O impeachment visto de fora - Paulo Gregoire (Stratfor)

The Root of Brazil's Political Problems
By Paulo Gregoire
Stratfor Analysis, JULY 31, 2016 | 13:03 GMT

Brazilian lawmakers vote April 17 on whether the impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff will move forward. The proliferation of political parties in Brazil has made it more difficult for executive powers to avoid impeachment.

Sumary
Much ado has been made about Brazil's precarious political situation ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics. But how did the country come to be in such a tight spot? In large part the answer lies in the massive number of political parties active in Brazil, which has led to a particularly fragmented congress. It is an old trend, observed most famously by Brazilian political scientist Sergio Abranches in a 1988 paper titled "Coalition Presidentialism: The Brazilian lnstitutional Dilemma." According to Abranches, one of Brazil's most serious institutional challenges is what he deemed to be a "coalitional presidentialism" — a system by which the president must form and govern over a multiparty coalition, which becomes more difficult the more parties are involved.

Brazil's was a concerning political model, but a temporary one, Abranches argued. He believed that as democracy strengthened in the country, elections would limit the number of viable political parties. But he was wrong. Since Abranches made that prediction in 1988, the number of political parties with more than 5 percent representation in congress has doubled, rising from four to eight. In the same period, the Brazilian congress impeached former President Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992, and it is now in the process of impeaching President Dilma Rousseff, who will likely be forced out of office by the end of August. This is not to say the proliferation of political parties actually caused these impeachments. But it certainly made them more difficult for the executive powers to manage, and impeachment more difficult to avoid.

Analysis
The problem with a system that incorporates so many political parties is that it can weaken the executive if he or she is unable to unify a ruling coalition. Maintaining balance in such a heterogeneous environment becomes more difficult in times of social upheaval or political crisis. That is why even when marches and protests were being held against Rousseff across Brazil in early 2015, Stratfor was monitoring Roussef's political coalition even more closely than the developments on the street. At the time the protests, though dramatic, did not pose the biggest threat to the president; the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), the main political ally of the ruling Workers' Party, did.

Though an impeachment case must be based on a specific alleged legal violation, it is ultimately a political decision rather than a judicial one. If Rousseff had been capable of maintaining a cohesive coalition in congress, she would have earned the one-third of the votes needed to stop the impeachment proceedings against her. As it happened, though, once the PMDB distanced itself from Rousseff, her impeachment became all but certain.

Rousseff did not lose control of her coalition in one fell swoop. It was a gradual process, driven by a declining economy, accusations of budget manipulation and revelations of a monumental corruption scandal involving state-owned oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, which Rousseff formerly chaired. The final nail in the coffin, however, came when PMDB candidate Eduardo Cunha, an outspoken opponent of Rousseff, won the presidency of the lower house of congress over the Workers' Party candidate. In this role, Cunha had the authority to take up the impeachment request against Rousseff in December 2015.

Forming a Coalition
The more parties there are in Brazil's political landscape, the more difficult it is to build a viable coalition. The PMDB, the country's largest party, has only 13 percent of the seats in congress. But in Brazil, where there have been impeachment requests filed against every president since 1988, building an effective coalition is vital for a president, not only for the purposes of passing legislation but also for keeping the post. Only in 1992 and 2015 have Brazil's ruling coalitions been so weak as to allow impeachment requests to pass through congress and into the judiciary; the 1992 request led to the ouster of the sitting president, and the 2015 request appears as though it will do the same.

In fact, interim President Michel Temer has already been working to strengthen a new ruling coalition in preparation for Rousseff's permanent removal. Temer has allocated ministries and high-level positions in state-owned companies, including the Caixa Economica Federal bank, to members of nearly all the political parties in the coalition to win their favor. When asked why Temer appointed mostly politicians rather than industry experts to his Cabinent, he responded that his first priority was to build a strong ruling coalition. In his view, he would be able to remedy the economy only with congressional unity and support.

Creating Corruption
Though creating a solid coalition is necessary to avoiding impeachment, the process of actually cultivating support can also lead to corruption. For example, one of the Workers' Party's main tactics is to allocate prominent positions to political allies and their supporters. By appointing party backers to key positions in state-owned companies, politicians can ensure bribes and kickbacks for themselves. Former Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Fernando Collor de Mello, among others, have been accused of adopting such tactics.

The Brazilian congress is currently considering legislation to limit the number of political parties active in the government based on a minimum performance in elections, but the Supreme Federal Court ruled a similar proposal unconstitutional in 2006. The reality is that the fragmentation of the Brazilian congress is likely to be enduring, no matter which party controls the presidency. It will also probably be both a source of corruption and a threat to the stability of the presidency. Even if Rousseff is ousted, Temer will have to pull together a strong coalition that will back him if an impeachment case is brought against him. But he will have to be careful to ensure that in doing so, he does not empower any one party any more than the others — because as Rousseff knows all too well, that can be a dangerous approach.

Turquia: entre a preeminencia islamica e a heranca laica - Stratfor

Turkey's Violent Protests in Context

Stratfor Analysis

JUNE 2, 2013 | 1244 Print - Text Size +

Turkish protesters gather in Taksim Square in Istanbul on June 1. (BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images)

Summary

The rapid escalation of anti-government protests in Turkey in recent days has exposed a number of long-dormant fault lines in the country's complex political landscape. But even as the appeal of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (also known by its Turkish acronym, AKP) is beginning to erode, it will remain a powerful force in Turkish politics for some time to come, with its still-significant base of support throughout the country and the lack of a credible political alternative in the next elections.

Analysis

The foundation for the current unrest was laid May 28, when a small group of mostly young environmentalists gathered in Istanbul's Taksim Square for a sit-in to protest a planned demolition of walls, uprooting of trees and the perceived desecration of historical sites in the square's Gezi Park. The initially peaceful demonstration turned violent the night of May 30, when police tried to break up what had grown to more than 100 protesters.

The environmental protesters were joined the next day by high-level representatives of the Justice and Development Party's main opposition, the secular Republican People's Party (known as CHP). The message of the protests soon evolved from saving Gezi Park's trees to condemning Erdogan and his party for a litany of complaints. Anti-government chants included "Down with the dictator," "Tayyip, resign," and "Unite against fascism."

The protests grew rapidly when the weekend began, with more than 10,000 people gathering in Taksim Square on June 1. Many of these made their way to the square from the district of Kadikoy, a Republican People's Party stronghold on the Asian side of Istanbul, by walking across the Bosphorus Bridge banging pots and pans in defiance of laws against pedestrian use of the bridge. Some reportedly threw Molotov cocktails, fireworks and stones at police, prompting the use of tear gas and water cannons on the protesters. However, this quickly drew condemnation, leading the government to temporarily withdraw police at the cost of allowing more protesters to gather.

Erdogan's response was defiant. While admitting excessive force by the police and ordering an investigation of the matter, he said that he would not give in to "wild extremists" who belong to an "ideological" as opposed to "environmental" movement and that he would bring out a million supporters from his party for every 100,000 protesters. The same night, riots broke out and some 5,000 protesters threw stones at the prime minister's office in the Besiktas neighborhood in Istanbul.

On the morning of June 2, heavy rains kept protesters away from Taksim Square save for a few dozen who huddled around bonfires. More protesters made their way back to the square in the afternoon while Erdogan made another defiant speech blaming the Republican People's Party for the unrest and vowing to proceed with the development plans. Clashes between police and protesters have resumed, and close to 1,000 people have been detained and dozens injured.

