O que é este blog?

Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida.

quarta-feira, 14 de setembro de 2022

revista International Affairs (Chatham House): How not to do, in every sector: webinar launching

O número 98 da revista International Affairs, da Chatham House, está imperdível, e ainda tem um webinar de lançamento: 

International relations: the ‘how not to’ guide

Special issue guest-edited by Daniel W. Drezner and Amrita Narlikar

Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022

Front matter

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages v–vii, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac187
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages ix–xv, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac186

Correction

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Page xvi, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac196

International relations: the ‘how not to’ guide

Special issue guest-edited by Daniel W. Drezner and Amrita Narlikar

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1499–1513, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac190

While much of foreign policy analysis seeks to replicate successes, this special issue asks whether it might make more sense to examine how to avoid catastrophic failure. In their introduction, the guest editors outline the goals of the special issue and explore whether a Hippocratic oath for international affairs would be enough.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1515–1532, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac061

This article draws lessons from the Munich crisis of 1938, the Suez crisis and war of 1956 and the Iraq war of 2003. While failure was over-determined in these situations, there are many everyday crises that actors who understand ‘how not to run international affairs’ stop from turning into disasters.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1533–1552, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac065

This article examines sanctions imposed on Iraq between the two Gulf wars and on Iran from 2018. In both cases sanctions imposed crippling costs but the primary goals weren't achieved. Drezner warns against sanctioning states not articulating clear and consistent demands, as well as weak linkages between scholars and policy-makers.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1553–1573, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac063

The WTO has become an almost perfect example of how not to negotiate. This article outlines the breakdown in the organization, then examines the bargaining failures responsible for this. It concludes by sharing the main ‘dos’ and ‘don'ts’ for trade negotiation.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1575–1593, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac057

When learning from financial crises, whether we adopt a long-term or short-term perspective matters. The response to financial crisis in 1931, 1997 and 2008 initially looked successful but immediate responses, driven by the sense that past mistakes needed to be avoided, set the stage for the next crisis.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1595–1614, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac064

EU policy-makers should learn lessons from key policy failures during the eurozone crisis and the COVID–19 pandemic. The mistakes were a result of delayed action and a gap between research and policy. If comprehensive reforms can't be made, policy-makers should find a middle ground between supranationalism and intergovernmentalism in crisis situations.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1615–1633, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac054

The narrative on US decline and China's rise is currently too focused on hard measures like GDP. Whether and how a hegemon declines is shaped by the strategic choices that both the challenger and the hegemon make. Nine possible futures over the next two decades are posited, dependent on the policy choices that leaders make at home.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1635–1651, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac117

Chinese elites expect to replace the US as the leading global power by 2049. How should the US respond? Two prevalent historical analogies are misleading: a Thucydides trap about power transition and a new Cold War. More promising is the cautionary narrative of sleepwalking into the First World War.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1653–1675, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac165

Debates on China's rise often focus on the continuity of the United States' hegemony and the liberal global order and ignore regional actors. Instead, this article suggests that as China rises it will first aim to secure regional primacy, by examining China's relations with India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1677–1694, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac191

Is foreign interference in domestic politics as effective and cheap as anticipated in current policy debates? This article draws on the Soviet assistance to the Chinese Communists from the 1920s to the 1940s to point to its short-term benefits and hidden costs, including unreliable proxies and problems for future relations.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1695–1716, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac189

This article questions why the West hasn't learned from failed interventions since the end of the Cold War. It argues that in the wake of the failure of ‘easy wars’ policy-makers turn to automated weapons. The lesson that technology cannot conquer the ‘fog of war’ to create costless victory is never learned.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1717–1735, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac058

Political reconciliation is a widely accepted narrative used by mediators as a guideline for action in all regions of the world. Yet the article draws on the case of Rwanda to show that reconciliation is not an unequivocal goal that mediators should pursue whatever the circumstances.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1737–1762, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac192

Based on the errors committed by policy-makers in learning from the past, the article identifies four ‘how not tos’ when learning from history. It then explores the extent to which these inform contemporary debates that view US–China relations through the lens of the Cold War.

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1763–1781, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac102

This article identifies the four key dimensions of how scholars engage in policy and public debates. Paying careful attention to these can help avoid common pitfalls when ‘bridging the gap’. These four factors are applied to two case-studies: theory and policy in the US on ‘Democratic Peace’ and the ‘cult of relevance’ problem for scholars trying to contribute to peace-building in post-conflict states.

Book reviews

International Relations theory

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1783–1784, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac153
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1785–1786, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac175
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1786–1787, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac170
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1788–1789, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac152

International history

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1789–1790, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac156
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1790–1792, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac160
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1792–1793, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac194
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1794–1795, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac193

Governance, law and ethics

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1795–1797, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac173
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1797–1798, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac172
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1799–1800, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac162
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1800–1802, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac144

Conflict, security and defence

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1802–1804, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac176
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1804–1805, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac177
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1805–1807, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac169
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1807–1808, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac151

Political economy, economics and development

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1808–1810, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac164

Energy, environment and global health

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1810–1812, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac167

Europe

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1812–1814, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac195
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1814–1815, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac182
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1815–1817, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac107

Russia and Eurasia

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1817–1818, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac179
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1819–1820, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac157

Middle East and North Africa

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1820–1822, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac174
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1822–1823, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac161
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1823–1825, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac184

Sub-Saharan Africa

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1825–1826, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac178
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1826–1828, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac185
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1828–1829, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac180

South Asia

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1829–1831, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac168
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1831–1833, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac183

East Asia and Pacific

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1833–1835, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac159
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1835–1836, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac163
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1837–1838, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac155

North America

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1839–1840, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac154
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1840–1842, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac139
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1842–1843, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac181

Latin America and Caribbean

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1844–1845, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac158
International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Pages 1845–1846, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac171

Back matter

International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 5, September 2022, Page 1847, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac188

 

Old World Order: The Real Origin of International Relations - Valerie Hansen, Yale University (Foreign Affairs)


Old World Order

The Real Origin of International Relations

Valerie Hansen

 Foreign Affairs, Nova York – Set.-Out. 2022

 

How old is the modern world? Scholars of international relations tend to date the beginning of their field of study to around 500 years ago, when a handful of states in western Europe began to establish colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In their view, the transformations unleashed by European colonialism made the world what it is today. So, too, did the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, two treaties signed by feuding European powers that ended a series of bloody wars. That was the moment international relations truly began, the argument runs. Thanks to this settlement, states for the first time formally agreed to respect their mutual sovereignty over demarcated territories, laying the groundwork for the abiding “Westphalian order” of a world divided into sovereign nation-states.

