Is the EU shooting itself in the foot with Brexit negotiations?

Olivia Rohll

Just over five months on from the UK’s vote to leave the European Union on the 23rd of June 2016, there seems to have been almost no progress on what a post-EU Britain will look like. This is partly because of domestic disagreement - the Economist recently reported an almost perfect 50:50 split of opinion over the key free trade/free movement trade-off in the Brexit negotiations - but also because of the reactions of EU leaders nervous of right wing populism in their own backyards. The situation appears at times to have reached a total stalemate which only the goodwill of the negotiators can dissipate. Unfortunately for Theresa May the inner insecurity about the EU aroused across the bloc by Brexit has made goodwill hard to come by because an easy exit for the UK would encourage others to follow suit. 

However the resistance by French President François Hollande and, more recently Germanfinance minister Wolfgang Schäuble is unlikely to achieve the neutralisation of anti-EU sentiment they seek. Even among ‘Remain’ voters in the UK, the hostility sensed behind statements that the UK could face EU budget commitments up to 2030 and the like, have stirred up the feeling that Brussels has ambitions that override the sovereignty of EU member states. Britain has become a hazard to ‘The Project’ and is being punished for it - not a sight that is likely to appease nationalists. What is more, seeing leaders scrabbling to maintain their positions at the expense of their allies will do nothing to dispel feeling that the world is being run by a small group of elites uninterested in the concerns of the ‘everyday man’. Elitism even seems to be being felt at the state level, with Italy threatening to veto the EU budget due to what they see as a lack of support from EU countries with handling asylum seekers and immigrants. This is no doubt partly a political move by prime-minister Matteo Renzi, who is currently facing a referendum which, like the Brexit vote, is becoming as much about anti-establishment feeling as the constitutional reform it proposes. However the almost childish move to veto the budget also reflects the power imbalance between members which EU leaders like Renzi are finally pushing back against. The upshot is that whatever strategy European governments employ to handle Brexit they are eventually going to have to face internal unease about the EU face on, both at a domestic and national level. An easy Brexit may well encourage further departures, but throwing up barriers simply demonstrates the qualities of the European Union its people are coming to resent. 

The possibility of closer ties between the UK and US since the election of Donald Trump will do nothing to lower the tension. A British-American trade deal, although far from certain, would substantially strengthen the UK in the face of a weakened post-Brexit economy. Trump’s protectionism could well lead to complete abandonment of the work done towards a US-EU free trade deal, and his open enthusiasm for Brexit only adds insult to injury. While the scrapping of what has now been several years of complex negotiations would be an understandable blow for Brussels, failure must not be pinned on Trump or Brexit. At the end of August 2016 European politicians such as French Trade Minister Matthias Fekl began calling for the end of EU-US negotiations because of unmeetable demands from the Americans. In light of the possibility that the proposed deal was never going to come into fruition it is just worth wondering whether Angela Merkel’s calls on Trump not to give up on the deal would be as forthcoming if it weren’t for the remote possibility that the UK might get there first. 

The worrying possibility that the EU is being held together more because it is uncomfortable to leave, than because it is an attractive group to be in has not gone completely unnoticed however. As recently as 16th November, ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, writing in the Financial Times has stated ‘the rift between Europe and its citizens is wider than ever before.’ He recognises the legitimacy of the concerns of British people and extends the hope that they may choose to rejoin the Union once it has been reformed to better serve its members. The refreshing sentiment that rejoining the EU is an option for Britain also makes a welcome change from the finality Brexit is generally spoken about with. Before being defeated in the French primaries on 20th November, Sarkozy was seeking the Republicans’ (‘Les Républicains’) nomination for the 2017 French presidential election and was clearly hoping that EU reform might attract voters away from the far right better than Hollande’s defensiveness. This may just be another political manoeuvre by a member of ‘the elite’, but it might be the only way to save the EU and keep its people on board. If the UK must be punished for leaving, let it be done by making Europe better than it’s ever been before, not by making an example of it for those that might follow. 

Escalating Tensions in Myanmar: Conflict Between the Rohingya Muslim Minority and Security Forces

Justin Graham

On October 9th, militants in the north-western Rakhine state of Myanmar launched three simultaneous, coordinated strikes against border-police posts held by government security forces.  The militants, numbering anywhere from 250 to 800 strong, armed with knives, slingshots, and a few firearms, killed 30 police officers, and escaped with at least 50 guns and over 10,000 rounds of ammunition.  Over the last month, there has been an escalation in armed clashes between security forces and this militant group. 