Erdogan's Limits

The size and scope of the protests must be kept in perspective. By the end of June 1, protests had reportedly spread to Izmir, Eskisehir, Mugla, Yalova, Antalya, Bolu, Adana, Ankara, Kayseri and Konya. Many of the areas where protests were reported are also areas where the Republican People's Party would be expected to bring out a large number of supporters. Konya, Kayseri and Ankara, strong sources of support for the Justice and Development Party, were notable exceptions. The largest protests, in Istanbul and Izmir, brought out predominantly young protesters in the tens of thousands. The protests would be highly significant if they grow to the hundreds of thousands, include a wider demographic and geographically extend to areas with traditionally strong support for the ruling party.

The protests so far do not indicate that Erdogan's party is at serious or imminent risk of losing its grip on power, but they do reveal limits to the prime minister's political ambitions. Erdogan is attempting to extract votes from a slow-moving and highly fragile peace process with the Kurdistan Workers' Party to help him get enough support for a constitutional referendum. The referendum would transform Turkey from a parliamentary system to a presidential system and thus enable Erdogan, whose term as prime minister expires in 2015, to continue leading Turkey as president beyond 2014, when presidential elections are scheduled. The sight of protesters from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (known as the BDP) joining Republican People's Party supporters for the June 1 protests does not bode well for Erdogan's plan to rely on those votes in the constitutional referendum. Though the Justice and Development Party, which remains highly popular with Turkey's more conservative populace in the Anatolian interior, so far does not face a credible political contender for the October local elections or 2015 parliamentary elections, Erdogan's political maneuvering to become president will face more resistance.

The ruling party's main secular opposition is alarmed at Erdogan's policies that compromise the core founding principles of the state as defined by Kemal Ataturk. From social measures that ban the sale of alcohol after 10 p.m. to foreign policy measures that have Turkey trying to mold and influence Islamist rebel groups in Syria, these are policies that directly undermine the Ataturkian mandate that Turkey must remain secular and avoid overextending itself beyond the republic's borders. But the growing dissent against the party is not a simple Islamist-secular divide, either. A perception has developed among a growing number of Turks that the party is pursuing an aggressive form of capitalism that defies environmental considerations as well as Islamic values. Within business circles, frustration is building over the number of concessions handed out to Erdogan's closest allies.

Rising Dissent

The polarization of the state could be plainly seen in the reporting of the Gezi Park protests. The protests appear to have emboldened once critical newspapers such as Hurriyet to reassume an anti-ruling party stance unseen in the recent years of Erdogan's media taming. Hurriyet has broadcast Erdogan's "defeat" with headlines such as "Erdogan no longer almighty." On the other end of the political spectrum, the state-funded news agency Anatolia is reporting the protests as a "brawl" between police and firework-throwing youth extremists, while stressing a democratic message that the government permitted the Republican People's Party to demonstrate in Taksim.

Far more interesting is reporting from the Justice and Development Party's traditional sources of support. Yeni Safak, a newspaper close to the ruling party, has condemned the park project and sympathized with the protesters. The same was seen in Zaman newspaper, run by followers of the moderate Islamist Gulen movement. The Gulenists form a crucial component of the ruling party's broader support base but also keep their distance from the ruling party. The movement has been increasingly critical of Erdogan, strongly suggesting that he and his party have become too powerful. Editorials from the newspaper admonished Erdogan for his "excessive" behavior and sided with the protesters.

Though dissent is rising, Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party still have a substantial support base, and the opposition continues to lack a credible political alternative (local elections scheduled for October likely will indicate how much support for the party has waned). At the same time, Turkey is pursuing a highly ambitious agenda abroad, from negotiating peace with Kurdish militants and developing oil pipelines in Iraqi Kurdistan to trying to fend off Syrian-backed militant attacks. Turkey was already highly constrained in pursuing these foreign policy goals, but they will take second place to Turkey's growing political distractions at home as Erdogan prioritizes the growing domestic challenges and as foreign adversaries such as Syria try to take advantage of preoccupied Turkish security forces to try to sponsor more attacks inside Turkey.

Read more: Turkey's Violent Protests in Context | Stratfor 

Em defesa da hegemonia - Robert Kaplan

Anarchy and Hegemony

Stratfor, April 17, 2013 | 0901 GMT

By Robert D. Kaplan
Chief Geopolitical Analyst

Everyone loves equality: equality of races, of ethnic groups, of sexual orientations, and so on. The problem is, however, that in geopolitics equality usually does not work very well. For centuries Europe had a rough equality between major states that is often referred to as the balance-of-power system. And that led to frequent wars. East Asia, by contrast, from the 14th to the early 19th centuries, had its relations ordered by a tribute system in which China was roughly dominant. The result, according to political scientist David C. Kang of the University of Southern California, was a generally more peaceful climate in Asia than in Europe.

The fact is that domination of one sort or another, tyrannical or not, has a better chance of preventing the outbreak of war than a system in which no one is really in charge; where no one is the top dog, so to speak. That is why Columbia University's Kenneth Waltz, arguably America's pre-eminent realist, says that the opposite of "anarchy" is not stability, but "hierarchy."

Hierarchy eviscerates equality; hierarchy implies that some are frankly "more equal" than others, and it is this formal inequality -- where someone, or some state or group, has more authority and power than others -- that prevents chaos. For it is inequality itself that often creates the conditions for peace.

Government is the most common form of hierarchy. It is a government that monopolizes the use of violence in a given geographical space, thereby preventing anarchy. To quote Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher, only where it is possible to punish the wicked can right and wrong have any practical meaning, and that requires "some coercive power."

The best sort of inequality is hegemony. Whereas primacy, as Kang explains, is about preponderance purely through military or economic power, hegemony "involves legitimation and consensus." That is to say, hegemony is some form of agreed-upon inequality, where the dominant power is expected by others to lead. When a hegemon does not lead, it is acting irresponsibly.

Of course, hegemony has a bad reputation in media discourse. But that is only because journalists are confused about the terminology, even as they sanctimoniously judge previous historical eras by the strict standards of their own. In fact, for most of human history, periods of relative peace have been the product of hegemony of one sort or another. And for many periods, the reigning hegemonic or imperial power was the most liberal, according to the standards of the age. Rome, Venice and Britain were usually more liberal than the forces arranged against them. The empire of the Austrian Hapsburgs in Central and Eastern Europe often protected the rights of minorities and prevented ethnic wars to a much greater degree than did the modern states that succeeded it. The Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the Middle East frequently did likewise. There are exceptions, of course, like Hapsburg Spain, with its combination of inquisition and conquest. But the point is that hegemony does not require tyrannical or absolutist rule.

Stability is not the natural order of things. In fact, history shows that stability such as it exists is usually a function of imperial rule, which, in turn, is a common form of hierarchy. To wit, there are few things messier in geopolitics than the demise of an empire. The collapse of the Hapsburgs, of the Ottoman Turks, of the Soviet Empire and the British Empire in Asia and Africa led to chronic wars and upheavals. Some uncomprehending commentators remind us that all empires end badly. Of course they do, but that is only after they have provided decades and centuries of relative peace.

Obviously, not all empires are morally equivalent. For example, the Austrian Hapsburgs were for their time infinitely more tolerant than the Soviet Communists. Indeed, had the Romanov Dynasty in St. Petersburg not been replaced in 1917 by Lenin's Bolsheviks, Russia would likely have evolved far more humanely than it did through the course of the 20th century. Therefore, I am saying only in a general sense is order preferable to disorder. (Though captivating subtleties abound: For example, Napoleon betrayed the ideals of the French Revolution by creating an empire, but he also granted rights to Jews and Protestants and created a system of merit over one of just birth and privilege.)

