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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

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Tag Archives: North Korea

Hope on the Korean Peninsula

12 Tue Jun 2018

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Nuclear, Opinion and Response

≈ Comments Off on Hope on the Korean Peninsula

Tags

Agreed Framework, Bill Clinton, CVID, Donald Trump, IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, Kim Dae-jung, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un, Michael Pompeo, Moon Jae-in, North Korea, nuclear, Panmunjom Declaration, Ri Yong-ho, Six-Party Talks, United States

US President Donald Trump and North Korean supremo Kim Jong-un emerged from their summit meeting in Singapore with smiles and an understanding on the Hermit Kingdom’s nuclear programme. After nearly five hours of talks, the two leaders released a joint statement that committed both countries to build a new relationship towards peace and prosperity, joint efforts to bring peace to the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang’s promise to work to achieve a complete denuclearisation of the two Koreas, and the repatriation of the remains of prisoners of war from the Korean War nearly 70 years ago. Interestingly, the joint statement also stated that Trump committed to provide a security guarantee to North Korea.

Trump emerged from the meeting stating that it went “better than expected and no one could’ve expected this” though the statement had no trace of the pre-summit US language of “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation (CVID).” Both sides promised to begin follow-on negotiations between US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Ri Yong-ho at the earliest possible date.

Before the summit, most experts would have been glad if the conference even took place and the promise of a second meeting would have been taken as a great success. Trump’s ‘unique’ style of diplomacy had worried most observers that the Korean peninsula might be heading towards an expensive and catastrophic confrontation. Indeed, it was barely ten months ago that the president had threatened to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against Pyongyang. Seen against that backdrop, the Singapore summit delivered beyond expectations.

Nonetheless, optimism must be tempered and there are several questions the joint statement raises. The first and most obvious is that the joint statement is woefully short on details – there has been no agreement on what denuclearisation would entail, verification regimes, timetables, deadlines, or penalties. Still, the statement might be seen as a preliminary measure before a more concrete treaty is negotiated in much the same way the Joint Plan of Action paved the way for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran.

It may also be argued that Kim did not promise the United States anything more than he did South Korea in the Panmunjom Declaration that pledged to strive for a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War and bring about the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Yet Trump conceded the cessation of military exercises with South Korea – apparently without consulting the military or Seoul – and suggested the removal of all US forces from the country. The president thought such activity would be “very provocative” now that negotiations had begun with Pyongyang and that the cancellation of war games would also save “a tremendous amount of money.”

Kim’s promise of denuclearisation is also a big question mark. While it implies the dismantlement of his own nuclear arsenal – which is a notable achievement – it also opens the door to the removal of US nuclear weapons from the peninsula and perhaps even from bases nearby in Guam and Japan. North Korea does not intend to disarm unilaterally as it has learned its lesson from watching how the United States treated Iraq and Libya.

If Washington does talk over the heads of its regional allies in Seoul and Tokyo, both South Korea and Japan may be tempted to seriously consider acquiring a nuclear arsenal of their own. There have long been whispers in both capitals of an independent and reliable nuclear deterrent and these may only get louder if talks between Pyongyang and Washington drag on indefinitely without a North Korean nuclear disarmament.

It must be noted that the arrangement Trump has reached with Kim is far inferior to the agreement Clinton achieved in 1994 or even the progress made by the Six-Party Talks between 2003 and 2009. Yet this reflects not a shortcoming on Trump’s part but the advancements North Korea has made in its nuclear and missile programmes in the intervening years. American myopia in the late 1990s and early 2000s has given Kim Jong-un a better negotiating hand today through no fault of the Trump administration and the concessions Washington can expect will be less or will come at a steeper price, the difference from a quarter century ago echoing the cost of Washington’s folly.

The success of the Singapore summit and any subsequent agreement will ultimately depend upon whether each side delivers on their promises. Both sides have plenty of ammunition to suspect the other of bad faith. Washington, for example, walked out of its agreement with Iran despite the international community’s protestations for no apparent reason; the United States was found wanting also in the case of the Agreed Framework of 1994 that President Bill Clinton had negotiated with Kim Jong-il. The George W Bush administration remained unconvinced of the utility of diplomacy until North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006. For its part, Pyongyang has played the role of the madman to perfection with scorching rhetoric and a series of defiant nuclear and missile tests. With so much bad blood between the two countries, it is difficult to ascertain at this juncture how the negotiations and implementation phase will develop.