This rather Eurocentric view of the past still shapes how most international relations scholars see the world. When searching for the history relevant to today’s world events, they rarely look beyond the European world order constructed after 1500. Before then, they reason, politics did not happen on a global scale. And states outside Europe did not adhere to Westphalian principles. As a result, international relations scholars have deemed vast tracts of history largely irrelevant to the understanding of modern politics.

An exclusive focus on a world in which Europeans armed with guns and cannons dominated the various peoples they encountered misses much of what happened outside Europe and the places Europeans colonized. This focus reads history backward from the primacy of the West, as if all that happened before led inevitably to the hegemony of a handful of European and North American states. The rise of non-Western powers, such as China, India, and Japan in recent decades, has revealed how misguided such an approach is.

In Before the West, Ayse Zarakol, a professor of international relations at the University of Cambridge, proposes an ingenious way out of this intellectual impasse. Writing in clear, forceful prose, she considers the experience of earlier non-Western empires that sought to create world orders. Doing so makes it possible to present a new history of international relations beyond the Westphalian order. Her study reveals the telling ways that polities in non-Western parts of the world interacted with one another in the past, shaping how modern political leaders understand the international order today.

Zarakol challenges the view that the modern international system began in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. Instead, she proposes a provocative alternative, dating the beginning of the modern world order to 1206, when Genghis Khan was acclaimed ruler of all the Eurasian steppe peoples. Zarakol chooses to focus on the “Chinggisid order” he and his various successors brought into being. (Genghis Khan’s name in Mongolian is Chinggis Khan, so scholars use the adjective Chinggisid to describe anything associated with him.)

She presents a stirring and original thesis but overlooks some crucial primary sources about diplomacy in the Mongol empire. Such evidence would sharpen her account of precisely how the Mongols and their successors interacted with diplomats from neighboring states in this fledgling world order.

Zarakol is right to point out the importance of the Chinggisid order as a parallel to the Westphalian order. Starting in the thirteenth century under Genghis Khan and his successors, the Mongols created the world’s largest contiguous empire, which extended across the steppe from Hungary in the east to China in the west. Genghis Khan aspired to rule the entire world, and he conducted diplomatic relations with his neighbors on that basis. None of his successors managed to control as large a territory, but taking the Mongols as their model, they would create the Ming, Mughal, Safavid, and Timurid empires respectively in present-day China, India, Iran, and Uzbekistan. Most important for modern international relations today, the peoples now living in the former Mongol empire are fully aware of this past, as exemplified by the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

THE WORLDS GENGHIS MADE

 

Zarakol’s decision to focus on the Mongols allows her to break with Eurocentric conventions of diplomatic and international history in refreshing ways. Interested in Asian polities, she does not assume that their interactions with European actors were more important than their relations with one another. Nor does she make the mistake of assuming that earlier Asian powers were only regional powers. Genghis Khan and his successors all aspired to rule the globe as they knew it. True, they did not succeed (nor, for that matter, did any European power), but they led sprawling armies powered by mounted warriors and established empires that engaged in diplomacy with multiple neighbors and with states far from the Eurasian steppes—a lasting model for subsequent Asian rulers.

The Chinggisid order, as Zarakol describes it, persisted for nearly 500 years (longer than its Westphalian counterpart to date) and had three different phases. The first was from around 1200 to 1400. It comprised both the unified Mongol empire ruled initially by Genghis Khan and, after the empire broke apart in 1260, its four successor states in modern-day China, Iran, Russia and Ukraine, and Central Asia. The rulers of the three western successor states eventually converted to Islam, while Kublai Khan, the ruler of the easternmost quadrant in modern-day China and Mongolia, supported Buddhists, Daoists, and Confucians, among other religious figures.

The peaceful coexistence of these quadrants in the fourteenth century marked “the beginning of modern international relations . . . when rational state interest trumped religious affiliation.” Here, Zarakol overstates her claim: religious affiliation was often interwoven with “rational state interests” in polities of that time. A ruler’s choice of which religion, or indeed religions, to patronize largely determined the choice of his political allies.

The second Chinggisid world order comprised the Timurid empire of Timur the Lame (also known as Tamerlane), who lived from 1336 to 1405, and the Ming dynasty in China, which reigned from 1368 to 1644. Timur modeled his state on that of Genghis Khan and even married one of his descendants to strengthen his association with the great khan. In sharp contrast, the rulers of the Ming dynasty in China concentrated all their resources on defeating various Mongol and Turkic adversaries (including Timur’s warriors). Even so, the Ming emperors hoped to establish themselves as successors to the land empire of the Mongols, and they dispatched a fleet of treasure ships carrying 28,000 men as far as East Africa to display their might to the world. As different as their views of the Mongols were, Timur and the early Ming emperors all aspired to rule empires as large and as impressive as Genghis Khan’s.

The third world order Zarakol proposes encompassed the millennial sovereigns, or sahibkiran, of the Mughals, the Ottomans, and the Safavids. With no family ties to the Mongols, these rulers did not explicitly style themselves after Genghis Khan, but all hoped to govern the world. They succeeded in harnessing the power of mounted warriors to conquer large spans of territory in modern-day India, Turkey, and Iran respectively, and their empires all posed serious competition to the European colonial powers. Appropriately, Zarakol ends her book with the weakening of these three dynasties around 1700.

Spanning five centuries, these Chinggisid states shared certain key features. Rather than choosing their ruler by primogeniture, as many European powers did, they selected new rulers through a system of “tanistry,” a term (borrowed from the historical practices of Celtic tribes in the British Isles) that means that the best qualified individual should rule the group after the death of a leader. Although this sounds vaguely democratic, it was anything but. In practice, it meant that anyone seeking power had to prevail in a violent free-for-all that could last years before all the warriors gathered to acclaim a new leader. The Mongols believed that heaven, or the cosmos, selected the ultimate victor in these succession struggles, and in their efforts to understand heaven better, the Chinggisid rulers invited foreign astronomers to visit their courts and financed the construction of massive observatories.

According to Zarakol, the Chinggisid rulers over the centuries shared “a particular vision of the whole world” and created, modified, and reproduced “political, economic, and social institutions.” Historians have paid more attention to the granular reality of this political and institutional history, but Zarakol does a service by bringing it to the attention of scholars of international relations. In so doing, she moves beyond a Eurocentric vision of international relations by studying actors, specifically those in modern-day China, India, Iran, Russia, and Uzbekistan, who aspired to create world empires as impressive as that of the Mongols. Getting past narratives that are limited  to a single country, race, or religion, she explains how different rulers in Asia interacted with each other and in the process created a diplomatic system comparable to the Westphalian order.

 

FELT BOOTS AND METAL PASSPORTS

 

Five centuries is a long timespan to cover, and the first part of Before the West bogs down as it recounts the major events of multiple dynasties and explains why they qualify (or do not) as Chinggisid. But rather striking in her survey is the lack of much material about diplomacy, the book’s stated subject.

