Como será o dia em que Putin desligar todos os cabos submarinos? - Moisés Naim (OESP)

Como será o dia em que Putin desligar todos os cabos submarinos?

Moisés Naim

O Estado de S. Paulo, 25/06/2023

 É fácil imaginar a internet como um fenômeno etéreo, imaterial. Nestes tempos é normal, por exemplo, conectar-se à rede sem necessidade de cabos, guardar dados na “nuvem” e supor que a informação flui sem “sujar-se” no mundo tátil.

Pena que essas suposições sejam errôneas. A rede da qual dependemos é alarmantemente física e eminentemente vulnerável. Segundo o marechal Edward Stringer, ex-diretor de operações do Ministério de Defesa britânico, 95% do tráfego internacional de dados passa por um pequeno número de cabos submarinos. Estamos falando de meros 200 cabos, cada um da grossura aproximada à de uma mangueira de jardim e capaz de transferir cerca de 200 terabytes por segundo.

Por essa rede física trafegam US$ 10 trilhões em transações financeiras a cada dia. Como explica Stringer, nos últimos 20 anos, a Rússia investiu fortemente em sistemas capazes de atacar essa rede de cabos submarinos. O Kremlin conta hoje com uma frota de sofisticados submergíveis não tripulados projetados especificamente para esses fins. E a China também.

De fato, não se trata de uma ameaça teórica. Em outubro de 2022, o cabo submarino que conecta as Ilhas Shetland com o restante do mundo foi cortado em dois pontos. Poucos dias antes, havia sido detectada presença nessa região de um barco russo de “investigação científica”.

Não é possível vincular a presença do barco com o corte do cabo. De fato, na maioria das vezes os cortes se devem a acidentes com embarcações pesqueiras ou a eventos sísmicos no leito marinho. Mesmo assim, essa coincidência preocupou muito as agências de segurança das potências ocidentais, que perceberam o incidente como uma advertência enviada pelo Kremlin.

Outro evento relevante nesse sentido foi a decisão tomada em fevereiro de 2023 pelas duas maiores empresas de telecomunicações chinesas, que decidiram se retirar do consórcio internacional encarregado de desenvolver uma rede de 19,2 mil quilômetros de cabos submarinos que conectam o sudoeste da Ásia e a Europa Ocidental.

Os impactos de um ataque coordenado contra os principais cabos submarinos em nível global seriam incalculáveis. Um ataque simultâneo paralisaria o comércio global, os mercados financeiros, o trabalho remoto e as indústrias de tecnologia e comunicação, provocando uma recessão mundial.

Mas o problema não seria meramente financeiro: as cadeias de fornecimento do século 21 dependem da transferência constante de dados para coordenar a entrega de bens e produtos. A interrupção deste fluxo poderia causar um efeito dominó de atrasos e cancelamentos que restringiria a integração econômica, política e até cultural de diferentes zonas geográficas.

Ainda mais, a crise financeira e econômica que um ataque desse tipo precipitaria nem sequer seria o maior dos problemas. “Desconectar” os cabos de potências rivais desembocaria numa crise inadministrável, especialmente se for possível atribuir a responsabilidade a algum ator estatal específico, o que poderia provocar conflitos e reconfigurar alianças. Os países que dependem em grande medida da infraestrutura digital seriam os mais afetados, e aqueles com capacidades autônomas de comunicação e tecnologia poderiam obter vantagens estratégicas.

Desafortunadamente, tais cenários não podem ser ignorados, porque no alto-mar reina a anarquia. Os tratados internacionais existentes sobre direito de navegação não cobrem satisfatoriamente o caso dos cabos submarinos. Trata-se de um exemplo emblemático de uma realidade global que, apesar de ser de grande interesse público, não está adequadamente protegida nem física nem legalmente.

Até agora, as potências marítimas se abstiveram de atacar em grande escala as infraestruturas submarinas. Obviamente, atacar os cabos e conexões submarinas do rival provocaria custosas retaliações. Mas o equilíbrio atual é instável e inerentemente suscetível a perturbações que podem desestabilizar o sistema mundial da noite para o dia.

Quando imaginamos que eventos seriam capazes de suscitar uma escalada entre o Ocidente e seus rivais, nós tendemos a nos esquecer dessa realidade. As sociedades contemporâneas não podem funcionar sem a transmissão de dados facilitada pela internet que, por sua vez, não pode funcionar sem infraestruturas muito difíceis de defender.

A sensação de invulnerabilidade do Ocidente é ilusória, e seus rivais entenderam bem que certas infraestruturas — começando pelos cabos submarinos — são seu calcanhar de Aquiles. Essa realidade sublinha a necessidade de manter relações minimamente funcionais na arena internacional.

A interdependência entre os países não é apenas um conceito usado por diplomatas. É uma realidade que define o mundo de hoje. Este é um mundo no qual os problemas, riscos e ameaças se fazem cada vez mais internacionais, enquanto as respostas dos governos seguem sendo predominantemente nacionais. Há problemas que nenhum país consegue resolver atuando sozinho. A necessidade de coordenar respostas e responder coletivamente com eficácia às ameaças é um objetivo para o qual o mundo não está preparado. / TRADUÇÃO DE AUGUSTO CALIL

https://www.estadao.com.br/internacional/como-sera-o-dia-em-que-putin-desligar-os-cabos-da-internet-mundial-leia-a-coluna-de-moises-naim/

Timothy Snyder sobre dois GANGSTERS russos: a marcha de Prigozyn contra Putin

 

Prigozhin's March on Moscow

Ten lessons from a mutiny

TIMOTHY SNYDER JUN 26

SHARE

How to understand Yevgeny Prigozhin's march on Moscow and its sudden end?  Often there are plots without a coup; this seemed like a coup without a plot.  Yet weird as the mercenary chief’s mutiny was, we can draw some conclusions from its course and from its conclusion.