The only way to confirm whatever nuclear promises North Korea makes would be through an intrusive monitoring and inspection system as the JCPOA had envisaged with Iran. This will be very complicated process in terms of voluntary disclosures and the freedom international inspectors will have to investigate in a controlled country like North Korea will always be suspect. Furthermore, if the International Atomic Energy Agency’s reports do not conform to intelligence estimates, will the international community press for even more intrusive inspections? A first step, experts suggest, is an open skies agreement that will allow the two Koreas to conduct aerial reconnaisance over each other’s territories and monitor from afar.

Some of Trump’s critics have decried the camaraderie shown to Kim – Trump had called Kim a very talented man for taking over the country from his father at just 26. This stands in sharp contrast to the US president’s reaction to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau at the recently concluded G-7 meeting in La Malbaie. North Korea’s human rights record is also brought up to emphasise Trump’s gaucheness.

Pace Trump’s relationship with the leaders of America’s long-time allies, it is worth considering, however, if more would have been achieved by the United States had Trump been boorish to dictators and despots to satisfy the moral itch of a certain segment of commentators.

The key factor to comprehend at this juncture in the US-North Korea talks is what each side wants from the other. Washington’s objectives are clear – the elimination of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. As for North Korea’s aims, observers suggest that most of all, Kim seeks the recognition of the international community and the end to his country’s pariah status. An additional ambition of Pyongyang’s might be to improve the health of North Korea’s economy. Kim’s third aspiration might be the eventual reunification of the Koreas – an idea that carries a powerful cultural resonance on the peninsula despite the drifting apart of the two Koreas since World War II.

Each of these goals would profoundly change the geopolitics of East Asia. First and foremost, it would allow Pyongyang to get out from under China’s thumb. While Beijing has sheltered its tiny eastern neighbour for so long, there are indications that the relationship might not be as strong as it once was. A stronger and more independent Korea, or even just North Korea, might seek friends afar – dare I say Uncle Sam yet? – to balance powers nearby.

It is worth remembering that in their first summit in 2000, Kim Jong-il told his South Korean counterpart Kim Dae-jung that he had no objections to the continued presence of American troops on the peninsula even after reunification – “We are surrounded by big powers – Russia, Japan and China – so the United States must continue to stay for stability and peace in East Asia,” southern Kim remembers northern Kim as saying. South Korea’s present president, Moon Jae-in, seems cautiously ready to midwife this old and seemingly strange desire for better relations with the United States if it still exists – Moon met Kim in a historic visit in April this year and was the one who conveyed Kim’s wish to meet Trump.

Trump’s meeting with Kim holds great potential for shuffling the East Asian geopolitical deck. However, the hurdles are many too – primarily the mistrust built over the past 30 years since the end of the Cold War. The Singapore summit was a first step in a long journey towards reconciliation but as Ronald Reagan advised during the Soviet glasnost and perestroika, trust but verify; for now, the stringent economic sanctions on North Korea will remain.


This post appeared on FirstPost on June 13, 2018.

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A Rebirth of American Power

20 Wed Dec 2017

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia, United States

≈ Comments Off on A Rebirth of American Power

Tags

China, Donald Trump, India, Iran, jihad, North Korea, Russia, terrorism, United States

The United States released its latest National Security Strategy (NSS) document on December 18. By and large, these releases are more important for the intent they personify than any actual policy decisions and the Trump administration’s first NSS is ripe with symbolism. The NSS comes as no surprise, staying close to the rhetoric and tone Donald Trump used during his election campaign last year and as president these past twelve months. That in itself is a drastic change in the way America sees the world and its role within the international community.

Trump’s NSS boldly announces the return of the United States to the world stage after a long spell of quasi-isolationism following the Cold War. As Washington tried to put together a consensus or a strong majority in its international actions, the perception was that the White House squandered away American dominance. The contours of the conflict in Syria and Libya especially showed an indecisive superpower whose best days, many said, are past. The new NSS intends to remedy this by strengthening the four pillars of American security: the protection of US soil, the promotion of American prosperity, the strengthening of the US military, and the advancement of American global influence. While all administrations promise the first two, it is the road map the Trump administration has for the latter two that make this security document interesting.