In any case, such order must come from hierarchal domination.

Indeed, from the end of World War II until very recently, the United States has performed the role of a hegemon in world politics. America may be democratic at home, but abroad it has been hegemonic. That is, by some rough measure of international consent, it is America that has the responsibility to lead. America formed NATO in Europe, even as its Navy and Air Force exercise preponderant power in the Pacific Basin. And whenever there is a humanitarian catastrophe somewhere in the developing world, it is the United States that has been expected to organize the response. Periodically, America has failed. But in general, it would be a different, much more anarchic world without American hegemony.

But that hegemony, in some aspects, seems to be on the wane. That is what makes this juncture in history unique. NATO is simply not what it used to be. U.S. forces in the Pacific are perceived to be less all-powerful than in the past, as China tests U.S. hegemony in the region. But most importantly, U.S. President Barack Obama is evolving a doctrine of surgical strikesagainst specific individuals combined with non-interference -- or minimal interference -- in cases of regional disorder. Libya and Syria are cases in point. Gone, at least for the moment, are the days when U.S. forces were at the ready to put a situation to rights in this country or that.

When it comes to the Greater Middle East, Americans seem to want protection on the cheap, and Obama is giving them that. We will kill a terrorist with a drone, but outside of limited numbers of special operations forces there will be no boots on the ground for Libya, Syria or any other place. As for Iran, whatever the White House now says, there is a perception that the administration would rather contain a nuclear Iran than launch a military strike to prevent Iran from going nuclear.

That, by itself, is unexceptional. Previous administrations have been quite averse to the use of force. In recent decades, it was only George W. Bush -- and only in the aftermath of 9/11 -- who relished the concept of large-scale boots on the ground in a war of choice. Nevertheless, something has shifted. In a world of strong states -- a world characterized by hierarchy, that is -- the United States often enforced the rules of the road or competed with another hegemon, the Soviet Union, to do so. Such enforcement came in the form of robust diplomacy, often backed by a threat to use military power. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were noted for American leadership and an effective, sometimes ruthless foreign policy. Since the Cold War ended and Bill Clinton became president, American leadership has often seemed to be either unserious, inexpertly and crudely applied or relatively absent. And this has transpired even as states themselves in the Greater Middle East have become feebler.

In other words, both the hegemon and the many states it influences are weaker. Hierarchy is dissolving on all levels. Equality is now on the march in geopolitics: The American hegemon is less hegemonic, and within individual countries -- Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Tunisia and so on -- internal forces are no longer subservient to the regime. (And states like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are not in the American camp to the degree that they used to be, further weakening American hegemony.) Moreover, the European Union as a political organizing principle is also weakening, even as the one-party state in China is under increasing duress.

Nevertheless, in the case of the Middle East, do not conflate chaos with democracy. Democracy itself implies an unequal, hierarchal order, albeit one determined by voters. What we have in the Middle East cannot be democracy because almost nowhere is there a new and sufficiently formalized hierarchy. No, what we have in many places in the Middle East is theweakening of central authority with no new hierarchy to adequately replace it.

Unless some force can, against considerable odds, reinstitute hierarchy -- be it an American hegemon acting globally, or an international organization acting regionally or, say, an Egyptian military acting internally -- we will have more fluidity, more equality and therefore more anarchy to look forward to. This is profoundly disturbing, because civilization abjures anarchy. In his novel Billy Budd (1924), Herman Melville deeply laments the fact that even beauty itself must be sacrificed for the maintenance of order. For without order -- without hierarchy -- there is nothing.

Read more: Anarchy and Hegemony | Stratfor 

Robert D. Kaplan

July 13, 2012 | 2110 GMT

Chief Geopolitical Analyst

Robert D. Kaplan is the author of Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, which was published by Random House in October 2010, and released in paperback in September 2011. His newest book, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us about Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, was published by Random House in 2012. In 2011 and 2012, Mr. Kaplan was chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world's "Top 100 Global Thinkers."

He is Chief Geopolitical Analyst for Stratfor, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C., and has been a foreign correspondent for The Atlantic for over 25 years. In 2009, he was appointed to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, which advised former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on key issues. Mr. Kaplan served on the board through 2011. From 2006 to 2008, he was the Class of 1960 Distinguished Visiting Professor in National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Mr. Kaplan is the best-selling author of 14 books on international affairs and travel, which have been translated into many languages. In the 1980s, Mr. Kaplan was the first American writer to warn in print about a future war in the Balkans. Balkan Ghosts was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 1993. The New York Times also chose The Arabists, The Ends of the Earth, An Empire Wilderness, Eastward to Tartary and Warrior Politics as notable books of the year. The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times chose An Empire Wilderness as one of the best books of 1998. The Wall Street Journal named The Arabists as one of the best five books written about America's historical involvement in the Middle East.

Read more: Robert D. Kaplan | Stratfor 

Escolha um nome para o mundo da pos-pos-Guerra Fria - Georges Friedman

O problema dos períodos ascendentes, mas difusos, e dos "encerramentos" de uma fase, é que não sabemos muito bem definir o que acabou e o que provavelmente começa, se é verdade que está começando alguma coisa, o que eu não acredito.
A história é um fio que vai se desenrolando inexoravelmente, e que pode descer ladeiras, subir escarpas, mergulhar em turbilhões (guerras) ou atravessar planícies tranquilas e sorridentes. Se trata de um velho carro de bois que avança penosamente por estradas esburacadas, com alguns oasis pela frente, mas também alguns desertos e tempestades.
Se você tiver ânimo, ajude Georges Friedman a encontrar um nome para o pós-pós-Guerra Fria.
Eu ainda não tenho, mas vou começar a pensar. Em todo caso, o importante não são os nomes, e sim interpretar corretamente os sinais e saber aproveitar as oportunidades das novas circunstâncias.
O Brasil me parece perder oportunidades, se fechando no velho protecionismo dos anos 1970.
Vai ficar para trás, mesmo do velho carro de bois...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Beyond the Post-Cold War World |
By George Friedman
Founder and Chairman
Stratfor, April 2nd, 2013

An era ended when the Soviet Union collapsed on Dec. 31, 1991. The confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union defined the Cold War period. The collapse of Europe framed that confrontation. After World War II, the Soviet and American armies occupied Europe. Both towered over the remnants of Europe's forces. The collapse of the European imperial system, the emergence of new states and a struggle between the Soviets and Americans for domination and influence also defined the confrontation. There were, of course, many other aspects and phases of the confrontation, but in the end, the Cold War was a struggle built on Europe's decline.

Many shifts in the international system accompanied the end of the Cold War. In fact, 1991 was an extraordinary and defining year. The Japanese economic miracle ended. China after Tiananmen Square inherited Japan's place as a rapidly growing, export-based economy, one defined by the continued pre-eminence of the Chinese Communist Party. The Maastricht Treaty was formulated, creating the structure of the subsequent European Union. A vast coalition dominated by the United States reversed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Three things defined the post-Cold War world. The first was U.S. power. The second was the rise of China as the center of global industrial growth based on low wages. The third was the re-emergence of Europe as a massive, integrated economic power. Meanwhile, Russia, the main remnant of the Soviet Union, reeled while Japan shifted to a dramatically different economic mode.