1.  Putin is not popular.  All the opinion polling we have takes place in an environment where his power is seen as more or less inevitable and where answering the question he wrong way seems risky.  But when his power was lifted, as when Rostov-on-Don was seized by Wagner, no one seemed to mind.  Reacting to Prigozhin's mutiny, some Russians were euphoric, and most seemed apathetic.  What was not to be seen was anyone in any Russian city spontaneously expressing their personal support for Putin, or let alone anyone taking any sort of personal risk on behalf of his regime.  The euphoria suggests to me that some Russians are ready to be ruled by a different exploitative regime.  The apathy indicates that most Russians at this point just take for granted that they will be ruled by the gangster with the most guns, and will just go on with their daily lives regardless of who that gangster happens to be. 

2.  Prigozhin was a threat to Putin, because he does much the same things that Putin does, and leverages Putin's own assets.  Both the Russian state itself and Prigozhin's mercenary firm Wagner are extractive regimes with large public relations and military arms.  The Putin regime exists, and the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg are relatively wealthy, thanks to the colonial exploitation of hydrocarbon resources in Siberia.  The wealth is held by a very few people, and the Russian population is treated to a regular spectacle of otherwise pointless war -- Ukraine, Syria, Ukraine again -- to distract attention from this basic state of affairs, and to convince them that there is some kind of external enemy that justifies it (hint: there really isn't).  Wagner functioned as a kind of intensification of the Russian state, doing the dirtiest work beyond Russia, not only in Syria and Ukraine but also in Africa.  It was subsidized by the Russian state, but made its real money by extracting mineral resources on its own, especially in Africa.  Unlike most of its other ventures, Wagner's war in Ukraine was a losing proposition.  Prigozhin leveraged the desperation of Russia's propaganda for a victory by taking credit for victory at Bakhmut.  That minor city was completely destroyed and abandoned by the time Wagner took it, at the cost of tens of thousands of Russian lives.  But because it was the only gain in Russia's horrifyingly costly but strategically senseless 2023 offensive, it had to be portrayed by Putin's media as some kind of Stalingrad or Berlin.  Prigozhin was able to direct the false glory to himself even as he then withdrew Wagner from Ukraine.  Meanwhile he criticized the military commanders of the Russian Federation in increasingly vulgar terms, thereby preventing the Russian state (and Putin) from gaining much from the bloody spectacle of invaded Ukraine.  In sum: Wagner was able to make the Putin regime work for it.

3.  Prigozhin told the truth about the war.  This has to be treated as a kind of self-serving accident: Prigozhin is a flamboyant and skilled liar and propagandist.  But his pose in the days before his march on Moscow made the truth helpful to him.  He wanted to occupy this position in Russian public opinion: the man who fought loyally for Russia and won Russia's only meaningful victory in 2023, in the teeth of the incompetence of the regime and the senselessness of the war itself.  I'm not sure enough attention has been paid to what Prigozhin said about Putin's motives for war: that it had nothing to do with NATO enlargement or Ukrainian aggression, and was simply a matter of wishing to dominate Ukraine, replace its regime with a Moscow-friendly politician (Viktor Medvedchuk), and then seize its resources and to satisfy the Russian elite.  Given the way the Russian political system actually works, that has the ring of plausibility.  Putin's various rationales are dramatically inconsistent with the way the Russian political system actually works.

4.  Russia is far less secure than it was before invading Ukraine.  This is a rather obvious point that many people aside from myself have been making, going all the way back the first invasion of 2014.  There was never any reason to believe, from that point at the latest, that Putin cared about Russian national interests.  If he had, he would never have begun a conflict that forced Russia to become subordinate to China, which is the only real threat on its borders.  Any realist in Moscow concerned about the Russian state would seek to balance China and the West, rather than pursue a policy which had to alienate the West.  Putin was concerned that Ukraine might serve as a model.  Unlike Russians, Ukrainians could vote and enjoyed freedom of speech and association.  That was no threat to Russia, but it was to Putin's own power.  Putin certainly saw Ukraine as an opportunity to generate a spectacle that would distract from his own regime's intense corruption, and to consolidate his own reputation as a leader who could gather in what he falsely portrayed as "Russian" lands.  But none of this has anything to do with the security of Russia as a state or the wellbeing of Russians as a people.  The Putin of 2022 (much more than the Putin of 2014) seems to have believed his own propaganda, overestimating Russian power while dismissing the reality of the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian civil society -- something no realist would do.  That meant that the second invasion failed, and that meant (as I wrote back in February 2022) that it would give an opportunity to a rival warlord.  Prigozhin was that warlord and he took that opportunity.  This might have all seemed abstract until he led his forces on a march to Moscow, downing six Russian helicopters and one plane, and stopping without ever having met meaningful resistance.  To be sure, Wagner had many advantages, such as being seen as Russian by locals and knowing how local infrastructure worked.  Nevertheless, Prigozhin's march shows that a small force would have little trouble reaching Moscow.  That was not the case before most of the Russian armed forces were committed in Ukraine, where many of the best units essentially ceased to exist.

5.  When backed into a corner, Putin saves himself.  In the West, we have worry about Putin's feelings.  What might he do if he feels threatened?  Might he do something terrible to us?  Putin encourages this line of thinking with constant bluster about "escalation" and the like.  On Saturday Putin gave another speech full of threats, this time directed against Prigozhin and Wagner.  Then he got into a plane and flew away to another city.  And then he made a deal with Prigozhin.  And then all legal charges against Prigozhin were dropped.  And then Putin's propagandists explained that all of this was perfectly normal.  