Trump wishes to substantially build up the US military again in support of a more aggressive posture against America’s enemies. The NSS differentiates between three kinds of threats requiring different tactics. At one level is the threat of Islamic extremism and international crime syndicates; these will be opposed by military force as well as sanctions that target operations networks. At a second level are the threats posed by rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, directly as well as from clandestine proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to state and non-state actors; the United States wishes to weaken such powers through strict sanctions and erect enhanced missile defence systems to blunt any aggressive designs from Tehran or Pyongyang. The NSS specifically mentions that such measures are “not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China.”

The third level of threats, however, includes these same countries. The Trump administration believes that these threats will need to be faced through strengthening American space and cyberspace capabilities, re-establishing America’s lead in nuclear (energy) technology, advanced computing, and green technologies, combatting unfair trade practices and market distortions, and reviewing the visa process to curb industrial espionage.

What is interesting is that despite the chumminess Trump has been accused of having with Moscow, his administration’s NSS clearly calls Russia out for attempting to weaken US influence in the world and drive a wedge between Washington and its allies. “Russia want[s] to shape a world antithetical to US values and interests…seek[ing] to restore its great power status and establish spheres of influence near its borders.”

In a stark departure from previous NSS documents, the Trump administration reserves its harshest tone for China. Rumoured to want to get tough with China, the George W Bush administration was distracted by terrorism in the Middle East and ultimately “welcome[d] the emergence of a strong, peaceful, and prosperous China” in its 2002 NSS and maintained focus on trade relations and development with a gentle nudge towards internal democratic reforms in its 2006 document as well. The succeeding Obama administration was more interested in achieving some progress on human rights and climate change with China while maintaining strong trading ties as its NSS documents from 2010 and 2015 reveal. Taiwan and denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula are mentioned too but in a conciliatory tone rather than as a challenge. The Trump administration’s NSS, however, launches into a jeremiad against Beijing:

China seeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favor.

…

For decades, U.S. policy was rooted in the belief that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China. Contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others. China gathers and exploits data on an unrivaled scale and spreads features of its authoritarian system, including corruption and the use of surveillance. It is building the most capable and well-funded military in the world, after our own. Its nuclear arsenal is growing and diversifying. Part of China’s military modernization and economic expansion is due to its access to the U.S. innovation economy, including America’s world-class universities.

…

Although the United States seeks to continue to cooperate with China, China is using economic inducements and penalties, influence operations, and implied military threats to persuade other states to heed its political and security agenda. China’s infrastructure investments and trade strategies reinforce its geopolitical aspirations. Its efforts to build and militarize outposts in the South China Sea endanger the free flow of trade, threaten the sovereignty of other nations, and undermine regional stability. China has mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there. China presents its ambitions as mutually beneficial, but Chinese dominance risks diminishing the sovereignty of many states in the Indo-Pacific.

The important question for Delhi is what this means for India and its relations with the United States, at least for the next two years. Superficially, the NSS is a godsend for India – not only does the document identify India’s main rival as a threat to the United States but it also targets Delhi’s perennial nuisance Islamabad through its counter-terrorism aims. In addition, Washington recognises India as a “Major Defence Partner” and declares its intent to expand defence and security cooperation as well as “support India’s growing relationships” including “its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region.”

Indo-US relations have clearly come along way since Bill Clinton’s desire to come down on Delhi “like a tonne of bricks” and “cap, rollback, and eliminate” its nuclear programme after Pokhran II. The credit for transforming Indo-US relations goes to Bush ’43 and his administration’s willingness “to help India become a major world power in the 21st century,” but even such a pro-India White House spoke of the South Asian giant largely in terms of its relations to Pakistan, democracy, development, and economic growth; the Obama administration was even more tepid. This latest NSS makes, in that sense, another great departure from its predecessors.