The post-Cold War world had two phases. The first lasted from Dec. 31, 1991, until Sept. 11, 2001. The second lasted from 9/11 until now.

The initial phase of the post-Cold War world was built on two assumptions. The first assumption was that the United States was the dominant political and military power but that such power was less significant than before, since economics was the new focus. The second phase still revolved around the three Great Powers -- the United States, China and Europe -- but involved a major shift in the worldview of the United States, which then assumed that pre-eminence included the power to reshape the Islamic world through military action while China and Europe single-mindedly focused on economic matters.

The Three Pillars of the International System
In this new era, Europe is reeling economically and is divided politically. The idea of Europe codified in Maastricht no longer defines Europe. Like the Japanese economic miracle before it, the Chinese economic miracle is drawing to a close and Beijing is beginning to examine its military options. The United States is withdrawing from Afghanistan and reconsidering the relationship between global pre-eminence and global omnipotence. Nothing is as it was in 1991.

Europe primarily defined itself as an economic power, with sovereignty largely retained by its members but shaped by the rule of the European Union. Europe tried to have it all: economic integration and individual states. But now this untenable idea has reached its end and Europe is fragmenting. One region, including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, has low unemployment. The other region on the periphery has high or extraordinarily high unemployment.

Germany wants to retain the European Union to protect German trade interests and because Berlin properly fears the political consequences of a fragmented Europe. But as the creditor of last resort, Germany also wants to control the economic behavior of the EU nation-states. Berlin does not want to let off the European states by simply bailing them out. If it bails them out, it must control their budgets. But the member states do not want to cede sovereignty to a German-dominated EU apparatus in exchange for a bailout.

In the indebted peripheral region, Cyprus has been treated with particular economic savagery as part of the bailout process. Certainly, the Cypriots acted irresponsibly. But that label applies to all of the EU members, including Germany, who created an economic plant so vast that it could not begin to consume what it produces -- making the country utterly dependent on the willingness of others to buy German goods. There are thus many kinds of irresponsibility. How the European Union treats irresponsibility depends upon the power of the nation in question. Cyprus, small and marginal, has been crushed while larger nations receive more favorable treatment despite their own irresponsibility.

It has been said by many Europeans that Cyprus should never have been admitted to the European Union. That might be true, but it was admitted -- during the time of European hubris when it was felt that mere EU membership would redeem any nation. Now, Europe can no longer afford pride, and it is every nation for itself. Cyprus set the precedent that the weak will be crushed. It serves as a lesson to other weakening nations, a lesson that over time will transform the European idea of integration and sovereignty. The price of integration for the weak is high, and all of Europe is weak in some way.

In such an environment, sovereignty becomes sanctuary. It is interesting to watch Hungary ignore the European Union as Budapest reconstructs its political system to be more sovereign -- and more authoritarian -- in the wider storm raging around it. Authoritarian nationalism is an old European cure-all, one that is re-emerging, since no one wants to be the next Cyprus.

I have already said much about China, having argued for several years that China's economy couldn't possibly continue to expand at the same rate. Leaving aside all the specific arguments, extraordinarily rapid growth in an export-oriented economy requires economic health among its customers. It is nice to imagine expanded domestic demand, but in a country as impoverished as China, increasing demand requires revolutionizing life in the interior. China has tried this many times. It has never worked, and in any case China certainly couldn't make it work in the time needed. Instead, Beijing is maintaining growth by slashing profit margins on exports. What growth exists is neither what it used to be nor anywhere near as profitable. That sort of growth in Japan undermined financial viability as money was leant to companies to continue exporting and employing people -- money that would never be repaid.

It is interesting to recall the extravagant claims about the future of Japan in the 1980s. Awestruck by growth rates, Westerners did not see the hollowing out of the financial system as growth rates were sustained by cutting prices and profits. Japan's miracle seemed to be eternal. It wasn't, and neither is China's. And China has a problem that Japan didn't: a billion impoverished people. Japan exists, but behaves differently than it did before; the same is happening to China.

Both Europe and China thought about the world in the post-Cold War period similarly. Each believed that geopolitical questions and even questions of domestic politics could be suppressed and sometimes even ignored. They believed this because they both thought they had entered a period of permanent prosperity. 1991-2008 was in fact a period of extraordinary prosperity, one that both Europe and China simply assumed would never end and one whose prosperity would moot geopolitics and politics. 

Periods of prosperity, of course, always alternate with periods of austerity, and now history has caught up with Europe and China. Europe, which had wanted union and sovereignty, is confronting the political realities of EU unwillingness to make the fundamental and difficult decisions on what union really meant. For its part, China wanted to have a free market and a communist regime in a region it would dominate economically. Its economic climax has left it with the question of whether the regime can survive in an uncontrolled economy, and what its regional power would look like if it weren't prosperous.

And the United States has emerged from the post-Cold War period with one towering lesson: However attractive military intervention is, it always looks easier at the beginning than at the end. The greatest military power in the world has the ability to defeat armies. But it is far more difficult to reshape societies in America's image. A Great Power manages the routine matters of the world not through military intervention, but through manipulating the balance of power. The issue is not that America is in decline. Rather, it is that even with the power the United States had in 2001, it could not impose its political will -- even though it had the power to disrupt and destroy regimes -- unless it was prepared to commit all of its power and treasure to transforming a country like Afghanistan. And that is a high price to pay for Afghan democracy.

The United States has emerged into the new period with what is still the largest economy in the world with the fewest economic problems of the three pillars of the post-Cold War world. It has also emerged with the greatest military power. But it has emerged far more mature and cautious than it entered the period. There are new phases in history, but not new world orders. Economies rise and fall, there are limits to the greatest military power and a Great Power needs prudence in both lending and invading.

A New Era Begins
Eras unfold in strange ways until you suddenly realize they are over. For example, the Cold War era meandered for decades, during which U.S.-Soviet detentes or the end of the Vietnam War could have seemed to signal the end of the era itself. Now, we are at a point where the post-Cold War model no longer explains the behavior of the world. We are thus entering a new era. I don't have a good buzzword for the phase we're entering, since most periods are given a label in hindsight. (The interwar period, for example, got a name only after there was another war to bracket it.) But already there are several defining characteristics to this era we can identify.

First, the United States remains the world's dominant power in all dimensions. It will act with caution, however, recognizing the crucial difference between pre-eminence and omnipotence.

Second, Europe is returning to its normal condition of multiple competing nation-states. While Germany will dream of a Europe in which it can write the budgets of lesser states, the EU nation-states will look at Cyprus and choose default before losing sovereignty.

Third, Russia is re-emerging. As the European Peninsula fragments, the Russians will do what they always do: fish in muddy waters. Russia is giving preferential terms for natural gas imports to some countries, buying metallurgical facilities in Hungary and Poland, and buying rail terminals in Slovakia. Russia has always been economically dysfunctional yet wielded outsized influence -- recall the Cold War. The deals they are making, of which this is a small sample, are not in their economic interests, but they increase Moscow's political influence substantially.

Fourth, China is becoming self-absorbed in trying to manage its new economic realities. Aligning the Communist Party with lower growth rates is not easy. The Party's reason for being is prosperity. Without prosperity, it has little to offer beyond a much more authoritarian state.

And fifth, a host of new countries will emerge to supplement China as the world's low-wage, high-growth epicenter. Latin America, Africa and less-developed parts of Southeast Asia are all emerging as contenders.