So long as Putin is in power, this is what he will do.  He will threaten and hope that those threats will change the behaviour of his enemies.  When that fails, he will change the story.  His regime rests on propaganda, and in the end the spectacle generated by the military is there to serve the propaganda.  Even when that spectacle is as humiliating as can be possibly be imagined, as it was on Saturday when Russian rebels marched on Moscow and Putin fled, his response will be to try to change he subject.  

It is worth emphasizing that on Saturday the threat to him personally and to his regime was real.  Both the risk and the humiliation were incomparably greater than anything that could happen in Ukraine.  Compared to power in Russia, power in Ukraine is unimportant.  After what we have just seen, no one should be arguing that Putin might be backed into a corner in Ukraine and take some terrible decision.  He cannot be backed into a corner in Ukraine.  He can only be backed into a corner in Russia.  And now we know what he does when that happens: record a speech and run away.

(And most likely write a check.  A note of speculation.  No one yet knows what the deal between Putin and Prigozhin was.  There are rumblings in Russia that Sergei Shoigu, Prigozhin's main target, will be forced to resign after accusations of some kind of corruption or another.  There are reports that Prigozhin was given reason to be concerned about the lives of his own familymembers and those of other Wagner leaders.  I imagine, personally, that one element was money.  On 1 July, Wagner was going to cease to exist as a separate entity, at least formally speaking.  It like all private armies was required to subordinate itself to the ministry of defense, which is to say to Shoigu.  This helps to explain, I think, the timing of the mutiny.  Were Wagner to cease to function as before, Prigozhin would have lost a lot of money.  It is not unreasonable to suppose that he marched on Moscow at a moment when we still had the firepower to generate one last payout.  Mafia metaphors can help here, not least because they are barely metaphors.  You can think of the Russian state as a protection racket.  No one is really safe, but everyone has to accept "protection" in the knowledge that this is less risky than rebellion.  A protection racket is always vulnerable to another protection racket.  In marching from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow, Prigozhin was breaking one protection racket and proposing another.  On this logic, we can imagine Prigozhin's proposal to Putin as follows: I am deploying the greater force, and I am now demanding protection money from you.  If you want to continue your own protection racket, pay me off before I reach Moscow.)

6.  The top participants were fascists, and fascists can feud.  We don't use the term “fascist” much, since the Russians (especially Russian fascists) use it for their enemies, which is confusing; and since it seems somehow politically incorrect to use it.  And for another reason: unlike the Italians, the Romanians, and the Germans of the 1930s, the Putin regime has had the use of tremendous profits from hydrocarbons, which it has used to influence western public opinion.  All the same, if Russia today is not a fascist regime, it is really difficult to know what regime would be fascist.  It is more clearly fascist than Mussolini's Italy, which invented the term.  Russian fascists have been in the forefront of both invasions on Ukraine, both on the battlefield and in propaganda.  Putin himself has used fascist language at every turn, and has pursued the fascist goal of genocide in Ukraine.  

Prigozhin has been however the more effective fascist propagandist during this war, strategically using symbols of violence (a sledgehammer) and images of death (cemeteries, actual corpses) to solidify his position.  Wagner includes a very large number of openly fascist fighters.  Wagner's conflict with Shogun has racist overtones, undertones, and throughtones -- on pro-Wagner Telegram channels he is referred to as "the Tuva degenerate" and similar.  

That said, the difference between fascists can seem very meaningful when that is all that is on offer, and it is absolutely clear that many Russians were deeply affected by the clash of the two fascist camps.  That said, it is important to specify a difference between Putin and Prigozhin's fascism and that of the 1930s.  The two men are both very concerned with money, which the first generation of fascists in general were not.  They are oligarchical fascists -- a breed worth watching here in the US as well.

7.  The division in Russia was real, and will likely endure.  Some Russians celebrated when Wagner shot down Russian helicopters, and others were astonished that they could do so.  Some Russians wanted action, others could not imagine change.  Most Russians probably do not care much, but those who do are not of the same opinion.  Putin's regime will try to change the subject, as always, but now it lacks offensive power in Ukraine (without Wagner) and so the ability to create much of a spectacle. Russian propaganda has already turned against Wagner, who were of course yesterday's heroes. The leading Russian propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, recruited for Wagner. The son of Putin's spokesman supposedly served in Wagner. Although this was almost certainly a lie, it reveals that Wagner was once the site of prestige. 

It might prove hard for Russian propagandists to find any heroes in the story, since for the most part no one resisted Wagner's march on Moscow.  If Wagner was so horrible, why did everyone just let it go forward?  If the Russian ministry of defense is so effective, why did it do so little?  If Putin is in charge, why did he run away, and leave even the negotiating to Lukashenko of Belarus?  If Lukashenko is the hero of the story, what does that say about Putin?

It is also not clear what will happen now to Wagner.  The Kremlin claims that its men will be integrated into the Russian armed forces, but it is hard to see why they would accept that.  They are used to being treated with greater respect (and getting paid better).  If Wagner remains intact in some form, it is hard to see how it could be trusted, in Ukraine or anywhere else.  More broadly, Putin now faces a bad choice between toleration and purges.  If he tolerates the rebellion, he looks weak.  If he purges his regime, he risks another rebellion.

8.  One of Putin's crimes against Russia is his treatment of the opposition.  This might seem to be a tangent: what does the imprisoned or exiled opposition have to do with Prigozhin's mutiny?  The point is that their imprisonment and exile meant that they could do little to advance their own ideas for Russia's future on what would otherwise have been an excellent occasion to do so.  The Putin regime is obviously worn out, but there is no one around to say so, and to propose something better than another aging fascist.  

I think of this by contrast to 1991.  During the coup attempt that August against Gorbachev, Russians rallied in Moscow.  They might or might not have been supporters of Gorbachev, but they could see the threat a military coup posed for their own futures.  The resistance to the coup gave Russia a chance for a new beginning, a chance that has now been wasted.  There was no resistance to this coup, in part because of the systematic political degeneration of the Putin regime, in part because the kinds of courageous Russians who went to the streets in 1991 are no behind bars or in exile.  This means that Russians in general have been denied a chance to think of political futures. 

