, which, of course, is the reason for the current suspension and, as most diplomats know, there are few things more permanent than the temporary.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Happy Birthday

By Tom Arms | Sat 25th February 2023 - 9:38 am

Fans of our foreign editor, Tom Arms, will be delighted to hear that he has started a weekly podcast, Transatlantic Riff.

Happy Birthday Ukraine, the Russian people, Europe, America and all the rest of the world.

The Ukraine War is one year old. An estimated 300,000 lives have been lost so far – and that is only the soldiers.

More than 5.2 million refugees have fled the fighting, mainly women and children who have left fathers, sons and husbands behind. Those who remain in Ukraine live in daily fear of Russian missile attacks. Many are without water, electricity or heating.

The ripple effects of the Ukraine War have encompassed the world. A trillion dollars’ worth of damage has been inflicted on Ukraine and the war has so far cost Europe and America an estimated $215 billion and this is only the beginning.

The Ukraine War has closed key gas and oil pipelines from Russia to Europe and forced Europeans to seek alternative supplies from America and Middle East. This in turn has pushed energy prices to crisis levels.

Inflation has been fuelled by energy problems and food shortages as Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are major suppliers of grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers.

The war has also produced tectonic diplomatic shifts. It has united Ukrainians and provided them with a clear national identity reinforced by a charismatic leader. Yes, Putin is right when he says Ukraine’s history is closely linked with that of Russia. But its future is not.

The war has also re-united Europe and NATO. For years America has complained about low levels of European defense spending, especially in Germany. Donald Trump even threatened to withdraw from the alliance. That has ended. Europeans are spending more and sending aid to Ukraine. The EU financial aid is actually $5 billion more than America’s $45 billion. But America’s total commitment of humanitarian, financial and military -dwarves the contributions of all the other countries combined.

Putin claims that his invasion is a reaction to NATO enlargement. If so, the war has become a self-fulfilling prophecy as Sweden and Finland have reversed their long-standing commitments to neutrality to apply for NATO membership and Ukraine is now a de facto member of the Western Alliance, but still outside the ultimate protection of Article Five.

Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats – veiled and unveiled – to use nuclear weapons has also revived the fear of a nuclear war. As has his announcement this week that he is suspending Russia’s in arms reduction talk, formally ending inspections of nuclear weapons sites and increasing Moscow’s nuclear arsenal.

On the ground, both sides are literally dug in with trenches crisscrossing in a general north-south gash across the Eastern part of Ukraine. Russia is believed to be on the verge of throwing another 200,000 conscripts against the Ukrainian frontline. The Ukrainian, for their part are hoping that poorly-led Russian troops will exhaust themselves against their defensive wall and fall to a Ukrainian counter offensive in the spring.

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Observations of an Expat – Quake Problems

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th February 2023 - 10:05 am

The death toll of Turkey’s earthquake has passed the 20,000 mark. It will soar further as freezing weather and disease sweep through the refugee camps and devastated towns and villages to replace falling rubble as the primary cause of death.

But the earthquake has also created and exacerbated political problems and opportunities whose rippling aftershocks have the potential effect of toppling political as well as physical structures.

The first possible victim is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is coming under attack for his failure to build sounder structures in the middle of the one of the world’s most dangerous earthquake zones. It should be noted that Erdogan rose to power on the back of Bulent Ecevit’s failures after a 1999 earthquake.

The destruction in southern Turkey came at both the best and worst of times for President Erdogan. His popularity is plummeting amidst economic problems and increasing dissatisfaction with his autocratic rule. There is a real possibility that he could lose the parliamentary and presidential ballot set for 14 May.

But at the same time, the natural disaster has created opportunities for Erdogan. He has declared a three-month state of emergency which will take him right up to Election Day. This will enable him to deploy troops and tighten his stranglehold on the media. Already social media users have been arrested for criticising the government’s earthquake policies.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th February 2023 - 10:05 am

While a Chinese balloon floated through American skies President Joe Biden stepped up to the podium to deliver his annual State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress.

The events were notable for two reasons: They exposed an irrational Yellow Peril fear that more than matches the Red Scare of Cold War years and pointed to a possible new era of American isolationism.