The Trump administration’s prioritisation of the Indo-Pacific region, the Australia-India-Japan-United States Quad as a key regional institution, and recognising Delhi’s potential as a provider of regional security and stability is certainly a promotion for India. This good news does not come unalloyed: regardless of what this White House – or any administration before it – says, the true measure of relations can only be supporting policies. The United States has for long promised to compel Pakistan to abandon its support of terrorism but next to nothing has been done in that regard. Hafiz Saeed, one of the most wanted men in America, walks free and even participates in Pakistan’s politics. US aid is yet to come with stringent preconditions and sanctions against Islamabad have not been mentioned even as a joke.

Similarly, Trump was hawkish on China during his election campaign and even began his presidency with a call to the Taiwanese president. However, he has since mellowed and not followed through on some of the economic punishments that had been under consideration to persuade Beijing to stop market distortions and intellectual property theft. It would be foolhardy for India to fully bank on the United States and assert itself on the Himalayan border and in the Indian Ocean against a stronger foe just yet.

Delhi bears some of blame for the United States’ ambivalence in the Indo-Pacific – its ideological compulsions have historically prevented it from becoming a useful ally to Washington and thereby increase its influence with the superpower. As a result, the United States has looked elsewhere to meet its needs and contributed to the spiral of mistrust between the two estranged democracies. This was particularly evident between 2004 and 2008 when India dragged its feet in response to the Bush White House’s enthusiasm for strategic relations. This is slowly changing now but the pace may not be enough to satisfy India’s strategic regional interests.

If Delhi can stop tripping over its hollow phrases like non-alignment, strategic autonomy, and partnership of equals, the Trump administration’s NSS presents a real opportunity for India to forge greater economic and military ties with the United States. The ripple effect will open doors to better ties with other US allies as well. A demonstration by India that it is willing to play like the big boys could set a higher trajectory for India-US relations.

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2013, From Mali to Bali: The Year in Review

26 Thu Dec 2013

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Opinion and Response

≈ Comments Off on 2013, From Mali to Bali: The Year in Review

Tags

2013, al-Shabaab, Arms Trade Treaty, ATT, Bali, Booz Allen Hamilton, chemical weapons, Chemical Weapons Convention, Christianity, Edward Snowden, Ghouta, GSLV, Hugo Chávez, Ieng Sary, India, Iran, ISRO, Kenneth Waltz, Kenya, Mali, Mangalyaan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Kalashnikov, Mohamed Morsi, National Security Agency, Nelson Mandela, North Korea, NSA, nuclear, Operation Surya Hope, Peter O'Toole, Pope Benedict XVI, PSLV, Syria, terrorism, Uttarakhand, Westgate Mall, World Trade Organisation, WTO

So another year is ending – Nostradamus and the Mayans were clearly horrible at this foretelling business, and our exile on this rock continues. The Syrian civil war continues unabated though the government forces of Bashar al-Assad seem to have gained the advantage, the European Union expanded by one more member – Croatia – despite its Eurocrisis, and Fidel Castro still lives to poke the United States in the eye. However, what were the defining moments of 2013? In the long term, it is hard to tell yet – as Groucho Marx said, outside of a dog, a book is Man’s best friend; inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. In the here and now, though, a few events stand out:

January 11 – France intervenes in Mali: Africa has been largely ignored since the end of colonialism there in the 1960s. Cold War struggles in Angola, Rhodesia, the Congo, Mozambique, Ethiopia, or Somalia rarely captured the attention of the world as Korea, Vietnam, or even South Asia did. After decades of neglect, Western powers are now following Islamists into the interiors of the continent; France’s intervention in Mali, soon after action in Libya and in context of its more vocal stance on Syria and the Congo, marks the Fifth Republic’s renewed interest in a global security commons, interestingly under a Socialist president. In the previous decade, France had notoriously blocked United Nations action in Iraq.

February 12 – N Korea’s third nuclear test: Any nuclear test is significant because it furthers a state’s knowledge of one of the most destructive weapons known. This test by Pyongyang is thought to have contributed to understanding warhead miniaturisation and greater fission of the core. If N Korea achieves this, together with its missiles (No Dong, Taepo Dong, Musudan, Unha), it becomes another de facto Nuclear Weapons State.