This omission is surprising because two detailed eyewitness accounts of diplomatic visits to Chinggisid rulers are widely available in English translation. These narratives describe how the Chinggisid diplomatic order actually functioned—in contrast to Zarakol’s often rosy-eyed claims about the efficiency of Mongol rule.

William of Rubruck, a Franciscan monk originally from Belgium, visited the court of Mongke, a grandson of Genghis Khan, near Karakorum in modern-day Mongolia between 1253 and 1255. The French crusader King Louis IX sent William as a missionary—and not an envoy—to the Mongols, but when he arrived at the port of Soldaia on the Black Sea, his Mongol hosts had already heard from local merchants that he was a diplomat. William decided to accept the privileges offered to emissaries rather than try to explain his hope to missionize. Like all Franciscan friars, he wore a brown robe and went barefoot, attire that made his trip across the freezing steppe especially difficult. (Eventually, he gave in and donned fur clothing and felt boots.)

Although much less well known than Marco Polo’s travelogue, which was written some 50 years later, William of Rubruck’s account runs nearly 300 pages in the 1990 translation by Peter Jackson. It offers the most perceptive and the most detailed description of the Mongol empire available today. An attentive observer, William wrote his dispassionate report for a one-person audience, his sponsor, Louis IX. As he explained of the Mongols, “When I came among them I really felt as if I were entering some other world.” His account shows exactly how the Mongols treated the diplomats who entered their realm.

The Mongols granted a metal tablet of authority to all visiting envoys that entitled them to food and fresh horses at the postal stations located every 30 miles or so along the main roads traversing the empire. Those carrying such tablets could also spend the night at the postal stations. The system worked well but not flawlessly, as William discovered when he crossed the Don River and the locals refused him assistance. It took three days for him to obtain a fresh horse. Travel conditions were arduous. Once William began to travel at the pace of a Mongol warrior, he could cover 60 miles each day, changing horses two or three times. Breakfast was either broth or a light grain soup, and there was no lunch; the only solid food travelers received was at dinner.

In July 1253, when he arrived at the court of Batu, a great-grandson of Genghis Khan, William requested official permission to preach among the Mongols (some of whom already followed the teachings of the Church of the East, the branch of Christianity that spread through much of Asia after the fifth century ad.) Batu sent William to the capital at Karakorum, where his father Mongke, the great khan, presided over the Mongol empire. William does not explain Batu’s decision, but presumably Batu, as a regional leader, handled all domestic matters related to his own jurisdiction but had to refer matters of international diplomacy to the great khan. Zarakol overstates the efficiency of Chinggisid rule: only the khan could make decisions on certain topics. If he was not available, no one else could decide for him.

William arrived at Mongke’s winter court on the River Ongin in modern Mongolia; there, the great khan spent the season surrounded by his retinue and his own herds. William made his request to proselytize through an interpreter, but the interpreter and the khan were drunk, and William did not get a definite answer. Initially permitted to stay two months at the court, William remained there for three and spent an additional three at the Mongol capital of Karakorum. He participated in a debate over religion with Muslims, Buddhists, and other Christians—and for once he had a competent interpreter—but the debate was inconclusive, and William left without receiving permission to preach inside Mongol territory.

William’s account captures the reality of Mongol governance. Mongol rulers may have aspired to create a world order, but their empire remained profoundly decentralized despite the efficient postal system that allowed messages and people such as William to cross the empire. The great khan did not administer his empire directly. Instead, he appointed local governors who ruled on their own, largely continuing the policies of whichever authorities had governed before the rise of the Mongols.

About 150 years later, a Spanish diplomat had an experience remarkably similar to William’s. Ruy González de Clavijo visited Timur in Samarkand, a major trading emporium in modern-day Uzbekistan, for two months in 1404. Dispatched by Henry III of Castile, who hoped to form an alliance against the Ottomans, Clavijo and his entourage delivered a letter and gifts to Timur. The wealth of Timur’s capital, where 50,000 of his supporters pitched their tents, impressed Clavijo deeply. Timur hosted the Spaniards generously, offering them ample supplies of meat and wine and inviting them to multiple receptions.

But when Timur fell ill, three of his advisers took over. Unable to exercise any real authority, they urged the Spaniards to return home—which Clavijo resisted because his mission was to obtain a response from Timur for Henry III. Just two months after he had arrived, the unsuccessful Clavijo set off for Spain, only to be caught in the conflicts that broke out among those who aspired to take over Timur’s empire. Clavijo’s experience mirrored William of Rubruck’s: the only person who could decide anything about foreign relations was the khan himself.

Zarakol credits Genghis Khan with “disseminating, through his own example, the norm of the political ruler as the exclusive supreme authority, legitimized by world domination.” She claims that he introduced “an extremely high degree of political centralization . . . subordinating all competing forms of authority to himself.” During military campaigns, the khan had the power to lead, and he rewarded his followers with plunder. But during peacetime, the ruler had much less power. Still, Zarakol’s views do not square with the experience of William of Rubruck and Clavijo. The khan maintained “supreme authority” in the sense that only he could decide on certain matters, such as giving a single Franciscan friar permission to preach or sending a letter to another ruler, but he never enforced policies that integrated the different parts of his empire in a meaningful way.

 

OTHER CENTERS, OTHER WORLDS

 

Scholars can debate whether a given interpretation of the past is accurate, but popular understandings of the past—especially among policymakers—often shape modern international relations. As Zarakol suggests, scholars need to ask of the period she covers, “What logics were operating in this era that are still operating in ours?” Her final chapter explores Eurasianism—a late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century intellectual movement that identified non-European precedents for world orders spanning both Europe and Asia—and, more specifically, how intellectuals in Japan, Russia, and Turkey understood the long-term impact of Mongol rule on their own societies.

This focus is particularly timely. Since the 1920s, Russian scholars, such as Nikolai Trubetzkoy, George Vernadsky, and Lev Gumilyov, have debated how two centuries of Mongol rule affected modern Russia. They have called for modern leaders to emulate Genghis Khan and to unify Russians so that they can build a new empire that spans Europe and Asia. Such thinking has gained enormous popularity since the collapse of communism, and Putin is regularly compared to Genghis Khan. Putin’s advisers are not concerned with historical accuracy. In making the case for Eurasianism and how it will empower Russia, they invoke traditions that have nothing to do with the Treaty of Westphalia. Zarakol’s point is well taken: the history underlying Eurasianism helps make sense of the events occurring in the territory once ruled by the Mongols.

Vladimir Putin’s drive for a new Eurasian empire seeks to include the heartland of Russian orthodoxy.

Like any genuinely pioneering book, Before the West covers so much new ground that it does not get all the details straight. (In particular, it exaggerates the centralization of the Mongol empire.) Still, Zarakol has provided an important service: she has shown how the history of different parts of the world before 1500 informs the present and the future.