Conspicuous by its absence from Biden’s address to the Joint Session of Congress was any mention of foreign policy. With war raging in Ukraine, Turkey and Syria devastated by earthquakes, South America in political turmoil and China expanding, spying and rattling sabres over Taiwan. one would have thought Biden would have focused more on the world situation.

Instead he spoke about domestic concerns. Biden’s success in creating jobs; protecting American industry and controlling inflation. With at least one eye focused on next year’s elections, he is stealing Republican clothes by shifting to a more isolationist stand.

In this respect, the president appears to be following rather than leading US public opinion. The latest polls show a significant drop in American support for the war in Ukraine. China, however, is a different matter. The Chinese spy/weather balloon (probably a bit of both) did secure a passing reference in the president’s speech; probably because of the hysteria it generated among the American public. The fact is that countries spy on each other. The US spies on China. China spies on the US. Russia spies on….

Most of the spying is unseen. Intelligence operatives skulking in the corridors of power or satellites in space. The balloon, however, could be seen as it floated from Alaska, over missile silos in Montana and North Dakota and then finally to the Atlantic where it was shot down by US fighter planes.

The much discussed Asian Pivot was this week back in the news. For a start, American troops are returning in big numbers to the Philippines. The reason? The threat of China and the need to maintain international access to the South China Sea and protect Taiwan.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 5th February 2023 - 10:30 am

USA and Israel

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week subtly attacked Benjamin Netanyahu.  He didn’t directly criticise him, but the inference was clear. With a poker-faced Netanyahu standing next to him, Blinken pointedly listed the “core values” that the US and Israel shared: “respect for human rights. The equal administration of justice for all. Equal rights for minority groups. The rule of law, a free press, an independent judiciary and a robust civil society.”

Israel’s conservative press immediately and viciously attacked Blinken for “interfering in domestic Israeli politics.”  This is because by highlighting these “core values” Blinken implied that Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist government is veering away from them and heading towards what Hungary’s Viktor Orban calls an “illiberal democracy.”

The government’s claim to the disputed West Bank (now populated with 400,000 Israeli settlers) undermines Israeli claims that it protects human rights and the equal rights of minority groups. As did the continuing and spiralling violence which in January claimed 30 Palestinian and seven Israeli lives.

The rule of law and an independent judiciary is threatened by plans to politicise the Israeli Supreme Court and empower the legislature to override Supreme Court Decisions. It is further damaged by the fact that Netanyahu himself has been indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust, bribery and corruption.

Azerbaijan and Armenia

Nagorno-Karabakh is threatening to explode again. Either that or an estimated 120,000 Armenian civilians, including 30,000 children, will starve to death or die of disease because of an Azerbaijani blockade.

The Azerbaijan-Armenia dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh goes back to the 1917 break-up of the Russian empire. Stalin’s purges pushed it into the background but when the Soviet Empire dissolved frictions reappeared. The two countries have gone to war over the region in the 1990s, 2016 and most recently in 2020.

In each case Russia backed its traditional proxy Christian Armenia (the oldest Christian country in the world) and Turkey supported Muslim Azerbaijan. Turkish support has paid off for autocratic oil-rich Azerbaijan which has been able to buy the latest military equipment from Turkey. They soundly defeated the Armenians in the last conflict and substantially reduced the territory occupied by Armenians.

But that is not good enough for Azerbaijani President Ilhan Aliyev. On 12 December he sent in troops to block the Armenian community’s only access to the outside world, the Lachlin Corridor. He then told the Armenians they could either leave their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, become Azeri citizens or starve.

They are starving. They are also without medical supplies, electricity is rationed, schools are closed and there is limited communication with the outside world. The Armenian Society of Fellows claims that Ilhan Aliyev is guilty of attempted genocide. The blockade has condemned by the EU, the US, The Council of Europe, Amnesty International and just about every developed country and a big chunk of the rest of the world.

But Aliyev ignores them all. His hand is strengthened by 1- Russia being distracted by Ukraine and 2- oil. Armenia was the birthplace of modern oil production and remains one of the world’s top producers. The current energy crisis is keeping prices high and allowing to hold at bay energy-poor Europeans. In the meantime, the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh starve.