The troubling part of this story is who the attackers were: members of Myanmar’s oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority group.  Both government and local sources corroborate that fact, and a video circulating around Myanmar’s social networks, purporting to be of the attackers, shows one member of the group calling on all “Rohingya around the world to prepare for jihad and join” the attackers in their assault.  As the International Crisis Group puts it: the video, “the need for local knowledge to carry out the assaults, and the difficulty of moving large numbers of people around this area are all suggestive of local Muslim involvement – possibly organized with some outside support.”  The group could potentially be a resurgent form of the RSO, or Rohingya Solidarity Organization, which operated in the 1990s as a terrorist organization advocating a form of Rohingya nationalism.

Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority have essentially become a stateless nation within Myanmar, as the country refuses to recognize members of the Rohingya group as citizens, and tensions with Buddhist-majority Myanmar have exploded in the past, particularly in 2012, when conflict resulted in the deaths of 200 people, and 150,000 members of the Rohingya forced into squalid camps where most still languish, four years later.  In Rakhine, tensions are further compounded by the fact that 90% of all people living in the region are Rohingya community members.  Even with a democratic transition ongoing in Myanmar, the Rohingya have largely been left out of the process – marginalized and persecuted by Buddhist leaders.

Myanmar’s brutal mistreatment of the Rohingya community leaves them ripe for recruitment into terrorist organizations, as evidenced by the attacks carried out last month.  However, the government’s response to the attacks has been a string of high-handed, poorly targeted, ethnic revenge killings, instead of a legitimate counter-terrorism strategy.  Since the October 9th attacks, security forces have killed more than 100 people, most of whom were civilians, and burned down over 430 homes across Rohingya villages.  Over the last month, 3,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar to seek shelter and China, and more than 500 people entered refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh just last weekend.

While Myanmar’s government should pursue terrorists, killing civilians and pursuing a campaign of ethnic-based persecution will only lead to a riper recruiting ground for whichever organization(s) carried out the attacks last month.  The real pathway to peace lies in ending attacks by security forces against civilians and entire villages, moving Rohingya members out of squalid camps, and giving the group real rights, incorporating them into Myanmar’s larger society.  That however, seems unlikely, as even the vaunted Aung San Suu Kyi has taken to calling Rohingya members “Bengalis,” in an attempt to emphasize their foreignness – and some might say, to dehumanize people, who like it or not, are part of her country.

Is the end of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan near?

Gal Treger

Since twenty-six year old Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and sparked the Arab Spring not much has been stable in the Middle East; Tunisia, Mohamed’s home country, ousted their long time President Zine Ben Ali. In Libya, rebel forces lynched Gaddafi in the streets of Sirte. Syria will soon enter the sixth year of a ferocious civil war. Egypt managed to democratically elect the first ever leader of a country from the fundamental Muslim Brotherhood movement, overthrow him and replace him with an old-school military general. Yemen is on the verge of complete disintegration. Iraq is already there. And even the wealthy, agile kingdoms of the gulf suffered their concussions. There seems to be just one Arab country that was not affected: The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. However, there are good reasons to think that Jordan is up next.

With a population of 9.8 million people, Jordan has been home to over 1.5 million refugees of the Syrian Civil War. That is an increase of over 15% in Jordan’s population in just six years. It is analogous to Germany welcoming 12.2 million immigrants by 2021 or the United States offering asylum to some 49.5 million refugees over the same time period.

Most refugees live in dire conditions in camps on the northern border with Syria. According to UN estimates, two-thirds live below the national poverty line and one in six households is in abject poverty, living off less than $40 per person per month, or just over $1.30 a day. With the battlefields of the civil war behind them and the wealthy cities of Amman, Irbid and Zarqa in front, their struggle for jobs, homes and recognition will eventually have political consequences.

The economic situation is a stressor on the political order as well. According to the World Bank, unemployment rates reached 13% in 2015. The annual growth in GDP per capita was zero percent in 2015 and is projected to be lower than one percent in 2016. Total productivity growth slowed for the first time since 2010. Foreign aid, investments, remittances and tourism, the fundamental growth sectors, are in persistent decline. Deflationary pressures persist due to lower oil prices, the weakness of the euro and slow economic growth, while the Central Bank of Jordan tries to stimulate the economy with a loose monetary policy.