By starting in 1206, however, she risks overlooking the importance of even earlier events. When Prince Vladimir the Great (Putin’s namesake) converted to Eastern orthodoxy in around 988, his capital lay in Kyiv. The Russian president’s drive for a new Eurasian empire seeks to include the heartland of Russian orthodoxy, which formed in the late 900s.

That’s precisely Zarakol’s point: studying societies outside Europe that aspired to create world orders before 1500 reveals much about the modern world. The world orders that earlier rulers outside Europe established remain deeply relevant because the people who live in those regions today recall those past exploits and systems and sometimes try to recreate them. Paying attention to the diplomatic practices that earlier rulers, including the Chinggisids, developed provides a valuable counterbalance to the singular focus on the Westphalian order. In this multipolar world, U.S. leaders spend their days considering the next moves of their counterparts in Ankara, Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi, and Tokyo. And yet they rarely consider the histories of these parts of the world. The time has come for more people to follow Zarakol’s lead and study the past of the many political and economic centers outside Europe.

 

VALERIE HANSEN is Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University and the author of The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World—and Globalization Began.

 

Ucrânia promete continuar contraofensiva e pede mais armas - Igor Gielow (FSP)

 Ucrânia promete continuar contraofensiva e pede mais armas

Embalada pelo sucesso de sua contraofensiva na região de Kharkiv, a Ucrânia disse que só irá parar quando expulsar todas as tropas russas

Por IGOR GIELOW

FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO, SP 13/09/2022 

Embalada pelo sucesso de sua contraofensiva na região de Kharkiv, a Ucrânia disse nesta terça (13) que só irá parar quando expulsar todas as tropas russas de seu território. Até os ataques iniciados na semana passada, Moscou ocupava cerca de 20% do vizinho que invadiu há 202 dias.

É um golpe de propaganda, claro, mas guerras são feitas disso também. “O objetivo é liberar a região de Kharkiv e além: todos os territórios ocupados pela Federação Russa”, afirmou a ministra-adjunta da Defesa, Hanna Maliar, a repórteres que a acompanhavam na estrada para Balaklia, primeira cidadezinha estratégica retomada por Kiev na ação.

A realidade ainda pode se interpôr. No começo da tarde (início da manhã no Brasil), uma barragem de artilharia pesada foi registrada em quase todos os pontos da frente de Kharkiv, no nordeste do país. 

Enquanto reforçavam sua posição para uma longamente protelada ofensiva ucraniana no sul do país, em Kherson, os russos se descuidaram da região nordeste do país, a qual ocupavam parcialmente desde abril. Kiev atacou lá, com grande eficácia, apesar da cautela de analistas acerca de sua capacidade de reter os ganhos. 

As forças russas recuaram, e hoje mantêm uma porção bem pequena de Kharkiv. É lá que os combates mais duros estão ocorrendo, pelos relatos desencontrados. Mas a ambição ucraniana tem limites: no sul, sua ofensiva pouco ganhou e no leste, o russófono Donbass, o Kremlin está em posição aparente de força.

Assim, a fala de Maliar remete a pedidos renovados do presidente Volodimir Zelenski, feitos na véspera, para que o Ocidente envie mais armamentos para a Ucrânia. Só os EUA já entregaram e prometeram mais de US$ 15 bilhões (R$ 76,3 bilhões) em ajuda militar, quase quatro vezes o orçamento de defesa regular dos ucranianos. 

O motivo é o temor de Kiev acerca da reação europeia às ameaças de Vladimir Putin de deixar o continente sem gás russo quando o inverno do Hemisfério Norte chegar, em dezembro. O chanceler Dmitro Kuleba entregou isso em uma postagem nesta terça no Twitter: “Sinais desapontadores da Alemanha, enquanto a Ucrânia precisa de Leopards [tanques de guerra alemães]. O que teme Berlim?”.

Diferentemente dos americanos, as grandes economias europeias são bastante menos efusivas no esforço de armar os ucranianos. E a atual campanha no nordeste do país voltou a provar a importância de tanques e blindados com apoio de infantaria: em poucos números, garantiram o maior sucesso da guerra para Kiev até aqui.

Na vizinha Donetsk (Donbass), o governador da porção ainda controlada por Kiev da província disse esperar uma ofensiva imediata de seus compatriotas. A assertiva parece otimista demais, em linhas com o esforço de imagem dos ucranianos. 

Do lado russo, as opções se reduzem para Putin. A pressão entre comentaristas militares e jornalistas chapa-branca para mudanças mais agressivas no rumo da guerra tem crescido tanto que até o porta-voz do Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov, se dignou a comentá-las.

“Pontos de vista críticos, desde que eles permaneçam dentro da lei, isso é pluralismo, mas a linha é muito, muito tênue e é preciso ser muito cuidadoso nisso”, afirmou, sem ironia aparente, já que criticar as Forças Armadas pode dar até 15 anos de cadeia na Rússia. Ele se dirigia ao líder tchetcheno Ramzan Kadirov e ao apresentador Vladimir Soloviev, que haviam questionado a liderança militar do país.

O problema para Putin se chama poderio humano. A resistência em fazer uma mobilização geral e declarar guerra, para evitar impopularidade, tem atrapalhado a Rússia desde o começo do que chama de operação militar especial.

A questão é a realidade. “Durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, alguém só precisava dizer ‘a guerra’ para todo mundo saber o que estava sendo discutido. Nós chegamos ao mesmo ponto na guerra russo-ucraniana, e isso não era o que os russos esperavam”, escreveu nesta terça o papa da geopolítica americana, George Friedman, da consultoria Geopolitical Futures.

A primeira fase do conflito fracassou por falta de gente, táticas ruins e logística pobre. Na segunda, concentrada no Donbass, houve mais sucesso. A terceira, com a iniciativa ucraniana, voltou a evidenciar a falta de recursos em solo. 

Assim, como pondera Friedman, como não pode desocupar a Ucrânia ou buscar a paz agora, sob pena de inviabilizar seu governo, resta a Putin pensar em formas mais eficazes de reunir pessoal. Há relatos de que as forças reunidas no Extremo Oriente para o exercício Vostok-2022 na virada do mês seguiram treinando, mas nada disso é certo neste momento. 

Peskov buscou minimizar a questão. “Neste momento, não, não há discussão sobre isso”, afirmou, questionado sobre mobilização.

Assim, como pondera Friedman, como não pode desocupar a Ucrânia ou buscar a paz agora, sob pena de inviabilizar seu governo, resta a Putin pensar em formas mais eficazes de reunir pessoal. Há relatos de que as forças reunidas no Extremo Oriente para o exercício Vostok-2022 na virada do mês seguiram treinando, mas nada disso é certo neste momento.