Tyre Nichols, USA

The sad case of Tyre Nichols has highlighted America’s problem of police brutality. It doesn’t matter if it is blue on black, black on black or white on black; America has a problem with police forces too quick to resort to violence.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: The Adani scandal

By Tom Arms | Sat 4th February 2023 - 10:04 am

The Adani scandal is big. It is big because it involves hundreds of billions of dollars; valuable and important infrastructure throughout Asia and could potentially suck in the government the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

First of all, who are the key players in this saga? They are the Adani Group’s founder Gautam Adani, Nate Anderson of Hindenburg Research and Prime Minister Modi.  Last week, Adani, was the third richest man in the world. Today he is the 15th richest following the damning report by Hindenburg.

The Indian tycoon was a school dropout who started his business career in Mumbai as a diamond trader. But he soon moved back to his home state of Gujarat (where Modi was chief minister) and switched to commodities trading. Using Gujarat as his base, Adani established a business empire that includes India’s largest cement company, 13 ports, seven airports, six power stations and much more. The Adani Group even runs its own private railway and electricity supply.

Adani has 23,000 employees and ten days ago the conglomerate had a market capitalisation of $230 billion. At the end of this week it was $120 billion and falling.

Now, who is Nate or Nathaniel Anderson? He is a former New York trader who founded Hindenburg Research with the aim of blowing the whistle on corporate fraud.  Hindenburg forensic accounting techniques and good old detective work to uncover corporate fraud and corruption. It analyses public records, internal corporate documents and conducts confidential interviews with whistle blowing employees.  Most of their investigations take about six months. The Adani analysis lasted two years.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 29th January 2023 - 9:28 am

France and Germany

The Franco-German alliance is wobbling. As if to emphasise the problem, this past weekend the entire German cabinet decamped to Versailles in an attempt to improve relations.

The relationship between Paris and Berlin is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. It has been held since 1960 when Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer ended a century of war and suspicion at Reims Cathedral.

Some of the current problems can be attributed to the egos of Macron and Scholz. President Macron makes no secret of his desire to lead Europe. Unfortunately the French economy does not match its president’s ambitions. At the same time the rather colourless Chancellor Olof Scholz is having difficulty filling the over-sized shoes of his predecessor Angela Merkel.

The personal relationship between the two leaders is complicated by important policy differences over China, Ukraine, Russia and energy. Scholz encourages trade with China. Macron is more diffident. The French president also wanted the German Chancellor’s recent visit to Beijing to be a joint Franco-German affair. Scholz refused.

On energy, the French are annoyed that the Germans failed to foresee the problems of dependence Russian oil and gas and remain reluctant to build nuclear power plants. About 70 percent of French energy is nuclear while in Germany it is only 12 percent.

Then there is Ukraine. The French – along with most of the rest of France and Germany’s allies – are annoyed that almost every scrap of German military and economic aid has to be dragged out of the Scholz government. When it comes the aid is often generous, but the “frank discussions” that precede it are causing friction.

India

Don’t mess with the BBC. That should have been the message that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heeded before trying to ban a documentary attacking him.  The BBC has 22,000 staff, 192 million radio listeners, 294 million television  viewers, the world’s most visited news website. Distribution deals with television networks around the world, and the most trusted brand in world journalism.

None of the above, however, stopped Modi from banning a two-part documentary entitled “India: the Modi Question” from being shown or distributed in India.

The documentary was not Modi friendly. In fact, it was extremely unfriendly The programme strongly implied that Modi climbed to power on the back of divisive Hindu nationalism. Also that while Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002 he stood aside and allowed Hindu rioters to massacre 1,000 Muslims . That was part one. In Part two, the documentary accused Modi of trying to disenfranchise the Muslim minority; suppressing freedom of speech, assembly and the press, intimidating his political opponents and moving the world’s largest democracy towards an authoritarian Hindu state.

So, the programme was not re-broadcast on Indian television. But the ban was reported in the Indian press. The resultant publicity meant that  tens of millions viewed it on the internet and at special showings at Indian universities. And as they watched the viewers would have asked: If it isn’t true why has Modi banned it? Of what is he frightened? And finally they thought: the BBC is usually reliable.

The documentary ended with a diplomat saying that the Western world is turning a blind eye to Modi’s political excesses. He said that India was too important as an economy and a counterweight to Chinese influence in Asia.

Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock this week moved to 90 seconds to midnight. This is the closest it has ever been to nuclear Armageddon. The minute hand has been moved to its news dangerous position mainly because of the war in Ukraine.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Ukraine tanks conundrum

By Tom Arms | Sat 28th January 2023 - 10:24 am

Supplying tanks to Ukraine is not as simple a matter as it may appear at first glance.

It is an issue that is interwoven with competing and overlapping problems of military strategy, political pitfalls, German guilt, Russian nationalism and expansionist ambitions, Ukrainian self-determination, nuclear blackmail, the long-term prospects for peace in Eastern Europe and the age-old battle of good versus evil.

The solution to send perhaps a total of 200 tanks from various NATO countries to Zelensky’s army is insufficient to satisfy the Ukrainians and more than enough to fuel the Russian propaganda machine.

Ukraine is flat tank country. Ukraine wants NATO tanks – especially the German Leopards – to launch a counter-offensive to regain territory.

NATO initially rushed to Ukraine’s aid with defensive equipment; primarily anti-tank and anti-missile weaponry to stop the massive Russian tank attack from Belarus and to blunt Russian artillery barrages.

It worked. In fact, better than expected. So much so that Volodomyr Zelensky appears determined to build on his success to drive the Russians out of all the territory which Ukraine has lost since 2014 (and Russia has annexed) including Crimea.

This would seem quite reasonable as international law is quite-rightly wedded to the principle of self-determination and in 1994 Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders and its territorial integrity in return for Ukraine relinquishing its nuclear weapons and signing the nuclear non- proliferation treaty.

But Eastern Ukraine is predominantly Russian-speaking. The majority of its inhabitants have traditionally looked east to Moscow. As for Crimea, it has been Russian since 1783 and one of Moscow’s most important naval centres.

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Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 22nd January 2023 - 10:39 am

Ukraine

Ukraine is tank country. It is part of the flat and fertile North European plain which stretches from the Urals to the North Sea. That very same corridor has throughout history doubled as a military highway for invading armies head East or West.

This geopolitical fact is why Russia started the Ukraine War with a massive arsenal of 10,000 tanks and Ukraine had 2,500.  Since the fighting started nearly a year ago, the Russians have lost about 1,500 of their tanks. But relatively speaking to the initial size of their forces, the Ukrainians have fared worse with a loss of about a quarter of their tanks.

The Ukrainian losses on the tank battlefield, coupled with the importance of armour in the flat terrain, is the reason why Vlodomyr Zelensky is pleading with NATO for more armour.

The three countries that have tanks to spare are the US, Germany and Poland. The UK and France decided ten years ago that another North European war was unlikely and ran down their tank forces. France has only 200 main battle tanks and the UK about 220.

The US is well short of the Russians at 6,612 tanks, but if you add Germany’s 2,761 Leopard tanks and Poland’s fast-growing arsenal, the Ukrainians could match Russia tank for tank.

The problem is that the Germans are reluctant to be seen to escalate the conflict and the Biden Administration needs a strong European (which in this case means German) commitment to justify sending state of the art M1 Abrams tanks.

This leaves Poland, with some help from Finland and the Baltic states, to fill the yawning gap in Ukrainian armoured battalions. In the meantime, Ukraine is preparing for Russia’s inevitable tank-led spring offensive.

New Zealand

Jacinda Adern, has voluntarily, out of the blue, resigned. The prime minister of tiny New Zealand is one of the most respected international figures. She successfully introduced strict gun laws after the Christchurch mosque shooting left 51 dead; led her Labour Party to an historic landslide victory and organised one of the few successful containments of the covid virus. But Ms Adern has decided her work is done and is stepping down.

Now compare the New Zealand leader to other Western politicians who are prepared to lie, cheat and twist the law to cling to power. Britain’s Boris Johnson and America’s Donald Trump immediately spring to mind. Trump with his unfounded claim that he won the 2020 presidential election and Boris with who claimed ignorance of Downing Street parties during the covid lockdown. Ms Adern led by example when she was in office and she is doing same with her departure and is being praised for doing so. Politicians who are concerned about their legacies should take note.

USA

The moral high ground is where every politician wants to be. Donald Trump has never managed more than a foot or two up the mountain and his failure to climb higher was a factor in his 2020 electoral defeat at the hands of “relatively honest” Joe Biden. Now, Biden has suffered a major downhill slide: classified documents have been found where they should not be – in his office and even his garage.  Their discovery has inevitably been compared to the discovery of classified material in Trump’s Mar-a-lago home and led to another special counsel investigation of another president.