9.  This was a preview of how the war in Ukraine ends.  When there is meaningful conflict in Russia, Russians will forget about Ukraine and pay attention to their own country.  That has no happened once, and it can happen again.  When such a conflict lasts longer than this one (just one day), Russian troops will be withdrawn from Ukraine.  In this case, Wagner withdrew itself from Ukraine, and then the troops of Ramzan Kadyrov (Akhmat) departed Ukraine to fight Wagner (which they predictably failed to do, which is another story).  In a more sustained conflict, regular soldiers would also depart.  It will be impossible to defend Moscow and its elites otherwise.  Moscow elites who think ahead should want those troops withdrawn now. On its present trajectory, Russia is likely to face an internal power struggle sooner rather than later.  That is how wars end: when the pressure is felt inside the political system.  Those who want this war to end should help Ukrainians exert that pressure.

10.  Events in Russia (like events in Ukraine) are in large measure determined by the choices of Russians (or Ukrainians).  In the US we have the imperialist habit of denying agency to both parties in this conflict.  Far too many people seem to think that Ukrainians are fighting because of the US or NATO, when in fact the situation is entirely the opposite: it was Ukrainian resistance that persuaded other nations to help.  Far too many people still think the US or NATO had something to do with Putin's personal decision to invade Ukraine, when in fact the character of the Russian system (and Putin's own words) provide us with more than enough explanation. 

Some of those people are now claiming that Prigozhin's putsch was planned by the Americans, which is silly.  The Biden administration has quite consistently worked against Wagner.  Prigozhin's main American connection was his hard work, as head of Russia's Internet Research Agency, to get Trump elected in 2016.  Others are scrambling to explain Prigozhin's march on Moscow and its end as some kind of complex political theater, in which the goal was to move Prigozhin and Wagner to Belarus to organize a strike on Ukraine from the north.  This is ludicrous.  If Prigozhin actually does go to Belarus, there is no telling what he might improvise there. But the idea of such a plan makes no sense. If Putin and Prigozhin were on cooperative terms, they could have simply agreed on such a move in a way that would not have damaged both of their reputations (and left Russia weaker).  

Putin choose to invade Ukraine for reasons that made sense to him inside the system he built.  Prigozhin resisted Putin for reasons that made sense to him as someone who had profited from that system from the inside.  The mutiny was a choice within Putin's war of choice, and it exemplifies the disaster Putin has brought to his country.

Certas coisas precisam ser ditas - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Certas coisas precisam ser ditas

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

A parte responsável dos dirigentes mundiais está preocupada com uma guerra de agressão e de extermínio no coração da Europa, não provocada pelo vizinho invadido, assim como com os desafios da mudança climática e seus efeitos sobre a segurança alimentar. O presidente francês organizou uma reunião em Paris para tratar do financiamento dessa segunda questão.

E o que fez Lula? 

De improviso, sem ligar para a “maçaroca de papéis” preparada pelo Itamaraty, ele prefere cobrar, sempre no tom demagógico que lhe é característico,  a falta de uma discussão sobre o problema da desigualdade, que é uma característica estrutural, resiliente, permanente da humanidade, desde a origem da civilização. 

Não foi a desigualdade que provocou a guerra de agressão, nem os problemas da mudança climática, que atinge pobres e ricos, igualmente e desigualmente.

Lula tem a solução deste problema crucial da humanidade que é a desigualdade? Conseguiu resolver no seu próprio país? 

E os dois primeiros problemas? Aliás, são desafios ao próprio Brasil!

A promessa de acabar com o desmatamento ilegal até 2030 é um compromisso firme ou apenas uma promessa?

Deveria ser uma obrigação do próprio Brasil, sem exigir que terceiros — os ricos, que “fizeram a revolução industrial” — paguem por uma tarefa que é de nosso próprio interesse.

Lula vai ficar só no discurso? 

Populismo diplomático rende alguns aplausos entre os convertidos, mas cada vez menos entre estadistas responsáveis.

A diplomacia brasileira merece mais e melhores posturas no cenário internacional.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Brasília, 25/06/2023

Xivilization: China targets sea change in global diplomacy race with West - Pak Kiu (Nikkei Asia)

 ‘Xivilization’ – China’s authoritarian answer to crisis: At first glance, China's Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) may appear to be simply the latest iteration of what the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum calls China’s sharp power. But it is "more sophisticated. It’s more strategic, more long-term oriented,” said Moritz Rudolf, a research fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.

ASIA INSIGHT

China targets sea change in global diplomacy race with West

As Blinken calls, Beijing wields 'Xivilization' to promote China worldview

PAK YIU, Nikkei staff writerJUNE 20, 2023 06:00 JST

Nikkei Asia, 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/China-targets-sea-change-in-global-diplomacy-race-with-West

HONG KONG -- For three years, COVID kept China's global diplomacy goals on ice. Now, with the U.S. enmeshed in a domestic election campaign and the international community preoccupied with war in Ukraine, Beijing is back, ramping up a drive to promote its own alternative to the West's "rules-based international order."

From offering to foster Palestinian-Israel relations, to floating peace proposals for Ukraine, President Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has stepped up his global influence game amid soured ties with the U.S.

While Antony Blinken met the Chinese leader on Monday during the first trip to Beijing by a U.S. Secretary of State for five years, in recent months Xi has rolled out the red carpet in Beijing for leaders like Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, France's Emmanuel Macron and the heads of several Central Asian countries.