The danger of high inflation, the precursory of revolution, is discernible. The scenario of a sudden surge in the prices of basic goods seems highly probable; whether due to a sharp rise in the prices of global commodities, a government tax-reform aiming to secure an IMF loan, geopolitical pressures or drastic changes in exchange rates of the dinar.

The current political structure in Jordan is also facing a perilous ideological threat. The Islamic groups in Jordan are moving towards a more militant, proactive and jihadist Islam, affiliating themselves with fundamental groups in the region, primarily Al-Qaeda.

Additionally, Islamic State propaganda is ubiquitous, not just in mosques but also in universities, sports clubs and youth groups. Youth are futile ground for radicalization, with unemployment for those under the age of 30 – which account to 70% of the population – just over 30%, twice the world average. Furthermore, there are growing indications that Sunni militants, Salafi groups, Syrian opposition and ISIS supporters are smuggling more and more arms into the country.

When a car drives over a bridge and the bridge collapses we tend to focus on the specific car, the driver, the time and place the accident took place. We rarely discuss the structural stability of the bridge. The political system in Jordan is an unstable bridge. We have good reasons to believe that one of the cars driving over will make the entire bridge collapse.

Why Mosul matters: security, sectarianism and stability in a post-ISIS Iraq

Katherine Pye

As Iraqi government Special Forces enter the outskirts of Mosul and Kurdish forces advance from a new front in the north, the world witnesses the beginning of the end of the great black banner which once sprawled across the Levant.

Relief, however, will be short lived. The defeat of ISIS is by no means the dawn of a new Iraq. If the current course is pursued, the events of 2016 will continue a cycle of insurgency and jihad which has spanned decades. It may lead the country to the same fate as its Syrian neighbor with global repercussions to match.

However, Mosul presents an unrivalled opportunity to reverse this. Firstly, the battle for Mosul will be the largest deployment of Iraqi forces since 2003, significant in itself as a push by the weak Iraqi state to assert its dominance in a region of Iraq where they had never traditionally exerted much control. If the government is successful it is a promising first step for a stable new Iraqi state.

Secondly, Mosul embodies political and strategic problems in the nation; the Iraqi army are leading forces inside the city whilst their supporters are disparate and disjointed. They form a highly unstable fractious coalition including Kurdish Peshmerga forces, Sunni tribal units and Shia militia. Such a multilateral attack will set an important precedent for how ethno-religious groups are able to work with each other as Iraq begins reconstruction.

Furthermore, unlike previously liberated cities such as Tikrit and Fallujah, the northern city of Mosul is religiously diverse, meaning the way in which anti-ISIS forces handle their victory and treat Mosul’s inhabitants in the immediate aftermath could have crucial implications for ethno-religious politics in Iraq in the future. 

Government responses to divided communities such as Mosul will also have a real impact on geopolitics in the region. Whilst the USA has poured funds into Pershmerga coffers, Turkey has been watching the situation closely. Erdogan’s government have been eager to play a more dominant role since interventions in Jarabulus last September which threatened the Kurds with full-scale retreat.

Iran too has demonstrated strategic interests in the region, with the government funding the launch of a "United Shia Liberation Army", linking sectarian conflict in Iraq to Shia ‘struggles’ in Yemen and Syria. Should sectarian violence break out after Mosul is liberated, there are more than enough key players to intervene. A Syrian-style proxy war is never far away.

Yet despite this, groups fighting ISIS have not yet all met and there is no agreed verdict on what victory would look like in a political rather than military sense. As in 2003, troops move in once again without a clear strategy or any plans beyond the immediate term. Astoundingly, even US strategy in the region is overwhelmingly  ‘short term’, as outlined by Brett McGurk, the US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. Instead, each stakeholder will most likely rush to fill the ISIS vacuum by grabbing as much power as possible. This risks collapsing back into turmoil after fighting finishes, in a settlement where central government authority has never been assertive even in peacetime.

But what is often forgotten is that in the months that follow a defeat of ISIS on the ground, an estimated 30,000 foreign fighters will travel back to their home states. Like Al-Qaida after the US invasion of Afghanistan, these brutalised individuals represent an urgent yet invisible security threat, transforming from a state to a “brand”, maintaining an ability to inspire and recruit all over the world.