However, document-gate does not appear to have adversely impacted on Biden’s popularity. His approval ratings have actually gone up this month from 38 to 44 percent.  Pundits believe that the voters are inured to moral shortcomings but have been impressed that the US is enjoying record unemployment, lower inflation and impressed by the Democrats’ performance in the mid-term elections.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Shrinking China

By Tom Arms | Sat 21st January 2023 - 10:36 am

China is shrinking. India is growing. Sometime this year the sub-continental nation will usurp China as the most populous country on earth.

This and a number of other ineluctable facts will have a profound impact on China, India, Asia and the rest of the world.

Every economy needs workers to produce goods and services.  The more workers – especially relatively cheap ones – the faster a country’s GDP grows.

There are other factors at play. China’s pensioner population is rapidly growing. The proportion of retirees has expanded from 37.12 percent in 2010 to 44.14 percent in 2020 which means fewer workers and .greater social care costs. India, by comparison has an average age of 29.

Then there is covid. Xi Jinping’s decision to end his zero covid policy has let loose the deadly virus at the same time as hundreds of millions are travelling for Chinese New Year. To make matters worse most of the travellers are young people going from covid-infected cities to visit vulnerable elderly relatives in the less affected rural areas.

According to the University of Beijing, 900 million Chinese have been infected with the covid virus. The exact fatality figure is a government-protected secret. But it is known that healthcare services have been stretched beyond breaking point.

The pandemic has forced the closure of many Chinese production facilities and this year growth is expected to be only 3.2 percent. This is higher than the US, EU and the world average, but China starts from a lower base and the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power is built on ever-improving living standards. The World Bank is predicting 6.9 percent economic growth in rival India.

Beijing’s mounting domestic problems – short and long-term – will force the Chinese Communist Party to focus its attention on internal issues. These means fewer foreign adventures and an effort to stabilise relations with the US, Europe, Japan and elsewhere. A recent visit by German Chancellor Olof Scholz was seen as a big win for the EU and other visits are planned by French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 15th January 2023 - 10:37 am

United States

The Kevin McCarthy election fiasco will have far-reaching consequences for Speaker McCarthy, Donald Trump, the Republican Party, the conduct of US government and the rest of the world. Let’s start with Mr. Trump. He endorsed Mr McCarthy. The “Never Kevins” in the far-right Republican Freedom Caucus ignored him. The voters ignored his key endorsements in the mid-term elections. Trump’s star is still in the firmament, but on the wane.

Now for the Republican Party. The battle to secure McCarthy’s election exposed a split. A small group of 20 right-wing extremists were able to delay and nearly blocked the election of Kevin McCarthy against the wishes of 202 of their party colleagues. They have also wrung key concessions out of the Speaker. The Freedom Caucus have discovered power. They will use it.

What are these concessions and what impact will their implementation have? First of all, if any one member of Congress does not like something that Speaker McCarthy has done they can table a vote to remove him. At the very least, this has the potential to seriously disrupt and delay congressional business. .  This means that McCarthy will be much more politically circumspect then he might have been otherwise.

Next, the Speaker has agreed to give more time to debate and amend legislation on the floor of the house. The Freedom Caucus are also known as “Disrupters” and they are particularly keen on disrupting or blocking any spending bills, especially those related to Ukraine and foreign aid. And if it means stopping the machinery of government, then, according to Freedom Caucus members, so be it.

France

The British NHS is not the only European health service with problems. The French are also wringing their medical hands. The problem? Not enough staff and – as in Britain – the looming threat of strikes. As the New Year dawned some Paris hospitals reported 90 percent of staff reported sick in protest at working conditions. The country’s second largest health union has called for an “unlimited walkout” of nurses followed by a strike by GPs.

President Emmanuel Macron is throwing money at the problem but so far it is not working. Forty percent of French nurses are planning to leave the profession this year despite an extra $10 billion wage package.  Wannabe doctors are being offered a $50,000 golden handshake to enter the profession.

The French desperately needs them. Rural areas are especially short of medical staff, some communities have been without a doctor’s surgery for several years and the situation is only likely to worsen as about half of the French doctors are over 55 and fast approaching retirement age.