All this has come against a backdrop of growing tension over Taiwan, the democratic island claimed by China as its own: last week Xi hosted Honduran President Xiomara Castro for an embassy opening after her country broke off ties with Taipei. At the same time, China has launched the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) -- the last of a trio of Xi's ideological frameworks -- as being central to "cultivating the garden of world civilization," or "Xivilization" as state media have termed it.

Opaque in language, Xi's initiative advocates for "common aspirations" of humanity, pitching a message that says, "Join our club, we won't tell you what to do -- unlike the West." But scholars say collegiality will come at the expense of human rights protections.

Compared to how China has acted in the past, "It's more sophisticated. It's more strategic, more long-term oriented," said Moritz Rudolf, a researcher and fellow at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center. "It's a vision that China's putting out on the table, while Western countries are currently in a sort of an identity crisis, figuring out how to deal with a lot of challenges ... in a complex world.

"And then China just has an authoritarian answer to this."

China's vision of reshaping global norms has long been laid out but without much detail. First came the Global Development Initiative in 2021, a large pool of cooperative projects aimed at assisting developing countries reeling from COVID, the impacts of climate change and poverty. The Global Security Initiative came last year, two months after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Now with the GCI, Beijing is fleshing out its foreign policy by creating alternative institutions for global cooperation that are more ambitious than ever -- ringing alarm bells for some.

Unveiling the GCI in a speech earlier this year, Xi made at least one aspect clear -- no one should tell China what to do. "Countries need to keep an open mind in appreciating the perceptions of values by different civilizations and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation," he said, speaking to senior international political figures in a videoconference in March.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim remains the only national leader to publicly support the GCI. Some observers say not all Asian countries would subscribe to the initiative given the delicate balance of maintaining ties with the U.S.

But should Western nations continue to frame the competing agendas as "autocracy versus democracy" -- as U.S. President Joe Biden has described it -- that could help China's cause, some analysts warn.

In Southeast Asian countries, "At the political level there is a lot of alignment actually with the Chinese," said Hoang Thi Ha, senior fellow and co-coordinator of the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Programme at the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

"The idea of 'Don't just use values such as liberal Western values to dictate your foreign policy with us'" carries weight in some capitals, Hoang said.

Beijing's diplomatic push comes as Xi, now in his third five-year term, steps up efforts to deliver on a mission of rejuvenating the Chinese nation. Observers trace the ambitions of the world's second-largest economy back to the experience of colonial subjugation, what China calls the "century of humiliation," from 1839 to 1949.

The foundations for China's vision of a multipolar world began to take shape as early as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched a decade ago, with more than $962 billion of infrastructure development investments across 147 countries since then, according to a report by Fudan University's Green Finance & Development Center. While huge, the BRI has come in for criticism of late over exacerbating debt in poor countries, as well as the quality of some projects.

Since Xi came to power as the head of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, the country's foreign policy has become bolder, in step with its economic rise.

Alongside its Taiwan agenda, Beijing has made sweeping claims in the South China Sea, rapidly building islands in strategic waters and militarizing the region. Non-Western-centric organizations, meanwhile, have provided Beijing with platforms to boost its vision of a new world order, including the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, an alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

As China steps forward to play a greater role in global diplomacy, Western nations are trying to figure out how to deal with the new reality. The Group of Seven major industrialized countries took a united stand against what they called China's economic coercion at last month's summit in Hiroshima and called on China to play by international rules.

But while the Ukraine war has solidified Western nations' alliances in general, some observers warn their grip on global politics will rapidly wane.

"This may end up being the biggest geopolitical turning point revealed by the war: that the consolidation of the West is taking place in an increasingly divided post-Western world," the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank wrote in February.

Prolonged Western dominance in the world has led those Western nations to believe their values are universal, and that the reshaping into a multipolar world has become more a "moral challenge" than political, said George Yeo, Singapore's former foreign affairs minister, speaking at a forum in December.

According to Yeo, multipolarity would provide economic, cultural and political benefits to the global community, and the U.S. should stop seeing China as an adversary.

However Western nations respond, observers of China's foreign policy foresee no let-up in Beijing's push to become a bigger global player. Some point to Afghanistan and the Middle East as areas where China will be more involved, while others have noted China's keen interest in Central Asia.

At a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers earlier this month, a call was made to rebalance the global order away from Western nations. But resistance to China, and Xi, in some quarters makes that a more difficult goal: since COVID, unfavorable views of China have been at historic highs, along with opposition to Xi's vision of China as a global leader, according to Pew Research Group.

Amid the prospect of competition and even potential conflict between major powers, China could find itself achieving its ambition of playing a bigger role in a multipolar world. But that world faces an increasingly uncertain future.

"So long as we do not slip into kinetic warfare, I do not foresee a total freeze in relations between Beijing and Washington," said Brian Wong, associate fellow and adviser on strategy at the Oxford Global Society, speaking before Blinken's visit to China. "However, this does not mean that bilateral relations will improve any time soon, short of demonstrable resolve from the bureaucracies and political establishments across both sides of the Pacific."

A quase guerra civil russa, na visão dos ucranianos do Center for Defense Studies

 Russia, relevant news

Centre for Defence Strategies (CDS), June 24. 2023,

The alleged military coup by the PMC "Wagner" under the leadership of Yevgeny Prigozhin lasted for 24 hours before collapsing and entering negotiations with the Kremlin, mediated by the unrecognized president of Belarus, Lukashenko. According to the Kremlin's version, the conditions for ending the coup included dropping the criminal case against Prigozhin, his departure to Belarus, and assurances from Putin that he would not be pursued. Additionally, the Russian authorities would not hold accountable the "Wagner" PMC combatants involved in the rebellion, while those who did not participate could sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense.

“Today, the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos. Complete absence of any predictability,” President Volodymyr Zelensky twitted. 

Though it seems the climax is over and Vladimir Putin has managed to remain on his throne, the failed coup d’état will have far-reaching consequences.