Peskov buscou minimizar a questão. “Neste momento, não, não há discussão sobre isso”, afirmou, questionado sobre mobilização. 

https://jornaldebrasilia.com.br/noticias/mundo/ucrania-promete-continuar-contraofensiva-e-pede-mais-armas/


Embate Mercosul-UE em torno de temas ambientais no acordo birregionalde 2019

  

Itamaraty alerta EU para limites em demandas de compromissos ambientais

Na prática, um documento adicional, que foi planejado para facilitar o acordo UEMercosul, poderá ter potencial de se tornar um novo obstáculo para a implementação do tratado

Por Assis Moreira, Valor — Genebra

Valor, 13/09/2022 12h14

A União Europeia (UE) já tem esboço da demanda de compromissos adicionais na área ambiental a fazer ao Mercosul, para seguir na tentativa de implementar o acordo birregional. Mas o Valor apurou que o Itamaraty tem deixado claro ao lado europeu os limites do que é aceitável, o que sinaliza potencial rejeição de algumas demandas.

O embaixador da UE no Brasil, Ignazio Ibáñez, exemplificou ao jornal “O Estado de S. Paulo” o que está por vir no documento. “O Brasil tem de voltar a colocar orçamento dentro dos órgãos que têm de fazer controle do desmatamento, como Ibama e ICMbio”, afirmou. Esse é justamente um dos pontos que o Brasil não deverá aceitar. Para fontes brasileiras, nenhum país que se preze, seja qual for o governo, vai aceitar incluir verba para o Ibama e, em função disso, deixar a UE decidir se o acordo comercial está valendo ou não. “Isso é politicamente inviável, é da época das colônias”, reagiu uma fonte. 

Um documento adicional “legally binding” (juridicamente obrigatório) faz sentido, mas haverá dificuldades no conteúdo. Se os europeus quiserem incluir sanções para o caso de metas não cumpridas, como deseja o Parlamento Europeu, significaria a reabertura do acordo, na visão no Mercosul.

Uma mensagem dada aos europeus pelo Mercosul é de que Bruxelas não vai determinar os termos unilateralmente da “side letter”. Compromisso de redução de emissões, pelo Acordo de Paris, terá que ser cumprido pelos dois lados. Na área de biodiversidade, os europeus deverão se comprometer com proteção dos conhecimentos tradicionais, financiamentos etc.

Ou seja, o documento adicional de compromissos ambientais tem de ser “realista e razoável”, ou a implementação do acordo vai se tornar muito mais difícil. Quando os europeus inventaram o plano de uma “side letter” ao acordo UEMercosul, a ideia era facilitar a aprovação do entendimento tanto nos 27 Estados membros como no Parlamento europeu. Do lado do Mercosul, o documento deveria dirimir dúvidas na área ambiental, a exemplo da “side letter” bem sucedida no acordo UE-Canadá.

Ocorre, porém, que as declarações do presidente Jair Bolsonaro e os números do desmatamento na Amazônia acirraram a rejeição em boa parte da opinião pública europeia. Nesse contexto, um racha dentro da Comissão Europeia sobre as demandas a fazer ao Mercosul, envolvendo de um lado uma pragmática Direção de Comércio e de outra uma ativista Direção de Meio Ambiente, atrasou o documento por vários meses.

Agora um documento de nove páginas está pronto, segundo fontes. Mas não foi apresentado ainda aos 27 Estados-membros e nem ao Mercosul. Isso porque a Comissão Europeia parece temer que alguns países e setores no Parlamento considerem as demandas insuficientes, enquanto o Brasil de seu lado as verá como exigentes demais.

Na prática, um documento adicional, que foi planejado para facilitar o acordo UEMercosul, poderá ter potencial de se tornar um novo obstáculo para a implementação do tratado.

https://valor.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2022/09/13/itamaraty-alerta-ue-para-limites-em-demandas-de-compromissos-ambientais.ghtml

terça-feira, 13 de setembro de 2022

The Ukraine war has reached a turning point - Gideon Rachman (Financial Times)

 PUTIN NÃO VAI USAR A ARMA NUCLEAR. Mesmo seus generais mais servis não o permitirão, pois sabem que o seu poder vai acabar se o fizerem. Aliás contra quem, ou contra o quê eles usariam a arma nuclear? Em Kiev, em cidades ucranianas?

O que Putin vai fazer é causar o máximo de destruição material possível na Ucrânia e o máximo de perdas humanas, mas o seu caso vai se agravar num novo Nuremberg, no TPI, possivelmente.

Acredito que a derrota humilhante da sua Operação Militar Especial vai levá-lo a ser retirado do poder, mas a Rússia ainda vai permanecer como um "império do mal", como dizia Ronald Reagan durante algum tempo ainda.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

 

Financial Times, Londres – 13.9.2022

The Ukraine war has reached a turning point

After Russia’s setbacks a new and dangerous phase of the conflict is beginning

Gideon Rachman

 

The sight of Russian troops in headlong retreat in Ukraine is stunning — but it should not be surprising. 

This war has gone badly for Russia from the outset. Vladimir Putin failed to achieve the lightning victory that he was aiming for on February 24. By April, the Russians had been forced into a humiliating retreat after making incursions towards Kyiv. 

The limited gains Russia has made over the past six months have come at a terrible cost. The original invasion force mustered by the Kremlin was around 200,000 troops. The US estimated last month that 70,000-80,000 of that force has been killed or wounded since the beginning of the invasion.

Unwilling to acknowledge that Russia is at war, Putin has refused to institute conscriptionBy contrast, Ukraine has mobilised its entire adult male population. As a result, Ukraine now probably has more troops on the battlefield than Russia.

The Ukrainians also have the advantage in morale and munitions. They are fighting to defend their own country. The supply of advanced weaponry from the US and Europe — in particular, accurate long-range missiles — means they are now better equipped than the Russians. 

The prospect of Russian defeat is real and exhilarating. But Ukraine’s advances also open a new and dangerous phase in the conflict. 

The pictures of weeping civilians embracing Ukrainian soldiers as they liberate towns and villages from the Russians underline what this war is all about. Permanent Russian occupation would snuff out political freedom and would be enforced with killings, torture and deportations. 

An easy Russian victory in Ukraine would also have opened the door to further aggression against its neighbours — including Moldova and perhaps even Nato members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. That prospect was alarming enough to persuade Finland and Sweden to apply for Nato membership. 

If Russia is defeated, the invasion threat hovering over the rest of Europe will recede. The global political atmosphere will also change. Russian defeat will go down badly in Beijing and Mar-a-Lago. In the weeks before the invasion, China announced a friendship “without limits” with Russia. Donald Trump chortled that Vladimir Putin was a “genius”. That judgment now looks not just immoral, but stupid. 

But some caution is in order. Almost a fifth of Ukraine is still occupied. The Russians will try to regroup and the Ukrainians could over-reach. 

The really complex question is what happens if Russia is facing a humiliating defeat — perhaps including the loss of Crimea, which was occupied in 2014 amid much rejoicing in Moscow? 

Rather than accept defeat, Putin may try to escalate. His options, however, look limited and unappealing. The refusal to call a general mobilisation must reflect nervousness about the opposition that could stir in Russian society. Calling up troops, training and equipping them will take many weeks — and the war is moving fast. 