UK

There is a stand-out villain in Prince Harry’s book “Spare” – the press, especially Britain’s tabloid newspapers. I, in common with most of the public, have some sympathy and understanding with Harry’s views especially as one of the worst elements of the tabloids – the paparazzi played a major part in his mother’s death.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Latin Fandango

By Tom Arms | Fri 13th January 2023 - 4:36 pm

South America is in a mess. The problems stretch from Patagonia to Cartagena and further north into Central America and Mexico.

Almost everywhere there is violence, political instability and economic problems.

The main spotlight has been shone on Brazil. The Portuguese-speaking nation is the economic giant of South America. Its GDP is four times the next largest Latin economy and the eighth largest in the world. Brazil has tremendous potential and political problems.

It is deeply divided after left-winger Luiz Inacio da Silva (aka Lula) narrowly defeated right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro in October elections.

Bolsonaro and his supporters has claimed the elections were rigged and demanded a re-run. Thousands of Bolsonaristas (as they are called) stormed government offices in the capital Brasilia including Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. 1,200 have been arrested.

But the real problem is not the validity of the elections but the deep divide between Brazil’s political left and right. Conservatives, which include the military, police, middle classes and growing Christian evangelical movement, view Lula as a crypto-communist set on destroying Brazilian democracy and taking their country down the path of Cuba or Venezuela. Bolsonaro’s opponents worry that he will return Brazil to a military dictatorship.

To the south, Argentina is suffering another bout of Peronism and a division at the top of the country’s political structure. President Alberto Fernandez and Vice-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner simply don’t speak to each other. On top of that, Ms Kirchner has been convicted of fraud totalling $1 billion.

The resultant political vacuum and distractions at the top of the Argentine political tree, coupled with Peronism’s irresponsible spending has left the country with a crippling debt and 100 percent inflation rate. Thirty-seven percent of the country live below the poverty line.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 18th December 2022 - 10:02 am

Qatar

As the World Cup draws to a close, host nation Qatar is being implicated in yet another scandal. This one involves allegedly bribing key figures in the European Parliament.

It is widely accepted that super-rich Qatar secured the World Cup with cash payments to FIFA board members. Now it is alleged that they tried to obtain preferential visa treatment for their citizens with a few selected bribes. The main target of the Qataris is alleged to be European Parliament Vice President Eva Kalli. She has been arrested on charges of money laundering, corruption and belonging to a criminal organisation. The Greek MEP has denied all charges but has been stripped of her vice-presidency and her assets have been frozen. She remains, however, an MEP.

Qatar’s representation to the EU issued a statement “categorically” rejecting “any attempts to associate the State of Qatar” with the scandal. The European Parliament thinks otherwise and has postponed indefinitely the vote that would have allowed Qatari citizens to be issued with automatic three-month visas on arrival at EU airports. The problem with the Qataris is that they have form and money to splash out. Their and oil gas-fed Sovereign Wealth Fund guarantees a per capita income of $61,276.

Russia

One of the main aims of Western sanctions against Russia is to deprive Moscow of technology needed for Putin’s military machine. This is especially the case with advanced semi-conductors, aka computer chips.

According to the US Department of Commerce, the sanctions have resulted in a 70 percent reduction in Russian imports of this vital technology. Not so says Reuters News Agency and the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). If anything, they claim, Russia is receiving more computer chips and other advanced technology than ever before. In April, according to Reuters and RUSI, Russia recorded received $34 million in advanced technology from Western companies. In October 2022 the figure rose to $87.96 million.

Overall, at least $2.6 billion in advanced technology from US and European companies has ended up in Russia since the start of the Ukraine War. They include equipment from Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices and Texas Instruments. There is no question of these companies selling their goods directly to Russia. The equipment is being bought by middlemen based mainly in Turkey and Hong Kong who are then marking up the price and selling the technology to Russia. One company, Azu Industries, which has offices in Germany and Turkey, is alleged to have profited to the tune of $26 million since the start of the war.

India and China

Back in colonial times -July 1914 to be precise – British diplomats sat down with Tibetan diplomats to negotiate the border between India and Tibet (also known as the Line of Actual Control or LAC). Also present was a Chinese diplomat who stormed out of the meeting after protesting that Tibet had no right to negotiate any treaties because it was part of China.

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