Relativity in the Balance of Power
There is a paradox in all of this. While the United States has committed many errors, the fragmentation of Europe and the weakening of China mean the United States emerges more powerful, since power is relative. It was said that the post-Cold War world was America's time of dominance. I would argue that it was the preface of U.S. dominance. Its two great counterbalances are losing their ability to counter U.S. power because they mistakenly believed that real power was economic power. The United States had combined power -- economic, political and military -- and that allowed it to maintain its overall power when economic power faltered.

A fragmented Europe has no chance at balancing the United States. And while China is reaching for military power, it will take many years to produce the kind of power that is global, and it can do so only if its economy allows it to. The United States defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War because of its balanced power. Europe and China defeated themselves because they placed all their chips on economics. And now we enter the new era.

A Suica virou maior do que a UE...

De repente, o setor financeiro suiço, frequentemente desprezado e acusado de todo tipo de malversação, virou atrativo novamente.
Será que o setor bancário suiço vai ter capacidade de absorver todos os capitais que vão começar a fugir da zona do euro?
Os chineses podem ganhar, no longo prazo, via Hong Kong e Cingapura...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Europe's Disturbing Precedent in the Cyprus Bailout

March 26, 2013 | 0900 GMT

Stratfor

By George Friedman
Founder and Chairman
The European economic crisis has taken different forms in different places, and Cyprus is the latest country to face the prospect of financial ruin. Overextended banks in Cyprus are teetering on the brink of failure for issuing loans they cannot repay, which has prompted the tiny Mediterranean country, a member of the European Union, to turn to Brussels for help. Late Sunday, the European Union and Cypriot president announced new terms for a bailout that would provide the infusion of cash necessary to prevent bankruptcies in Cyprus' banking sector and, more important, prevent a banking panic from spreading to the rest of Europe.
What makes this crisis different from the previous bailouts for Greece, Ireland or elsewhere are the conditions Brussels has attached for its assistance. Due to circumstances unique to Cyprus, namely the questionable origin of a large chunk of the deposits in its now-stricken banking sector and that sector's small size relative to the overall European economy, the European Union, led by Germany, has taken a harder line with the country. Cyprus has few sources of capital besides its capacity as a banking shelter, so Brussels required that the country raise part of the necessary funds from its own banking sector -- possibly by seizing money from certain bank deposits and putting it toward the bailout fund. The proposal has not yet been approved, but if enacted it would undermine a formerly sacred principle of banking in most industrial nations -- the security of deposits -- setting a new and possibly destabilizing precedent in Europe.

Cyprus' Dilemma

For years before the crisis, Cyprus promoted itself as an offshore financial center by creating a tax structure and banking rules that made depositing money in the country attractive to foreigners. As a result, Cyprus' financial sector grew to dwarf the rest of the Cypriot economy, accounting for about eight times the country's annual gross domestic product and employing a substantial portion of the nation's work force. A side effect of this strategy, however, was that if the financial sector experienced problems, the rest of the domestic economy would not be big enough to stabilize the banks without outside help.
Europe's economic crisis spawned precisely those sorts of problems for the Cypriot banking sector. This was not just a concern for Cyprus, though. Even though Cyprus' banking sector is tiny relative to the rest of Europe's, one Cypriot bank defaulting on what it owed other banks could put the whole European banking system in question, and the last thing the European Union needs now is a crisis of confidence in its banks.
The Cypriots were facing chaos if their banks failed because the insurance system was insufficient to cover the claims of depositors. For its part, the European Union could not risk the financial contagion. But Brussels could not simply bail out the entire banking system, both because of the precedent it would set and because the political support for a total bailout wasn't there. This was particularly the case for Germany, which would carry much of the financial burden and is preparing for elections in September 2013 before an electorate that is increasingly hostile to bailouts.
Even though the German public may oppose the bailouts, it benefits immensely from what those bailouts preserve. As I have pointed out many times, Germany is heavily dependent on exports and the European Union is critical to those exports as a free trade zone. Although Germany also imports a great deal from the rest of the bloc, a break in the free trade zone would be catastrophic for the German economy. If all imports were cut along with exports, Germany would still be devastated because what it produces and exports and what it imports are very different things. Germany could not absorb all its production and would experience massive unemployment.
Currently, Germany's unemployment rate is below 6 percent while Spain's is above 25 percent. An exploding financial crisis would cut into consumption, which would particularly hurt an export-dependent country like Germany. Berlin's posture through much of the European economic crisis has been to pretend it is about to stop providing assistance to other countries, but the fact is that doing so would inflict pain on Germany, too. Germany will make its threats and its voters will be upset, but in the end, the country would not be enjoying high employment if the crisis got out of hand. So the German game is to constantly threaten to let someone sink, while in the end doing whatever has to be done.
Cyprus was a place where Germany could show its willingness to get tough but didn't carry any of the risks that would arise in pushing a country such as Spain too hard, for example. Cyprus' economy was small enough and its problems unique enough that the rest of Europe could dismiss any measures taken against the country as a one-off. Here was a case where the German position appears enormously more powerful than usual. And in isolation, this is true -- if we ignore the question of what conclusion the rest of Europe, and the world, draws from the treatment of Cyprus.

A Firmer Line

Under German guidance, the European Union made an extraordinary demand on the Cypriots. It demanded that a tax be placed on deposits in the country's two largest banks. The tax would be about 10 percent and would, under the initial terms, be applied to all accounts, regardless of their size. This was an unprecedented solution. Since the global financial crisis of the 1920s, all advanced industrial countries -- and many others -- had been operating on a fundamental principle that deposits in banks were utterly secure. They were not regarded as bonds paying certain interest, whose value would disappear if the bank failed. Deposits were regarded as riskless placements of money, with the risk covered by deposit insurance for smaller deposits, but in practical terms, guaranteed by the national wealth.
This guarantee meant that individual savings would be safe and that working capital parked by corporations in a bank was safe as well. The alternative was not only uncertainty, but also people hoarding cash and preventing it from entering the financial system. It was necessary to have a secure place to put money so that it was available for lending. The runs on banks in the 1920s and 1930s drove home the need for total security for deposits.
Brussels demanded that the bailout for Cypriot banks be partly paid for by depositors in those banks. That demand essentially violated the social contract on the sanctity of bank deposits and did so in a country that was a member of the European Union -- one of the world's major economic blocs. Proponents of the measure pointed out that many of the depositors were not Cypriot nationals but rather foreigners, many of whom were Russian. Moreover, it was suggested that the only reason for a Russian to be putting money in a Cypriot bank was to get it out of Russia, and the only motive for that had to be nefarious. It followed that the confiscation was not targeted against ordinary people but against shady Russians.
There is no question that there are shady Russians putting money into Cyprus. But ordinary Cypriots had their money in the same banks and so did many Cypriot and foreign companies, including European companies, who were doing business in Cyprus and need money for payroll and so on. The proposal might look like an attempt to seize Russian money, but it would pinch the bank accounts of all Cypriots as well as a sizable amount of legitimate Russian money. Confiscating 10 percent of all deposits could devastate individuals and the overall economy and likely would prompt companies operating in Cyprus to move their cash elsewhere. The measure would have been devastating and the Cypriot parliament rejected it.
Another deal, the one currently up for approval, tried to mitigate the problem but still broke the social contract. Accounts smaller than 100,000 euros (about $128,000) would not be touched. However, accounts larger than 100,000 euros would be taxed at an uncertain rate, currently estimated at 20 percent, while bondholders would lose up to 40 percent. These numbers will likely shift again, but assuming they are close to the final figures, depositors putting money into banks beyond this amount are at risk depending on the financial condition of the bank.
The impact on Cyprus is more than Russian mafia money being taxed. All corporations doing business in Cyprus could have 20 percent of their operating cash seized. Regardless of precisely how the Cypriot banking system is restructured, the fact is that the European Union demanded that Cyprus seize portions of bank accounts from large depositors. From a business' perspective, 100,000 euros is not all that much when you are running a supermarket or a car dealership or a construction company, but this arbitrary level could easily be raised in the future and the mere existence of the measure will make attracting investment more difficult.