ISIS itself was born under conditions dangerously similar to those we see in Iraq today. The founder of Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, the Iraqi Sunni insurgency which became ISIS, was Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi was a Jordanian fighter living in Afghanistan under the Taliban when the US invasion forced them out. Moving to Iraq, he worked underground to build a new Islamic state, carrying out suicide attacks in Shia areas to heighten underlying sectarian tensions. Aggression against Sunnis from the Iraqi government, allied Shia militias or US-backed Kurds would provide perfect propaganda for insurgents in a fragile post-war Iraq.

What can the Iraqi government and its allies do to break this cycle of insurgency, or avoid sliding into total sectarian warfare in the absence of a common enemy? As a matter of urgency all groups opposed to Daesh must meet before invading Mosul, which the US can help facilitate. Religious communities and tribal leaders in and around Mosul need a platform on which to correspond and cooperate before hostilities are further entrenched. The Iraqi government also needs to set a precedent of much lower tolerance for Shia militia brutality. The recapture of Mosul is a critical time for the state to demonstrate post-ISIS Iraq is inclusive and even handed, robbing any Sunni extremist insurgency of the chaos it needs. Addressing Iraq’s long-term security issues requires strong leadership, cool-headed pragmatic decision making and a long-term outlook. At the moment, all are in dangerously short supply.  

Duterte Money: Geoeconomics, America, and the Philippines

Michael Green

“I announce my separation from the United States, both militarily and economically” proclaimed Rodrigo Duterte in mid-October to an audience of Chinese businesspeople. “America has lost.” Having called Obama a “son of a whore” - among numerous other disparaging remarks about America and its president - Duterte has launched an ostensible rebalancing towards China. He speaks of “realigned… in your ideological flow “. This constitutes a drastic break from the policies of his predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, the pro-American foreign policy of whom was epitomised by pursuing a case against China in the Permanent Court of Appeals for UNCLOS. What does this rejection of American security cooperation mean for US policy in Asia? How should the State Department regain favour with the erstwhile linchpin of its much-vaunted ‘pivot’?

Before formulating a prognosis, it is important to note the prior advantages possessed by the US in terms of relations with the Philippines. 90% of Filipinos view the US favourably, there is a millions-strong diaspora therein, and America is its second largest trading partner. Colonial links stretch back decades. There is a longstanding security relationship, including five bases and an American program to help train Philippine forces against insurgents on the southern region of Mindanao. Indeed, the Filipino establishment is outraged by the apparently reckless behaviour of Duterte, and even dignitaries within the government explicitly downplay Duterte’s iconoclasm. In the words of Trade Minister Ramon Lopez, “the statement the President made maintains the relationship with the West”. The US-Philippines alliance is unlikely to disintegrate any time soon.

Nevertheless, overtures to China are clearly being made. This is for two reasons: firstly, Duterte’s brutal and merciless anti-drugs campaign has flagrantly contravened commitments to Human Rights and the Rule of Law, both championed by the US and ignored by China; secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Duterte feels that the economic benefits to be gained by alignment with China outweigh the geopolitical costs. The US thus faces the challenge, without abandoning its values, of convincing ordinary Filipinos that the fruits of pursuing quasi-suzerain obeisance towards China will not match the largesse of the United States.

The US already provides over $40 million per year in military aid to the Philippines, but this is not felt by average Filipinos. Given the already overwhelming military superiority of the US armed forces in the region, there is scope for replacement of some of this military aid with direct investment in development and infrastructure. Certainly, the US already provides significant non-military aid to the Philippines ($150 million in 2012), and is a massive contributor to multilateral institutions like the Asian Development Bank that attempt to achieve these aims. Even so, in order to pre-empt geostrategic realignment on the part of the Philippines, the US could transition into providing a greater amount of more visible non-military aid. Although unable to emulate the Chinese by using State-owned Enterprises to build infrastructure, the US can encourage investment through various incentives, including giving greater support to providers of FDI. This, in conjunction with augmentation of extant aid, can increase both economic ties and American soft power. Tax incentives could even play a part. With enough trade and investment, Filipinos might be convinced of the relative gains of siding with the US. Duterte may have announced separation from the United States, but American munificence could lead to rapprochement.