February 28 – Benedict XVI resigns as Pope: This is the first time since Gregory XII in 1415 that a pope has stood down, and the first to do so voluntarily since Celestine V in 1294. Benedict XVI may not have radically altered the course of history but by showing the ability to give up power, he has probably done more to remind the Church of its founding tenets than most popes in between.

April 2 – Arms Trade Treaty is signed: This treaty is dead on arrival, but it will nevertheless serve as another legal scalpel for powers when convenient, much like the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The aim of the treaty is to control and regulate the sale of conventional weapons, from small arms to battle tanks, prevent their diversion to clandestine buyers, and to restrict their flow into conflict areas. Past records show that such goals are a mirage – when the United States cut off arms sales to Pakistan during the South Asian Crisis of 1971, it encouraged Turkey, Jordan, and Iran to supply Islamabad from their arsenal which would be replenished and upgraded later; when the US Congress forbade the supply of arms to the Nicaraguan Contras, the Reagan White House found a way to divert money to the cause from secret arms sales to Iran.

May 28 – Taksim Gezi Park protests in Istanbul: A minor sit-in grew into a protest which became a nationwide conflagration against Turkey’s ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s slow erosion of country’s Kemalist secularism. The protest, seen in isolation, means little but considering it alongside the corruption probes against several ministers in Erdoğan’s cabinet and the now open war between the AKP and the Gülen movement, the AKP will have a bust time up to the 2015 elections. Most experts give the win to Erdoğan again, but a large part of that is due to the failure of the opposition to come up with a viable candidate and platform yet. One thing is for sure – Turkey is on the simmer. and a place to watch in the new year

June 6 – Edward Snowden reveals covert surveillance by NSA: A Booz Allen Hamilton employee’s revelations about the US National Security Agency’s espionage set off a firestorm around the world. Despite being long past the era in which gentlemen did not read other gentlemen’s letters, the sheer scope of the operation is stunning. Not only did the NSA spy on other enemy governments as intelligence agencies usually do, but they also spied on friendly and allied governments, political leaders, businesses, activists, and actively worked to sabotage privacy and encryption algorithms on the internet. The public heard for the first time names of programmes like PRISM, XKeyscore, and Tempora which were designed to take metadata from phones and internet traffic in a massive attempt at mass surveillance. Whatever one’s views of Snowden are – hero, whistle-blower or traitor – the presence of US surveillance agencies in a country’s most secret networks is a great significance and this leak dwarfs Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers in potential consequences.

June 14 – Flash floods in Uttarakhand: A multi-day cloud burst over northern India caused India’s worst natural disaster since the Southeast Asian tsunami hit in 2004. Over 100,000 Hindu pilgrims were stranded in Uttarakhand, the site of the smaller Char Dham. The Indian military rescued tens of thousands of people in Operation Surya Hope but despite their valiant efforts, official records indicate that over 10,000 people perished in the tragedy. For a brief moment, there was some focus on questionable construction practices and dubious licenses issued for development in the region; the death toll made people pay attention to the environmental impact of ill-conceived development, but in keeping with India’s indefatigable inertia, everyone has adjusted swalpa and moved on.

July 3 – Mohamed Morsi removed from power in Egypt: After tempting fate one time too many, the Egyptian military removed the country’s fifth president from power. Morsi is the leader of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, and came to office via an election some claim was far from honest. The Arab Spring had come to Egypt and toppled Hosni Mubarak who had ruled the country since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. During the election campaign, Morsi had sounded like a moderate traditionalist. Once he assumed office, however, his manipulation of the judiciary and the Islamist accent of the new constitution worried many Egyptians. The Army thus enjoyed widespread support when they acted against Morsi, and while the West debated semantics – whether it was a coup or not – the bloodshed continued in Egypt, turning their Spring into a Winter of Discontent.

August 21 – Ghouta chemical attack in Syria: The use of chemical weapons in war is not as rare as one would like: most recently, they were by Saddam Hussein against Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War; some accuse the United States of waging chemical warfare with its use of Agent Orange in Vietnam though there are some technical quibbles. Chemical weapons have been used on civilians too, most notably in Halabja against the Kurds by, again, Saddam Hussein. So why was Ghouta different? Honestly, it is hard to say, except for that it provided an excuse for the West to intervene in Syria if it wanted to. However, the difficulty of a military adventure in Syria appears to have stayed the West’s hand, as did Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s offer to surrender his entire stockpile of chemical weapons and sign the Chemical Weapons Convention. This reduces the ranks of non-signatories to just four – Angola, Egypt, N Korea, and S Sudan.