A New Precedent

The more significant development was the fact that the European Union has now made it official policy, under certain circumstances, to encourage member states to seize depositors' assets to pay for the stabilization of financial institutions. To put it simply, if you are a business, the safety of your money in a bank depends on the bank's financial condition and the political considerations of the European Union. What had been a haven -- no risk and minimal returns -- now has minimal returns and unknown risks. Brussels' emphasis that this was mostly Russian money is not assuring, either. More than just Russian money stands to be taken for the bailout fund if the new policy is approved. Moreover, the point of the global banking system is that money is safe wherever it is deposited. Europe has other money centers, like Luxembourg, where the financial system outstrips gross domestic product. There are no problems there right now, but as we have learned, the European Union is an uncertain place. If Russian deposits can be seized in Nicosia, why not American deposits in Luxembourg?
This was why it was so important to emphasize the potentially criminal nature of the Russian deposits and to downplay the effect on ordinary law-abiding Cypriots. Brussels has worked very hard to make the Cyprus case seem unique and non-replicable: Cyprus is small and its banking system attracted criminals, so the principle that deposits in banks are secure doesn't necessarily apply there. Another way to look at it is that an EU member, like some other members of the bloc, could not guarantee the solvency of its banks so Brussels forced the country to seize deposits in order to receive help stabilizing the system. Viewed that way, the European Union has established a new option for itself in dealing with depositors in troubled banks, and that principle now applies to all of Europe, particularly to those countries with financial institutions potentially facing similar problems.
The question, of course, is whether foreign depositors in European banks will accept that Cyprus was one of a kind. If they decide that it isn't obvious, then foreign corporations -- and even European corporations -- could start pulling at least part of their cash out of European banks and putting it elsewhere. They can minimize the amount of cash on hand in Europe by shifting to non-European banks and transferring as needed. Those withdrawals, if they occur, could create a massive liquidity crisis in Europe. At the very least, every reasonable CFO will now assume that the risk in Europe has risen and that an eye needs to be kept on the financial health of institutions where they have deposits. In Europe, depositing money in a bank is no longer a no-brainer.
Now we must ask ourselves why the Germans would have created this risk. One answer is that they were confident they could convince depositors that Cyprus was one of a kind and not to be repeated. The other answer was that they had no choice. The first explanation was undermined March 25, when Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said that the model used in Cyprus could be used in future bank bailouts. Locked in by an electorate that does not fully understand Germany's vulnerability, the German government decided it had to take a hard line on Cyprus regardless of risk. Or Germany may be preparing a new strategy for the management of the European financial crisis. The banking system in Europe is too big to salvage if it comes to a serious crisis. Any solution will involve the loss of depositors' money. Contemplating that concept could lead to a run on banks that would trigger the crisis Europe fears. Solving a crisis and guaranteeing depositors may be seen as having impossible consequences. Setting the precedent in Cyprus has the advantage of not appearing to be a precedent.
It's not clear what the Germans or the EU negotiators are thinking, and all these theories are speculative. What is certain is that an EU country, facing a crisis in its financial system, is now weighing whether to pay for that crisis by seizing depositors' money. And with that, the Europeans have broken a barrier that has been in place since the 1930s. They didn't do that casually and they didn't do that because they wanted to. But they did it.

Read more: Europe's Disturbing Precedent in the Cyprus Bailout | Stratfor

Siria: um vespeiro geopolitico - Scott Stewart (Stratfor)

The Consequences of Intervening in Syria

Stratfor, January 31, 2013 | 1030 GMT

By Scott Stewart
Vice President of Analysis

The French military's current campaign to dislodge jihadist militants from northern Mali and the recent high-profile attack against a natural gas facility in Algeria are both directly linked to the foreign intervention in Libya that overthrew the Gadhafi regime. There is also a strong connection between these events and foreign powers' decision not to intervene in Mali when the military conducted a coup in March 2012. The coup occurred as thousands of heavily armed Tuareg tribesmen were returning home to northern Mali after serving in Moammar Gadhafi's military, and the confluence of these events resulted in an implosion of the Malian military and a power vacuum in the north. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other jihadists were able to take advantage of this situation to seize power in the northern part of the African nation.

As all these events transpire in northern Africa, another type of foreign intervention is occurring in Syria. Instead of direct foreign military intervention, like that taken against the Gadhafi regime in Libya in 2011, or the lack of intervention seen in Mali in March 2012, the West -- and its Middle Eastern partners -- have pursued a middle-ground approach in Syria. That is, these powers are providing logistical aid to the various Syrian rebel factions but are not intervening directly.
Just as there were repercussions for the decisions to conduct a direct intervention in Libya and not to intervene in Mali, there will be repercussions for the partial intervention approach in Syria. Those consequences are becoming more apparent as the crisis drags on.

Intervention in Syria

For more than a year now, countries such as the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and European states have been providing aid to the Syrian rebels. Much of this aid has been in the form of humanitarian assistance, providing things such as shelter, food and medical care for refugees. Other aid has helped provide the rebels with non-lethal military supplies such as radios and ballistic vests. But a review of the weapons spotted on the battlefield reveals that the rebels are also receiving an increasing number of lethal supplies.

Visit our Syria page for related analysis, videos, situation reports and maps.