If we assume that today's attempted coup was not staged, we can draw the following conclusions:

-       Firstly, Vladimir Putin personally lost control over the situation and allegedly escaped Moscow. He has chosen a ride, not an ammo [compared to Zelensky]. It’s a sign of weakness that undermines his macho image in a country ruled by criminal-like customs rather than by law and institutions. The massive blow to the cult of personality will play a role in the future.

-       Secondly, the “peacemaking” role of Alexander Lukashenko, if true, equated two tyrants and a warlord. It is well noted at home and abroad. The authoritarian leaders appreciate a firm grip over power and disrespect those who aren’t strong enough.

-       Thirdly, the involvement of a so-called private military company like Wagner highlights the failure of the state. While these entities were created to carry out covert operations without direct connections to the Kremlin (seizure of Crimea, the war in Donbas since 2014, Syria, Africa and other places), their participation in the coup reveals the extent of their political influence. Wagner’s chieftain and several militaries confessed that they played in a show in Ukraine from the beginning. Such revolutions threw out theories about a civil war in Ukraine. Prigozhin also admitted that there was no massive shelling of the Russia-occupied cities by the UAF, and Ukraine wasn’t about to “invade” those territories, an important justification for war made by Putin.

-       Fourthly, over-militarized Russia turned out to be defenseless. Military command failed to enforce actions from subordinates, some of whom joined the failed junta. As previous attacks of the Russian freedom fighters on Belgorod showed, Moscow could hardly gather sizable force and cope with the intrusion.

-       Fifth, the locals in the cities and towns seized by Wagner didn’t organize resistance. Many of them showed sympathy to Wagner mercenaries because they were dissatisfied with Moscow and the way Putin and his closest friends and subjects waged war. 

The failed advance to Moscow, called the “March for Justice”, will leave many in Wagner and those who joined them disappointed. Feelings of injustice and betrayal are multiplied and will play a crucial role in the future. It may show that violence is crucial to bringing “justice,” while agreements serve only those better off and in power. “Either Putin or Prigozhin will be dead before year end. There is no room in Russia for both of them,” Timothy Ash twitted.

Finally, the West got a hint that there should be contingency planning in case of civil war and the dissolution of Russia. Politically correct phraseology about the absence of regime change intentions didn’t impress Putin and did not prevent such events. A failed state and society under such pressure are increasingly heading toward a collapse. The failed coup d’état in 1991 galvanized the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Russia will remain an unstable and unpredictable entity balancing on the edge of collapse for a long time. Ukraine’s role as a guardian of the rest has increased. So, it needs more support to fight for its sovereignty and territorial integrity, therefore mitigating the threats to others and bringing an unstable regime to inevitable collapse.

Ah, esse ambicionado Prêmio Nobel da Paz... - Paulo Roberto de Almeida (Crusoé)

Meu artigo publicado mais recente: 

1513. “Ah, esse ambicionado Prêmio Nobel da Paz...”, Brasília, 11 junho 2023, 3 p. Artigo sobre os prêmios Nobel e a pretensão de Lula de conquistar um da Paz para si. Publicado na revista Crusoé (23/06/2023; link: https://crusoe.uol.com.br/secao/paulo-roberto-de-almeida/ah-esse-ambicionado-nobel-da-paz/?utm_source=crs-site&utm_medium=crs-login&utm_campaign=redir). Relação de Originais n.  4412.

Ah, esse ambicionado Prêmio Nobel da Paz...

  

Paulo Roberto de Almeida, diplomata, professor.

Artigo sobre os prêmios Nobel e a pretensão de Lula de conquistar um da Paz para si. Publicado na revista Crusoé

  

O testamento de Alfred Nobel, reservando uma parte de sua imensa fortuna para premiar cinco personalidades que, no ano anterior, realizaram grandes feitos em favor da humanidade, foi finalizado em 1895, prevendo a distribuição de prêmios nas seguintes áreas: física, química, medicina, literatura e a promoção da paz e da amizade entre as nações. Mas, os primeiros prêmios só foram concedidos a partir de 1901, em função de dissensões familiares quanto à repartição de seu legado. Os prêmios científicos e de literatura seriam avaliados por academias suecas dos respectivos setores, enquanto o da paz estaria a cargo do parlamento norueguês, cujo reino, naquela época, era unido ao da Suécia. Bem mais tarde, em 1968, foi introduzido um prêmio Nobel em Economia, a ser atribuído pelo Banco Nacional da Suécia. 

Ao longo dos anos, com poucas exceções, os prêmios foram sendo atribuídos, previsivelmente para cientistas, pesquisadores, literatos dos próprios países avançados, onde naturalmente estavam concentradas as pesquisas científicas e a produção intelectual. Paulatinamente, escritores e cientistas dos demais países, alguns que hoje se situam no que vem sendo chamado de Sul Global, foram sendo contemplados, alguns dos quais bem próximos do Brasil, mas jamais alguém de nacionalidade brasileira (embora alguns cientistas que viveram ou trabalharam no Brasil tenham recebido a graça). Tentativas foram feitas, candidaturas foram apresentadas, mas a sorte foi ingrata com o país abençoado por Deus, ou onde ele teria supostamente o seu lugar de eleição.

(...)

... muitas das democracias ocidentais, entre elas todos os membros da Otan, contestam, inclusive, a suposta imparcialidade do Brasil, para liderar um “clube da paz”, uma vez que Lula, mais identificado atualmente por sua simpática postura em favor de ditaduras de esquerda, tem consistentemente dado mostras de defender o lado russo. Esse posicionamento ocorre a despeito do fato de a diplomacia brasileira ter votado condenando a Rússia na Assembleia Geral da ONU, mas em resoluções puramente simbólicas da, pois que desprovidas do poder coercitivo que teria uma decisão do seu Conselho de Segurança. A proposta de “cessação de hostilidades”, agregada a uma dessas resoluções, só favoreceria a Rússia de Putin, pois que “congelando”, de certa forma, as forças sobre o terreno, sendo que a potência agressora ocupa boa parte da Ucrânia oriental e meridional. 