From the beginning of the conflict, Putin has hinted that Russia might use nuclear weapons. The White House has always viewed this possibility seriously. As the war has dragged on and gone badly for Russia, fears that Putin might resort to nuclear weapons have receded a little, but they have not gone away. As one senior western policymaker put it to me last week: “We have to remember that almost every Russian military exercise we’ve observed has involved the use of nuclear weapons.” 

Using nuclear weapons in Ukraine would, however, create the obvious danger that Russia itself would be contaminated by the fallout. The global political reaction would be very negative and a western military response, probably non-nuclear, would be all but inevitable. 

Like Russian leaders in the past, Putin is hoping that winter will come to his rescue. Russia’s recent announcement that it will stop almost all gas supplies to Europe is clearly intended to freeze the western supporters of Ukraine into submission. 

But Putin needs a lot to go right for the gas gambit to work. A very cold winter or a surge in political protests in the west would help. Neither can be relied upon. The German government says the country “is now better prepared for a halt to Russian supplies” and that the total gas storage level is almost 87 per cent. Energy price subsidies are being rolled out across Europe. 

So the Russian leader’s position looks perilous. From the start some western leaders have quietly hoped that Putin would lose power as a result of the war. President Joe Biden even blurted it out. 

But if Putin is deposed, perhaps by a palace coup, his replacement is more likely to be a hardline nationalist than a liberal. The most vocal dissent being expressed in Russia is from militarists and nationalists — calling for escalation of the war. One theory doing the rounds in western intelligence circles is that the murder of Daria Dugina, a nationalist journalist, was organised by the Russian security services as a warning to Putin’s ultra-right critics. 

A defeated Russia would not disappear off the map. And it would still possess large numbers of nuclear weapons, as well as a replenished stock of grievances.

So many dangers clearly lie ahead. But sometimes good news has to be recognised for what it is. In what has been a bleak year, the Ukrainian military victories of the past week are certainly that.


Cuba vive el mayor éxodo migratorio de su historia - Maurício Vicent (El País)

 Já se sabia, desde 1920, por Von Mises, que o socialismo econômico é uma impossibilidade econômica. Funcionou mal e porcamente durante algumas décadas na base da escravidão humana, a do próprio povo dos países que foram levados a esse regime infeliz, a União Soviética, depois os países dominados por ela na Europa central e oriental e na China de Mao, além de algumas outras porcarias no Terceiro Mundo, entre elas a Cuba castrista, objeto de adoração dos petistas e aloprados esquerdistas.

Cuba está soçobrando, e isso que tem comércio livre com todos os países do mundo, fora os poucos embargos idiotas dos EUA, que não impedem, todavia, que os americanos sejam os principais fornecedores de alimentos e medicamentos para a ilha-prisão. Agora que acabaram os petrodólares chavistas a situação se deteriora rapidamente, o que explica o fenômeno abaixo, de recordes de refugiados econômicos.

Lula ajudou a ditadura castrista, com alguns grandes projetos e o Mais Médicos, que dava 9/10 do que nós pagávamos para a ditadura. Será que em 2023 Lula vai criar um programa de acolhimento aos refugiados do socialismo cubano e dar o Auxílio Brasil a cada um dos exilados no Brasil?

Transcrevo um trecho apenas, da miséria cubana, mas é um fato que a ditadura pós-castrista é ainda mais incompetente e cruel do que a dos fascistas de esquerda: 

"No hay duda de que la actual crisis migratoria es la mayor vivida hasta ahora desde que triunfó la revolución. Tampoco la hay de que las condiciones que la alientan tienen difícil solución. Las penurias económicas, los apagones draconianos, la inflación desbocada, la escasez de artículos de primera necesidad y de medicinas, el deterioro de los servicios de salud, el agotamiento y la falta de esperanza de la sufrida población cubana, sobre todo de los más jóvenes, no parece que vayan a cambiar a corto plazo. El pesimismo es general, no se ve la luz y muchos jóvenes sienten que marcharse es la única opción para mejorar. Un drama que hipoteca el futuro del país."

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

El País, Madri – 13.9.2022

Cuba vive el mayor éxodo migratorio de su historia

El deterioro económico motiva que unas 180.000 personas hayan huido de la isla en el último año, un número superior al de crisis anteriores

Maurício Vicent

 

La crisis migratoria que vive Cuba está pulverizando todas las marcas. En los últimos 11 meses, cerca de 180.000 cubanos entraron a Estados Unidos de forma ilegal por la frontera mexicana y otros 8.000 lo intentaron por vía marítima. Son cifras de la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de EE UU. A ellas se suman datos recientes de la Guardia Costera de EE UU que indican que desde octubre del año pasado 5.421 balseros cubanos fueron interceptados en alta mar tratando de cruzar el estrecho de la Florida en frágiles embarcacionFes —y unos 3.000 lograron tocar tierra firme—, cifra que supera la del total de balseros detenidos en los últimos cinco años. Se trata de un éxodo sin precedentes: esta crisis migratoria es mayor que todas las anteriores, incluida la del Mariel y la Crisis de las balsas juntas: durante la primera, en 1980, 125.000 cubanos abandonaron la isla, y en la segunda, en 1994, lo hicieron 35.000.

Lo peor es que todo indica que esta sangría va a continuar, coinciden diversos sociólogos y economistas cubanos consultados, que afirman que el deterioro de las condiciones de vida y las penurias económicas que están en la base de esta estampida no van a amainar, sino que pueden agravarse todavía más en el futuro inmediato. El criterio general es que la crisis que atraviesa el país es estructural y que para salir del hueco va a hacer falta mucho tiempo, capital, ayudas financieras y reformas radicales que no está claro que el Gobierno esté dispuesto a hacer.

Casi a diario en la prensa cubana y estadounidense salen noticias de deportaciones, naufragios, operaciones de tráfico de personas y crudos testimonios de las arriesgadas aventuras vividas por los emigrantes cubanos durante las travesías por mar o por tierra —en este caso cruzando fronteras centroamericanas hasta llegar a México— en su intento desesperado por llegar a EE UU. Decenas de cubanos, probablemente cientos, han perdido la vida ahogados en el mar, cruzando el río Bravo o a manos de las mafias que controlan la emigración ilegal en la región. Las exhortaciones de ambos gobiernos para detener el éxodo son cada vez mayores. Pero la gente continúa intentándolo.

La semana pasada, la Embajada de Estados Unidos en La Habana anunció un aumento en las patrullas fronterizas por tierra, mar y aire para frenar la gran ola de balseros cubanos, y aseguró que diversas agencias encargadas de gestionar la inmigración ilegal se coordinarán para ello. “Los objetivos principales de este grupo interagencial [sic] son evitar la pérdida de vidas en el mar, e interrumpir la migración ilegal marítima utilizando las fuerzas del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional”, afirmó en un comunicado la misión diplomática, que señaló que los cubanos interceptados en alta mar serán deportados.