For example, there have been numerous videos released showing Syrian rebels using weapons such as the M79 Osa rocket launcher, the RPG-22, the M-60 recoilless rifle and the RBG-6 multiple grenade launcher. The Syrian government has also released videos of these weapons after seizing them in arms caches. What is so interesting about these weapons is that they were not in the Syrian military's inventory prior to the crisis, and they all likely were purchased from Croatia. We have also seen many reports and photos of Syrian rebels carrying Austrian Steyr Aug rifles, and the Swiss government has complained that Swiss-made hand grenades sold to the United Arab Emirates are making their way to the Syrian rebels.
With the Syrian rebel groups using predominantly second-hand weapons from the region, weapons captured from the regime, or an assortment of odd ordnance they have manufactured themselves, the appearance and spread of these exogenous weapons in rebel arsenals over the past several months is at first glance evidence of external arms supply. The appearance of a single Steyr Aug or RBG-6 on the battlefield could be an interesting anomaly, but the variety and concentration of these weapons seen in Syria are well beyond the point where they could be considered coincidental.
This means that the current level of external intervention in Syria is similar to the level exercised against the Soviet Union and its communist proxies following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The external supporters are providing not only training, intelligence and assistance, but also weapons -- exogenous weapons that make the external provision of weapons obvious to the world. It is also interesting that in Syria, like Afghanistan, two of the major external supporters are Washington and Riyadh -- though in Syria they are joined by regional powers such as Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, rather than Pakistan.
In Afghanistan, the Saudis and the Americans allowed their partners in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to determine which of the myriad militant groups in Afghanistan received the bulk of the funds and weapons they were providing. This resulted in two things. First, the Pakistanis funded and armed groups that they thought they could best use as surrogates in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. Second, they pragmatically tended to funnel cash and weapons to the groups that were the most successful on the battlefield -- groups such as those led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose effectiveness on the battlefield was tied directly to their zealous theology that made waging jihad against the infidels a religious duty and death during such a struggle the ultimate accomplishment.
A similar process has been taking place for nearly two years in Syria. The opposition groups that have been the most effective on the battlefield have tended to be the jihadist-oriented groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra. Not surprisingly, one reason for their effectiveness was the skills and tactics they learned fighting the coalition forces in Iraq. Yet despite this, the Saudis -- along with the Qataris and the Emiratis -- have been arming and funding the jihadist groups in large part because of their success on the battlefield. As my colleague Kamran Bokhari noted in February 2012, the situation in Syria was providing an opportunity for jihadists, even without external support. In the fractured landscape of the Syrian opposition, the unity of purpose and battlefield effectiveness of the jihadists was in itself enough to ensure that these groups attracted a large number of new recruits.
But that is not the only factor conducive to the radicalization of Syrian rebels. First, war -- and particularly a brutal, drawn-out war -- tends to make extremists out of the fighters involved in it. Think Stalingrad, the Cold War struggles in Central America or the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans following the dissolution of Yugoslavia; this degree of struggle and suffering tends to make even non-ideological people ideological. In Syria, we have seen many secular Muslims become stringent jihadists. Second, the lack of hope for an intervention by the West removed any impetus for maintaining a secular narrative. Many fighters who had pinned their hopes on NATO were greatly disappointed and angered that their suffering was ignored. It is not unusual for Syrian fighters to say something akin to, "What has the West done for us? We now have only God."
When these ideological factors were combined with the infusion of money and arms that has been channeled to jihadist groups in Syria over the past year, the growth of Syrian jihadist groups accelerated dramatically. Not only are they a factor on the battlefield today, but they also will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.

The Saudi Gambit

Despite the jihadist blowback the Saudis experienced after the end of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan -- and the current object lesson of the jihadists Syria sent to fight U.S. forces in Iraq now leading groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra -- the Saudi government has apparently calculated that its use of jihadist proxies in Syria is worth the inherent risk.
There are some immediate benefits for Riyadh. First, the Saudis hope to be able to break the arc of Shiite influence that reaches from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. Having lost the Sunni counterweight to Iranian power in the region with the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the installation of a Shiite-led government friendly to Iran, the Saudis view the possibility of installing a friendly Sunni regime in Syria as a dramatic improvement to their national security.
Supporting the jihad in Syria as a weapon against Iranian influence also gives the Saudis a chance to burnish their Islamic credentials internally in an effort to help stave off criticism that they are too secular and Westernized. It allows the Saudi regime the opportunity to show that it is helping Muslims under assault by the vicious Syrian regime.
Supporting jihadists in Syria also gives the Saudis an opportunity to ship their own radicals to Syria, where they can fight and possibly die. With a large number of unemployed, underemployed and radicalized young men, the jihad in Syria provides a pressure valve similar to the past struggles in Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The Saudis are not only trying to winnow down their own troubled youth; we have received reports from a credible source that the Saudis are also facilitating the travel of Yemeni men to training camps in Turkey, where they are trained and equipped before being sent to Syria to fight. The reports also indicate that the young men are traveling for free and receiving a stipend for their service. These young radicals from Saudi Arabia and Yemen will even further strengthen the jihadist groups in Syria by providing them with fresh troops.
The Saudis are gaining temporary domestic benefits from supporting jihad in Syria, but the conflict will not last forever, nor will it result in the deaths of all the young men who go there to fight. This means that someday the men who survive will come back home, and through the process we refer to as "tactical Darwinism" the inept fighters will have been weeded out, leaving a core of competent militants that the Saudis will have to deal with.
But the problems posed by jihadist proxies in Syria will have effects beyond the House of Saud. The Syrian jihadists will pose a threat to the stability of Syria in much the same way the Afghan groups did in the civil war they launched for control of Afghanistan after the fall of the Najibullah regime. Indeed, the violence in Afghanistan got worse after Najibullah's fall in 1992, and the suffering endured by Afghan civilians in particular was egregious.
Now we are seeing that the jihadist militants in Libya pose a threat not only to the Libyan regime -- there are serious problems in eastern Libya -- but also to foreign interests in the country, as seen in the attack on the British ambassador and the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Moreover, the events in Mali and Algeria in recent months show that Libya-based militants and the weapons they possess also pose a regional threat. Similar long-lasting and wide-ranging repercussions can be expected to flow from the intervention in Syria.

Read more: The Consequences of Intervening in Syria | Stratfor

As duas vias da América Latina: protecionismo e integracao global - Stratfor

Existem hoje, na América Latina, três grupos de países, simplificando um pouco: os globalizados (tipo Chile e México); os reticentes (tipo Brasil e Argentina), e os bolivarianos (enfim, não encontrei termo melhor para designar os malucos que estão querendo voltar meio século atrás, como Venezuela, Equador, Bolívia, e alguns outros). Peru e Colômbia estão entre os globalizadores e os reticentes, dependendo de quem governa e de quais são as políticas econômicas: atualmente estão mais próximas da integração global, mas sempre pode mudar.
Enquanto alguns se inserem no mundo, outros preferem a política do avestruz. Pior: procuram encontrar bodes expiatórios para os problemas que enfrentam. Nunca é culpa deles, apenas dos outros, do capitalismo perverso, do tsunami financeiro, da guerra cambial, enfim, qualquer coisa, menos as bobagens internas.
Assim vai a América Latina: alguns realistas, outros surrealistas...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Pacific Alliance Faces Unique Challenges Stratfor, June 8, 2012 | 0554 GMT Leaders from Colombia, Chile, Peru and Mexico gathered in the Chilean Atacama Desert this week to sign an agreement pledging unity under the newly minted Pacific Alliance. First envisioned a year ago during a meeting in Lima, the alliance's first move will be to remove all bilateral visa restrictions, and the countries hope that the bloc will evolve into a multilateral free trade area. The Pacific Alliance unites four of Latin America's most trade- and business-friendly countries. According to Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, the bloc intends to focus explicitly on developing a trade agenda with Asia. The agreement is also sure to impact trade with the United States, a major export destination for all three countries. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the agreement is the way it contrasts with Latin America's other major trade grouping: Mercosur, or the Market of the South. Mercosur groups Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, and its trade policies inevitably cater to the needs of the two biggest partners -- Brazil and Argentina. The group's reaction to global economic turmoil has been to withdraw behind trade barriers in an economic policy that closely mirrors the import substitution industrialization theory that heavily influenced Latin American policy during the middle of the 20th century. The contrasts between the Pacific Alliance and Mercosur reveal historical divisions and political orientations. They also highlight the extreme geographic barriers to integration within the region. Latin America can be loosely conceptualized as a string of habitable "islands" separated by the massive geographic barriers formed by the Caribbean Sea, the Andean mountain chain and the impenetrable Amazon rainforest. The most contiguous fertile territory with the potential for development exists in the Rio de la Plata river basin, which is divided among the Mercosur members. Mexico is a part of North America and is naturally more oriented toward the United States and Canada than it is toward Latin American states. The Andean nations should be considered in two separate groupings. The Caribbean Andes comprise Colombia and Venezuela and fit squarely into the geopolitical and economic backyard of the United States. The South American Andes, on the other hand, find themselves isolated not only from the Rio de la Plata countries, but also from the direct attention of the United States -- being as they are squarely located in South America. What all the Pacific Alliance members share is a shoreline on the Pacific Ocean and an abiding interest in trade with Asia and the United States. Certainly interbloc trade will create opportunities to generate wealth. The opportunities for multilateral trade are inherently limited, however, as the Andean members are primarily reliant on commodity exports, and Mexico is the only country in the grouping with a well-developed industrial base. These countries do not have the same kind of natural geographic linkages that characterize a grouping like Mercosur, and nothing like Mercosur's initial intentions for a customs union should be expected out of the Pacific. The Pacific Alliance is in many ways simply a maritime trading pact that will attempt to present a united regional front in trans-Pacific trade issues. This is a political and economic arena that is inherently dominated by the agendas of the United States and China, a fact exacerbated by growing U.S. attention to East Asia. But even four countries that display so many similar characteristics will find it difficult to forge a united bargaining position. Like many Latin American trading blocs before it, the Pacific Alliance will face the challenge of attempting to smooth over divergent and competing domestic interests while remaining geographically isolated from one another.

