The 2016 Earth Day signing of the “Climate Protection Treaty” at the United Nations is supposed to symbolize the day world leaders officially declare war on climate change. Like the Iraq War, however, political leaders have been able to identify the goal of limiting global warming through greenhouse gas emissions cuts, yet failed to detail the technological and economic means to achieve that goal. Like the humanitarian and security issues surrounding Syria and Libya, world leaders feel the pressure to act, but limited public support for the costly, unreliable solutions proposed ensure the so-called Paris Agreement will ultimately fail.
By rushing into the Climate Protection Treaty, world leaders hope to address the hazards of human accelerated global warming and climate change before the opportunity to address global warming through emissions cuts is lost. They also hope to circumvent public opposition by using international law to lock countries into commitments that are likely to produce economic crises. In the end, world leaders will only manage to undermine the legitimacy of international law by forcing illiberal economic policies onto nations already undergoing a resovereignization process that is pushing them away from international governance.
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Brazil’s so-called “Wall of Shame” is a temporary metal fence constructed across Brasilia's central esplanade to separate those who were protesting in favor and against President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. The need for the partition symbolizes all that divides Brazilians; however, the need also underscores the passion Brazilians share for democracy. More importantly, the massive outcry over the political scandal is democracy in action. Ultimately, the lower house of Congress overwhelmingly voted in line with 60% of Brazilians, who supported the impeachment of once popular Rousseff, which actually bodes well for democracy.
Impeachment is not a pleasant process, yet it is a necessary safeguard intended to protect democratic nations against corrupt, abusive, and/or inept leadership. Accusations that Dilma Rousseff was involved in a plot to divert money from state-owned companies to support her reelection bid and hide a massive budget deficit are serious, yet not uncommon in Brazil. Unfortunately, Brazil’s economy and society have long been corroded by massive corruption at the hands of self-serving political elites. Supporters of Rousseff, therefore, see their President as a victim of hypocritical politicians in a sea of corruption seeking to seize power. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined the so-called Paris March in the aftermath of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo Shootings. Although these leaders of democratic nations joined millions to protest violence against free speech, even as Muslims around the world decried the publication’s disrespectful depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, the two appear to believe insulting the Turkish President is a far more serious matter worthy of censorship. In allowing German citizen Jan Bohmermann to be prosecuted for insulting Erdogan , Merkel undermines free speech while encouraging Erdogan’s campaign to consolidate power and crackdown on critics at home.
Civil liberties, including freedom of speech, are supposed to ensure no one will face legal consequences for saying something that offends others. Any law or government that fails to respect this fundamental principle degrades the very purpose of having civil liberties. Because government scrutiny is at the heart of democracy and “free speech” ensures government officials face scrutiny, the idea that someone would face jail time for insulting a government official is thoroughly undemocratic. Citizens of democracies may not enjoy the protection of their governments and their civil liberties when in foreign lands, but they are always entitled to those protections within the free world. Two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 warplanes have engaged in what is being called a “simulated attack” on the USS Donald Cook. This may well be the most threatening close encounter between the two world powers since Russian forces began to undertake increasingly provocative missions against Western countries in response to the Ukraine Crisis. This incident, of course, comes ahead of the first NATO, Russian Council meeting in almost two years. Just as the Russian Navy deployed ships off the coast of Australia during the 2014 G20 Summit, where Vladimir Putin awkwardly embraced Barack Obama, the current incident was likely a show of dominance.
Like the November 2015 incident when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 “Fencer” fighter jet, however, Putin’s constant impulse to show his dominance by violating boundaries is going to eventually force a reaction. If not, a mistake will be made, which could result in harm to US forces, and a military response will be guaranteed. Although Putin seeks to discourage Westerners from further confronting Russia over the Ukraine Crisis and deviating from his lead on Syria, these types of provocations alert Westerners to the threat of Putin. That said, Putin also likely sees the growing risk of a conflict between the US and China as an opportunity to test his limits. Economic troubles and crushing austerity across Europe, which helped spawn widespread civil disobedience, the so-called PIIGS Crisis, the Greek Debt Crisis, and the “Brexit threat,” European dependence on Russian energy, and US attention on Middle East instability created an ideal environment for Russian aggression. The Ukraine Crisis as the Western response to the seizure of Crimea was, therefore, an unlikely development in eyes of the Vladimir Putin-dominated Russian government. Although the Ukraine Crisis remains unresolved, Russian-NATO engagement is on the verge of a reset, which offers the Putin government’s preferred war strategy of attrition a near-victory.
Facing what is likely its worst political crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian government should be expected to struggle with a militant separatist movement, even if it had the support of its most powerful neighbor. Given the massive amount of corruption that has long plagued Ukraine, as well as pre-conflict Russian efforts to neuter the Ukraine military and weaken all of the former Soviet State’s civil institutions, Ukraine needs time to fix itself. Thanks to the Syrian Refugee Crisis and the threat of the Paris-Brussels terrorist super cell, however, Europe is hard pressed to secure Ukraine the time it needs, especially since Russia appears to offer Europe a solution to its threats. |
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April 2020
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