Este fin de semana, la televisión cubana entrevistó a varios balseros deportados por EE UU que relataron cómo estuvieron a punto de perder la vida en el mar, entre ellos una joven con un niño pequeño. El mensaje disuasorio era evidente: dijeron que no lo volverían a intentar por vía ilegal. Pero que esta recomendación cale en una población angustiada, agotada y desesperanzada es improbable.

Con la situación desbordada, el pasado jueves y viernes Cuba y EE UU realizaron en La Habana un “encuentro técnico” entre Tropas Guardafronteras cubanas y el Servicio de Guardacostas estadounidense para “incrementar la cooperación bilateral” en la lucha contra la emigración irregular, el tráfico de personas y drogas, así como la búsqueda y el salvamento marítimo. Según un comunicado oficial cubano, la reunión se celebró “en un clima respetuoso y profesional” y fue provechosa. “Las delegaciones de ambos países destacaron la utilidad de estos encuentros y coincidieron en la importancia de avanzar en la cooperación en esta área”, además de acordar “continuar con estos encuentros técnicos en el futuro”, informó el Gobierno cubano. En abril, Cuba y EE UU ya habían retomado las conversaciones bilaterales sobre temas migratorios, los primeros de alto nivel desde la llegada de Joe Biden a la Casa Blanca. Estas reuniones habían sido suspendidas durante la presidencia de Donald Trump, que dio marcha atrás al histórico proceso de acercamiento entre ambos países.

Desde siempre, el tema migratorio ha sido clave en las turbulentas relaciones entre Cuba y EE UU, pero ahora lo es quizás más que nunca. En las últimas seis décadas, diversos éxodos han elevado la tensión entre ambos países en diferentes momentos —desde Camarioca (en los sesenta) hasta la crisis de las balsas (en los noventa)—, funcionando como válvulas de escape y mecanismos de presión a Washington coincidiendo con crisis económicas y políticas en la isla. Pero la magnitud del descalabro actual, que derivó en las históricas protestas contra el Gobierno el 11 de julio del año pasado, no tiene parangón. El 11-J marcó un antes y un después en Cuba, y ahí están las cifras migratorias, que hablan por sí solas.

En el año fiscal 2020, 14.000 cubanos entraron ilegalmente a EE UU por la frontera mexicana. En 2021 fueron 39.300, y hasta agosto de 2022 —el año fiscal comenzó el 1 de octubre del año pasado y termina el próximo 30 de septiembre— cerca de 180.000 emigrantes han ingresado por la frontera sur. Según las autoridades norteamericanas, si se sigue al actual ritmo, 2022 podría cerrarse con un récord absoluto de más de 200.000 cubanos en situación irregular. Los datos de balseros interceptados por guardacostas norteamericanos son igualmente reveladores. En el año 2017 fueron detenidos 1.468 cubanos; en 2018, 259; 313 en 2019; solo 49 en 2020 y 838 balseros en 2021. En solo 11 meses del presente año fiscal, ya van 5.421.

No hay duda de que la actual crisis migratoria es la mayor vivida hasta ahora desde que triunfó la revolución. Tampoco la hay de que las condiciones que la alientan tienen difícil solución. Las penurias económicas, los apagones draconianos, la inflación desbocada, la escasez de artículos de primera necesidad y de medicinas, el deterioro de los servicios de salud, el agotamiento y la falta de esperanza de la sufrida población cubana, sobre todo de los más jóvenes, no parece que vayan a cambiar a corto plazo. El pesimismo es general, no se ve la luz y muchos jóvenes sienten que marcharse es la única opción para mejorar. Un drama que hipoteca el futuro del país.

El Gobierno de Biden, que no quiere más emigrantes en situación irregular cubanos, ha puesto en marcha recientemente varias medidas en la dirección de restablecer los servicios consulares de su embajada en la isla —que Trump desmanteló— y revitalizar el programa de reunificación familiar. Pero La Habana asegura que son medidas insuficientes, y culpa a Washington de exacerbar el flujo de emigrantes ilegales por el incumplimiento del acuerdo bilateral que estipula la entrega de 20.000 visados anuales a ciudadanos cubanos, y por el mantenimiento de la ley de Ajuste Cubano, que beneficia a los cubanos y les permite obtener la residencia permanente al año y un día de entrar al país, aunque lo hayan hecho ilegalmente. Eso, y el recrudecimiento del embargo, al que el Gobierno de La Habana echa la culpa de todos sus males. Mientras ambos gobiernos siguen enrocados en su viejo desacuerdo, los cubanos ven que el tiempo pasa, el éxodo crece y ellos cada vez viven peor.

The 4 factors that explain Ukraine’s extraordinary military success - Max Boot (WP)

Nos primeiros dias da invasão putinesca da Ucrânia, os amigos do tirano de Moscou no Brasil (em outros lugares também) estavam certos de uma derrota rápida das forças ucranianas. Até o próximo (provável) presidente culpava o Zelensky e a OTAN pela guerra de agressão da Rússia contra o vizinho menor, no que foi uma postura das mais sórdidas que ele poderia ter em termos de diplomacia brasileira. Agora, fica apelando para que o Brasil e a UE liderem uma iniciativa de pacificação, querendo ganhar o Prêmio Nobel da Paz que não obteve com o seu malogrado projeto de "solução" do problema do programa nuclear iraniano. 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Opinion

The Washington Post, September 12, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Last week, I wrote that Ukrainian forces had the initiative and Vladimir Putin was losing his “war of choice.” Little did I know how true that was. When I wrote that column, attention was focused on Ukraine’s offensive in the south toward Kherson. That attack is making only incremental gains, but in the past week, Ukraine has launched a surprise offensive in Kharkiv province that has achieved lightning progress in the northeast.

The internet is full of images of jubilant Ukrainian civilians being freed from the yoke of Russian occupation. In all, Ukrainian forces claim to have liberated more than 1,000 square miles of territory (more than the land area of Los Angeles and New York combined), and the offensive is not over yet. Especially significant has been the liberation of key railway and logistics nodes such as the Ukrainian city of Izyum that were used to support Russian operations in the eastern Donbas region.

This is the biggest Ukrainian victory since the successful defense of Kyiv in the conflict’s early days. Putin’s plans for a three-day war have turned into a nearly seven-month slog. How is it that Ukraine been so successful at besting its larger neighbor? I see four factors at work.

First, Western aid has been vital. President Biden’s decision in June to supply Ukraine with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) was a turning point. The long-range rockets allowed the Ukrainians to target Russian ammunition depots and command posts. The more recent U.S. decision to send High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles(HARM) allowed the Ukrainians to hit Russian air defense radars, giving Ukrainian drones and manned aircraft greater freedom to support a ground offensive. Meanwhile, antiaircraft guns such as Germany’s Gepard allowed Ukrainian forces to keep Russia aircraft at bay. Washington has also shared critical intelligence with the Ukrainians.