What to do about Greece: not pretty much, really...

Como diria alguém, o jeito é relaxar...

The eurozone (read: Germany) has its work cut out for it.

Whichever actions Germany takes, three things are all but inevitable: an Italian bailout, a European banking crisis, and a Greek default. Any one outcome will likely trigger the other two. This may look like a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" type of situation, but how Berlin handles the crisis could be the difference between a weakened euro and nonexistent euro. STRATFOR

Stratfor: Brasil (ou Brazil) na berlinda...

Eu tinha sido solicitado a falar com a analista do Stratfor, Reva Bhalla, mas por razões de calendário de viagem e de férias, não foi possível. Fico satisfeito de encontrar em minha caixa este material, que vem seguido de um video, que infelizmente, na minha incompetência técnica, não sei colocar aqui.
Ainda não li, e não vi o video. depois comento.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Agenda: Brazil at a Crossroads
Stratfor, January 21, 2011

Latin America analyst Reva Bhalla discusses the challenges new Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will face on crime, defense, the economy and foreign affairs in 2011.

Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Colin: Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is no newcomer to politics, after all she was her predecessor’s chief of staff. 2011 is shaping up as having a very full agenda. Apart from recovery from deadly floods, where the death toll is approaching 800, there is much to be done. A full half of one percent increase in interest rates reminded us the economy is overheating.

Welcome to Agenda where I’m joined by webcam to STRATFOR’s Latin America analyst Reva Bhalla. Reva, let’s start by discussing the new president’s agenda.

Reva: Well Colin, Dilma Rousseff has a lot of items on her plate. Everything from major defense deals that she has to make decisions on, security issues with the country’s favela issue to important decisions Brazil has to take as it is emerging as a major regional power. One thing to keep in mind is that Dilma may not have the charisma as Lula, but she has a reputation for being very non-ideological, very technocratic. She employs this sort of no-nonsense attitude with her staff and she expects her staff to come to her with a plan B in pretty much every proposal. So she’s very much in the process of re-evaluating a lot of major decisions right now, including the jet fighter deal, which is taking a lot of attention these days. Colin: Who’s in the frame to win the jet fighter contract?

Reva: Well, toward the end of the Lula administration, it seemed pretty clear that Brazil would go ahead and opt for the French Rafale jet, for mainly political and strategic reasons. Now Dilma has basically re-opened the bidding process. U.S. firm Boeing is trying to sweeten the deal, but Brazil is very concerned about being tied to certain congressional constraints in agreeing to the U.S. deal, something that Brazil is very irked by especially when it comes to technology transfers. Now the Swedish Gripen offers more to Brazil in terms of price and performance, but we think this decision is still going to boil down to mainly a political and strategic decision in that Brazil is more likely to lean more toward the French jet.

Colin: Brazilian interest rates are very high, up half of one percent this week and more to come. That’s forcing the currency up, which might have two harmful effects: attracting hot money and damaging exports. ? Reva: Brazil maintains very strict fiscal policy and for good reason considering that the country was mired in an economic crisis just less than two decades ago. Now, in trying to keep inflation under control, Brazil has kept extremely high interest rates — right now it’s at about 11.25 percent. Now, with a government that is likely very unwilling to cut down on public spending, there are serious side effects to this kind of policy. One of those side effects is the boost to the country’s already appreciating currency. Now the stronger the Brazilian real gets, the less competitive Brazilian exports are on the open market. The Brazilian government really doesn’t have any good options in trying to deal with this currency crisis, but it’s transforming slowly and slowly into more of a political issue, especially as business and trade unions especially in the financial hub of Sao Paulo are applying more pressure on the state to do something to protect Brazilian industry. Again, Brazil doesn’t have very good options in dealing with this, but it is definitely an issue that is going to be pre-occupying the state in the coming year.

Colin: Let’s turn to resources. Can Brazil really realize its dream and become a major oil exporter? ?Reva: Well, its going to be difficult, but Brazil is definitely dedicated to this project. By the “project,” we are referring to the pre-salt fields — Brazil’s offshore deepwater fields that could potentially make Brazil a major oil exporter in the years to come. Now, this is going to require a lot of investment. We have already seen Brazil’s Petrobras employ some rather unorthodox means of capitalizing this endeavor. But the Brazilian government has made clear it’s going to be dedicating its resources in hopes of realizing this geopolitical dream.

Colin: What about domestic political problems like crime and drugs?

Reva: Now, Brazil faces a major challenge ahead to both pacify and integrate major favelas in the city of Rio de Janeiro. They’ve been employing a strategy called the UPP strategy that basically involves first overt military force that drives the drug-traffickers out and then a long-term police occupation. Now, this is an impressive model that’s worked on a small scale but replicating it on a larger scale is going to be extremely difficult. What’s happened so far is that a lot of the drug-traffickers in Complexo Alemao, which was the last favela targeted, are simply being displaced. Now that has side effects, especially when more drug-trafficking activity is just going from favela to favela or coming more from the favelas into city centers. Also, these drug-trafficking groups, particularly Comando Vermelho, the main group in Rio, they’re extremely well armed. And, if the state keeps pushing them in this pacification campaign, they do have the means of perhaps selectively carrying out attacks and trying to pressure the state to backing off of this offensive.

Colin: The other so-called BRIC countries are Russia, India and China. To what extent is Brazil joining them on the global scene?

Reva: Well, Brazil is most definitely emerging on the global scene; it’s no longer this insular power that it has been for decades now. And so of course we see a lot of countries reacting to that. You know, Brazil is interacting with the French on major defense deals, with the Chinese in this deepening economic relationship, also with the Indians where Brazil and India face a lot of competition with each other in certain industries. And so Brazil is learning more and more how to assert itself on the global scene and we can expect Brazil to fumble in a lot of respects. You know, Brazil is also trying to involve itself in issues that are very distant from the South American continent. For example, in very thorny Middle East issues. But, while this attracts a lot of attention, Brazil is slowly gradually attempting to assume this leadership role but it may not necessarily want to make very hard decisions or deal with the negative repercussions that may be attached to such a role.

Colin: Reva, it’s good to have you with us on Agenda, I’m sure we’ll talk again soon.

Reva: Certainly Brazil is a high priority for STRATFOR and we will be watching all these issues closely.