September 21 – Al-Shabaab attack Westgate Mall in Nairobi: Four or five gunmen from the terrorist group al-Shabaab killed 72 people and wounded over 200 over a span of three days in the upscale shopping mall of Westgate in the Westlands neighbourhood of Nairobi. The brutality of the attack – how many of the hostages were tortured – shocked the world. This is perhaps the worst terrorist attack on Kenyan soil and one of the larger attacks in the world since the attack on Bombay in November 2008. The terror group claimed that the attack was revenge for Kenya’s role in Operation Linda Nchi (2011) in which the Kenyan military coordinated with its Ethiopian and Somalian counterparts and deployed into southern Somalia in pursuit of al-Shabaab terrorists. After the tragedy, President Uhuru Kenyatta admitted that the rescue attempt had been bungled and promised to set up an inquiry.

November 5 – Indian launches Mars orbiter: One of the few bright events of the year, apart from Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from cricket (#trollbait!), was India’s launch of its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). Dubbed Mangalyaan by the media, the project is a first for India and the country becomes only the fifth country to send a mission to the Red Planet after the United States, Russia/Soviet Union, Japan, and the European Union. Of course, one can question if Russia deserves to be in this list given the curse its Mars programme seems to be under – 18 failures and three partial successes. India’s mission may not push on the boundaries of knowledge in any great way, but it represents the development of indigenous technology and skills needed for such a mission. The recent failure of India’s most powerful rocket, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) meant that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had to settle for the smaller Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and hence a lighter payload. The probe is expected to reach Mars by late September next year, almost exactly when the United States’ Maven mission reaches the Red Planet. Despite these disappointments, Mangalyaan is a proud milestone in the history of India’s spacefaring.

November 24 – Interim Nuclear Agreement concluded with Iran: The deal represents nothing but a declaration of good faith to conduct negotiations, and establishes conditions for both the E3+3 (France, Germany, Britain + Russia, United States, China) and Iran that they may assuage the other side’s concerns. What is most important about this deal is that it has finally broken the jinx on Iran’s discussions with the West and achieved an agreement. Iran has been accused of being a year away from nuclear weapons capability since the early 1980s (!) and sanctions became tougher over the last eight years. In the last coupe of years, the threat of war loomed large as Iran inched closer to the West’s red line on Tehran’s nuclear development. Psychologically, this deal has readied many leaders to the idea that Iran is a country that can be negotiated with and has silenced the war drums for now. News of this potential breakthrough has already seen several businesses prepare to flood Iran’s market with their services the moment a final agreement is reached on the Middle Eastern state’s nuclear question.

December 7 – Bali Package signed at 9th WTO meet: The World Trade Organisation finally signed a trillion-dollar agreement in Bali at the Ninth Ministerial Conference. The deal has been widely hailed as an engine for growth, particularly for developing countries. It was agreed to simplify customs procedures so that goods could move quickly from state to state, and India finagled an exemption on the WTO’s limits on stockpiling, subsidies, and guaranteed pricing to farmers; in effect, the United Progressive Alliance’s new and ambitious food subsidy remains safe. The agreement is also expected to create some 20 million new jobs, most of which will be in developing countries. There are still wrinkles to be worked out, but those goals, such as duty-free trade, have been declared as eventual goals and put off for a later date. By stepping away from an all-or-nothing approach, the WTO was able to secure an arrangement beneficial to all at a pace acceptable to all.

Requiescat In Pace…

  • March 05 – Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela (59)
  • March 14 – Ieng Sary, Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia (88)
  • April 08 – Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (88)
  • May 12 – Kenneth Waltz, Professor of Political Science (89)
  • December 05 – Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa (95)
  • December 14 – Peter O’Toole, Actor (81)
  • December 23 – Mikhail Kalashnikov, Arms designer (94)

This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on December 28, 2013.

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