But remember: Afghan forces also received tons of Western military equipment, and it did not avert their collapse last summer. That’s in large part because they were fighting for an unpopular and corrupt regime.

A key difference in Ukraine — and the second factor explaining its extraordinary success — is the unity of the Ukrainian people behind Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. His decision to stay in Kyiv in the war’s early days, at considerable risk to his life, secured his place in the pantheon of great wartime leaders. But it’s more than Zelensky: Ukrainians are fighting to defend their democracy and their right to self-determination.

Putin, the Butcher of Bucha, has tried to break Ukraine’s will to fight with barbaric attacks on civilians, but, just as with Hitler’s bombing of London, his tactics have backfired by uniting his victims against him. If Ukrainians need any motive to keep fighting, it is supplied by the grisly atrocities that Russian forces commit wherever they go.

The third factor that explains Ukraine’s success is the ingenuity, skill and fighting spirit of its armed forces. They have been retooled since 2014 into a force that, like their Western counterparts, empowers lower-level commanders to make independent decisions in contrast to the centralization of authority in the Russian ranks. What the Ukrainians have done — transforming their military to incorporate vast quantities of unfamiliar foreign weapons while engaged in heavy combat operations — is akin to rebuilding an airplane while in flight. Their tactical skill has been on repeated display this past week. By advertising their Kherson offensive, they induced the Russians to move troops from the east to the south, thereby opening up the east for a surprise attack.

The fourth and final factor that explains the war’s unexpected course is the corruption and stupidity of the Putin regime. Russian commanders have squandered their material advantages through incompetent leadership aggravated by terrible intelligence. In their original attack on Kyiv, the Russians displayed an inability to conduct fast-moving offensive operations. The Ukrainians are now showing them how it’s done.

The only thing the Russians have been good at is massing artillery to pulverize everything in their path, but the HIMARS neutralized the Russian artillery advantage by interrupting the supply of shells. That brutally exposed all of the invaders’ deficiencies. Once again, last week the Russians were caught with their pants down: They did not anticipate the Kharkiv offensive. The Russians will be hard put to recover because their forces have been too small and too overstretched from the start, and they have suffered heavy losses over the past six-plus months.

Of course, we should not swing from one extreme to another. It was once widely assumed that the war would result in a rapid Russian victory and, when that didn’t happen, that it would devolve into a stalemate. But as I wrote on June 29, “while the war in the east appears deadlocked, a military stalemate can break with shocking rapidity.” That has now happened, and it is a joy to watch the Ukrainians advancing.

But we should not assume that Ukraine will now simply roll unopposed to victory. Russian forces could collapse, but Ukrainian forces could also become overstretched or Putin could finally order a total mobilization — or even use tactical nuclear weapons. Warfor good and ill, is an inherently unpredictable business.

Opinion by 
Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.” 

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segunda-feira, 12 de setembro de 2022

Eleições 2022: Lula já ganhou no 1o. turno: o que Bozo está esperando para dar o golpe? (Deutsche Welle)

Lula oscila para cima e pode ganhar no 1° turno, aponta Ipec

há 28 minutos

Deutsche Welle, 12/09/2022

Ex-presidente passa de 44% para 46% em nova pesquisa, enquanto Bolsonaro permanece estagnado com 31%. Rejeição a Bolsonaro e reprovação do governo também oscilaram para cima.

O ex-presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) continua na liderança da disputa pela Presidência nas eleições de outubro, segundo a pesquisa do Instituto Ipec, divulgada nesta segunda-feira (13/09).

Os números demonstram oscilações dentro da margem de erro, de dois pontos percentuais para mais ou para menos, mas também sugerem uma consolidação da preferência dos eleitores, a três semanas das eleições.

Segundo a sondagem divulgada nesta segunda, Lula oscilou positivamente, chegando a 46% das intenções de voto, em comparação aos 44% registrados no levantamento anterior, do dia 5 de setembro.

Os números sugerem que uma vitória de Lula no primeiro turno das eleições é possível.

Jair Bolsonaro (PL) manteve os mesmos 31% da pesquisa da semana passada, quando tinha oscilado um ponto para baixo.

Nos votos válidos, que não consideram brancos e nulos, Lula aparece com 51%, contra 35% de Bolsonaro.

Nos votos totais, em terceiro lugar, aparece o ex-ministro Ciro Gomes (PDT), com 7% (queda de 1 ponto), seguido da senadora Simone Tebet (MDB), que manteve os mesmos 4% da pesquisa anterior.

Felipe D'Ávila (Novo) e Soraya Thronicke (União Brasil) continuam com 1% cada. Vera Lúcia (PSTU), Constituinte Eymael (PDC), Sofia Manzano (PCB), Léo Péricles (UP), e Padre Kelmon (PTB) foram citados mas estiveram abaixo de 1% das intenções de voto.

Pablo Marçal (Pros) não constou na pesquisa por sua candidatura ter sido indeferida pelo Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) , Brancos e nulos somam 6% e não sabem/não opinaram, 4%.

Segundo turno

No caso de um eventual segundo turno, Lula aparece novamente como favorito na disputa com Bolsonaro. De acordo com o Ipec, o petista venceria com 53% dos votos – oscilando 1 ponto para cima desde a última pesquisa – enquanto Bolsonaro ficaria com o mesmo número registrado há uma semana, 36%.

O Ipec revelou que 80% dos eleitores dizem estar decididos sobre em quem vão votar nas eleições de outubro.

Rejeição e avaliação do governo

Metade do eleitorado (50%) diz não votar em Bolsonaro de jeito nenhum (contra 49% do levantamento anterior), enquanto Lula é rejeitado por 35% (36% há uma semana). Ciro Gomes tem 17% de rejeição, enquanto o nome de Simone Tebet foi rejeitado por 7% dos entrevistados.

A avaliação do governo Bolsonaro oscilou negativamente, dentro da margem de erro da pesquisa; 59% dos entrevistados reprovam a maneira como o presidente governa o país, enquanto 35% aprovam. No dia 5 de setembro, a reprovação à administracao do presidente era de 57%, e a aprovação, 38%.

O número dos que dizem não saber avaliar permaneceu inalterado, com 5%.

O Ipec ouviu 2.512 pessoas entre os dias 9 e 11 de setembro em 158 municípios. A margem de erro é de dois pontos percentuais para cima ou para baixo, levando-se em conta um nível de confiança de 95%.

Datafolha

A pesquisa mais recente do Datafolha, divulgada no dia 9 de setembro, também colocou Lula como favorito. O petista apareceu com 45% das intenções de voto, contra 34% de Bolsonaro.

Em seguida aparecem Ciro Gomes (PDT), com 7%, Simone Tebet (MDB), com 5%. No caso de um eventual segundo turno, o petista venceria com 53% dos votos, e Bolsonaro ficaria com 39%, segundo o Datafolha.