Não será, portanto, com qualquer manobra inovadora em torno do pior conflito militar na Europa, desde o final da Segunda Guerra Mundial, que Lula conquistará o ambicionado Prêmio Nobel da Paz. Ele terá de pensar em outras iniciativas, de grande peso na atualidade, para almejar o mítico prêmio. Que tal começar por um grande dever de casa, e fazer cessar, por completo, as hostilidades de madeireiros e garimpeiros contra a paz dos povos originários da Amazônia? Eis uma missão que poderia valer como um 13º trabalho de Hércules...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasília, 4412, 11 junho 2023

.  

Ler a íntegra no site da revista Crusoé: 

 https://crusoe.uol.com.br/secao/paulo-roberto-de-almeida/ah-esse-ambicionado-nobel-da-paz/?utm_source=crs-site&utm_medium=crs-login&utm_campaign=redir

BRICS Faces a Reckoning - Foreign Policy - Online

BRICS Faces a Reckoning

Foreign Policy - Online

June 22, 2023, 1:21 PM

https://adb.empauta.com/e6/noticia/2306221687455889007?autolog=eJwzMDA1NzMzNDU2MTMwMjAyNjAzMgYAKh4D--2Fg--3D--3D%2F

In 2001, Goldman Sachs banker Jim O'Neill created the acronym "BRIC" to refer to Brazil, Russia, India, and China- countries he predicted would soon have a significant impact on the global economy. In 2006, Goldman Sachs opened a BRIC investment fund pegged to growth in these four nations. The moniker captured the global excitement about emerging powers at the time and transformed into a political grouping in 2009, when leaders of the four countries held their first summit. South Africa joined a year later.

In 2001, Goldman Sachs banker Jim O'Neill created the acronym "BRIC" to refer to Brazil, Russia, India, and China- countries he predicted would soon have a significant impact on the global economy. In 2006, Goldman Sachs opened a BRIC investment fund pegged to growth in these four nations. The moniker captured the global excitement about emerging powers at the time and transformed into a political grouping in 2009, when leaders of the four countries held their first summit. South Africa joined a year later.

BRICS as a political body has faced countless critics and doubters from the start. Analysts in the Western press largely described the outfit as nonsensical and predicted its imminent demise. In 2011, the Financial Times' Philip Stevens announced it was "time to bid farewell" to the "BRICS without mortar." A year later, another columnist at the paper, Martin Wolf, asserted that BRICS was "not a group" and that its members had "nothing in common whatsoever." BRICS has also been described as a "motley crew," "odd grouping," "random bunch," and "disparate quartet." In 2015, Goldman Sachs decided to close the BRIC fund (which never grew to include South Africa) due to its low returns.

BRICS member countries have numerous differences and disagreements. While Brazil and Russia are commodity exporters, China is a commodity importer. Brazil, India, and South Africa are democratic countries with vibrant civil societies, but China and Russia are autocratic regimes. Brazil and South Africa are nonnuclear powers, in contrast to China, India, and Russia, which boast nuclear arsenals. Perhaps most seriously, China and India face an ongoing border conflict.

And yet, despite their differences, not one BRICS leader has ever missed the group's annual summits. (Meetings took place virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic.) Instead of unraveling, diplomatic and economic ties have strengthened, and BRICS membership has become a central element to each member's foreign-policy identity. Even significant ideological shifts- including the election of right-wing populist leaders such as India's Narendra Modi in 2014 and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro in 2018- have not significantly altered countries' commitment to the club.

Yet as BRICS approaches its 15th summit in Johannesburg this August, the grouping is experiencing an unprecedented disagreement over enlargement. The outcome will be a test of BRICS identity in the face of rising Chinese influence.

Despite the many disagreements and tensions among them, BRICS members have more in common than Western analysts often appreciate. The strategic benefits the outfit produces for its participants still far exceed its costs. Four aspects stand out.

First, all BRICS members see the emergence of multipolarity as both inevitable and generally desirable- and identify the bloc as a means to play a more active role in shaping the post-Western global order. Member states share a deep-seated skepticism of U.S.-led unipolarity and believe that the BRICS nations increase their strategic autonomy and bargaining power when negotiating with Washington. As Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in opening remarks at the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, on June 1, the concentration of economic power- presumably in the West- "leaves too many nations at the mercy of too few."

Second, the BRICS grouping also provides privileged access to China, a country that has become enormously relevant for all other members. Brazil and South Africa in particular, which had only limited ties to Beijing prior to the group's founding, have benefited from BRICS as they adapt to a more China-centric world. It's not just the summits attended by heads of state: Ministers and other officials frequently gather to discuss issues such as climate, defense, education, energy, and health. And, largely under the radar, the grouping has organized countless annual meetings- in some years more than 100- involving government officials, think tanks, universities, cultural entities, and legislators. BRICS membership also granted countries a founding stake in the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB), created during the fifth BRICS summit in 2013.

Third, BRICS members have generally treated each other as all-weather friends. The group has created a powerful diplomatic life raft for member countries that temporarily face difficulties on the global stage: Fellow BRICS states protected Russian President Vladimir Putin from diplomatic isolation after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and stood by Bolsonaro when he found himself globally isolated after his close ally Donald Trump's failed reelection bid for the U.S. presidency. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin could again rely on the other BRICS countries to provide him explicit diplomatic and economic support (China), help circumvent sanctions (India), participate in military exercises (South Africa), or embrace his narratives about the war (Brazil). Without BRICS support, Russia would find itself in a far more difficult situation today.

Finally, being a member of the BRICS creates considerable prestige, status, and legitimacy for Brazil, Russia, and South Africa, which for years have stagnated economically and are now anything but emerging powers. Even as Brazil has fallen behind in its share of global GDP, analysts continue to describe it as an emerging power- which facilitates investment and allows the government in Brasília, the capital, to punch above its weight diplomatically. That some 20 countries are now seeking membership in the group only confirms the notion that the BRICS seal remains powerful.

It is precisely on this last issue that the grouping is facing its biggest disagreement since its inception 14 years ago. Beijing, which does not need to preserve the grouping's exclusivity to retain its global status, has for years aimed to integrate new members and slowly transform the bloc into a China-led alliance. Since 2017, when it presented the "BRICS Plus" concept- a mechanism to bring countries closer to the outfit before eventually granting them full membership- Beijing has sought to put expansion on the agenda. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, expansion has also been of interest to Moscow, as it could help create a Russia-sympathetic bloc to counter Western attempts to isolate the country.

Brazil and India, on the other hand, have long been wary of adding new members to BRICS, as they have less to gain from a diluted club that includes smaller powers. Both Brasília and New Delhi fear that expansion would entail a loss of Brazilian and Indian influence within the group. In their eyes, new members would join largely to gain easier access to Beijing, making BRICS positions more China-centric and potentially less moderate. This explains why Jaishankar recently cautioned that deliberations on expansion were still a "work in progress," and Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said that "BRICS is a brand and an asset, so we have to take care of it, because it means and represents a lot." South Africa, which traditionally has the least influence within BRICS, has sought to hedge its bets.

There is no formal application process- or specific criteria- to become a BRICS member. Some countries have simply been added to the list of potential future members after an informal expression of interest. But in last year's BRICS summit declaration, member countries vowed to promote "discussions among BRICS members on BRICS expansion process" and stressed "the need to clarify the guiding principles, the standards, criteria and procedures." The debate about BRICS expansion is not directly related to the NDB, which in 2021 added Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay as new members and announced that at least 30 percent of loans would be provided in the currencies of member states rather than the U.S. dollar.

In theory, each BRICS member has a veto over the group's decisions, which explains why yearly summit declarations have often been vague. In practice, the grouping's profound asymmetries- China's GDP is larger than that of all other members combined- creates informal hierarchies. South Africa's 2010 accession was led by China to bolster Beijing's engagement on the African continent. It also made the IBSA grouping (of India, Brazil, and South Africa) superfluous. If killing IBSA was a desired side effect of South Africa's BRICS membership- to show that three large democracies in the developing world discussing can't discuss the future of the global south without China- Beijing succeeded: The 10th IBSA leaders' summit, scheduled to take place in 2013, has been postponed indefinitely.

China and Russia may therefore succeed, despite Brazilian opposition and Indian skepticism, in adding new members to the club, particularly since Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva- to his advisors' chagrin- recently expressed support for inviting Venezuela to BRICS during improvised remarks.

Disagreements over whether to expand BRICS are about more than exclusivity and status. Several potential accession candidates- such as Iran, Syria, and Venezuela- have largely pursued an anti-Western foreign policy. Their integration could complicate Brazil's and India's efforts to preserve a nonaligned strategy amid growing tensions between the West and the Beijing-Moscow axis.

The key to BRICS' success since 2009 has been its capacity to circumvent internal disagreements and focus on unifying themes, such as the desire to build a more multipolar world and strengthen south-south relations. India-China ties are notoriously fraught and, despite New Delhi's decision to help Moscow export its oil, India has systematically sought to reduce its dependence on Russian weapons and increased its arms purchases from Europe. The status quo may be the best BRICS can achieve without exposing its rifts. While Russia has long attempted to position the BRICS grouping as an anti-Western bloc, Brazil and India have steadily sought to prevent Moscow from doing so.

The uncertainty about how the South African government in Pretoria should handle hosting the upcoming BRICS summit in Johannesburg reflects the dilemmas it and Brasília currently face in the context of growing tensions between Moscow and the West. Since South Africa is a party to the Rome Statute, the founding charter of the International Criminal Court (ICC), it would be obligated to arrest Putin- whom the ICC has indicted- if he attends. For months, South Africans have debated how to handle the delicate situation. As former South African President Thabo Mbeki recently pointed out: "We can't say to President Putin, please come to South Africa, and then arrest him. At the same time, we can't say come to South Africa, and not arrest him- because we're defying our own law- we can't behave as a lawless government."

While hosting Putin without arresting him would strain South Africa's ties to the West, not hosting him- or organizing the summit elsewhere- would dilute BRICS' commitment to being all-weather friends. The most likely scenario is that South Africa finds a legal loophole to host Putin without detaining him- representing a diplomatic triumph for the Russian president.

Still, it is largely a lose-lose dilemma for South Africa, and means that being part of BRICS has started to have a tangible cost for the country by negatively affecting its ties to the United States and Europe. Pretoria has already had a taste of this: After South Africa drew closer to Russia after its invasion of Ukraine- including by allegedly supplying Moscow with weapons- the G-7 decided not to invite it as a guest to a recent summit, for the first time since South African President Cyril Ramaphosa took office in 2018. Unless the Russia-Ukraine war ends soon, Brazil- which has also signed the Rome Statute and is slated to host the G-20 summit in 2024 and the BRICS summit in 2025 - will soon face the same problem.

For all its ongoing challenges, BRICS generates many benefits for its members and is here to stay. Yet if the group announces the inclusion of new members during the upcoming summit in Johannesburg, it would be simplistic to interpret it as a sign of strength. Rather, expansion should be read as a sign of China's growing capacity to determine the bloc's overall strategy- and may reflect the emergence not of a multipolar order, but of a bipolar one.