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The official line almost everywhere is that the world-economy will look good again soon, if only we do this

or that. The fact is that no one -- neither governments nor megabanks nor even blinkered economists -- really believes this. The world is in a depression, teetering on the edge of a really major crash. No one anywhere will be exempt from the negative effects of this crash, even if a few lucky ones manage to make money out of it. The prime concern of every government is not how to do well, but how to do less badly than other states. The world press's attention has been focused on the very public debates in the United States, the Eurozone, and yes China. But this doesn't mean that other states -- big or small, apparently growing or obviously stagnant -- are not equally concerned, if often less able to maneuver than the biggest players. In July, amidst great drama, the Eurozone seemed to enact a political compromise of sorts. Will this enable the European Union (EU) to do "less badly" than its many competitors? I think it may. But to see what really went on, we have to move past the complicated economic decisions. No one seems to agree what was really agreed upon, and even less whether this will do any good in terms of the economic dilemmas that the Eurozone countries face. The compromise was political, not economic, and the major consequence will be political. What the Eurozone countries managed to do was to save the euro as a single currency. Some think this marvelous; others a disaster. But the point is that they saved it. And in terms of the ongoing geopolitical struggles in the world, this will enable Europe to remain a major player. Carsten Volkery, writing in Der Spiegel, summed up the decisions this way: "European leaders on [July 21] pushed through a second bail-out package for debt-stricken Greece, one which includes a surprisingly high level of private participation. In addition, the Eurozone backstop has been given new powers, making it look suspiciously like a European IMF." The prior economic debate about the Greek debt (and that of other Eurozone countries) had all the standard ingredients. At one extreme were those preaching full faith in the "market" no matter what the consequences. The most extreme of these wanted to push Greece out of the Eurozone (although legally this seems almost impossible). At the other extreme were those preaching economic solidarity based on a neo-Keynesian emphasis on (re)creating effective demand -- a "mini-Marshall Plan." The underlying political problem was the internal politics of different countries. A Keynesian solution was deeply unpopular in Germany and Mrs. Merkel reasonably feared electoral disaster if she went along. A neo-liberal solution risked severe popular unrest in Greece, Spain, and eventually many other countries. The great compromiser turned out to be none other than France's Nicholas Sarkozy, who fought for the new powers given to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and celebrated publicly what he termed the beginnings of a European Monetary Fund. Even Mrs. Merkel agreed that the comparison was not implausible. Mrs. Merkel won the concession she wanted -- involvement of private investors. And the European Central Bank (ECB) finally agreed to give its blessing too. The EFSF will issue its own bonds and those who hold Greek bonds can exchange them for these new bonds, whose interest rates will presumably be lower. The IMF through its new director, Christine Lagarde, agreed that the effect of all this would be positive for everyone. Of course, this new arrangement allows the IMF to be less involved, at a time when its own resources are stretched. Even Great Britain, not a member of the Eurozone, applauded the compromise. Is this some kind of magic that will "save" Europe? Not at all. First of all, there are still players trying to undo the compromise. The electoral consequences are yet to be seen. Why did Sarkozy, the post-Gaullist heir of De Gaulle, become the architect of a compromise that moved Europe closer to a common governance structure? Two reasons really. On the one hand, after a series of political setbacks, it looks good, in terms of France's next elections, that Sarkozy has achieved something in foreign policy. The French polls indicate that his ratings did in fact go up. The second reason, however, is quite Gaullist. De Gaulle was opposed to more federalism in Europe because he thought it served U.S. interests at the expense of France's interests. But today, more "federalism" in Europe serves Europe's (and France's) interests at the expense of U.S. interests. A collapse of the Eurozone would have eliminated western Europe as a major player in the interstate system -- and strengthened the dollar at a time that the dollar needs all the help it can get. Voices on the left of the left constantly complain that the Eurozone is basically a neoliberal institution, protecting the banks and hurting the little guys. This is largely true. What I have never understood is why anyone thinks the left would do better with a series of totally separate states. It seems to me that the neoliberal forces would be all the more powerful if the European Union were to disappear. The bottom line is that the EU and its Eurozone will do "less badly" in the major collapse that is coming soon. That's perhaps not much of an achievement, but in the race to the lifeboats, Europe may be at least guaranteed to launch one. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press).

Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global

Shaky
by Immanuel Wallerstein Released: 15 Jul 2011
The United States and Pakistan have been close geopolitical allies almost since the birth of Pakistan in 1948. They have needed each other in the past. They need each other today. But their priorities and policy objectives have moved further and further apart. They are both appalled by the idea that the close alliance may end. But it may. The origin of the alliance was rather simple and straightforward. In the process of British withdrawal from India, two states came into existence, not one. Essentially, Pakistan broke away from India. Pakistan and India have been in steady conflict ever since. For each the greatest fear derives from the actions of the other. There have been three wars between the two -- in 1947-48, in 1965, and in 1971. The first two were over Kashmir, the result of which was a de facto partition which neither side has ever accepted as legitimate. The third was over Bangladesh's secession from Pakistan, in which India sided with Bangladesh. One result of the continuing conflict was the refusal of both countries to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Accord, and the development by each of nuclear weapons. India started first, probably in 1967. Pakistan followed, probably in 1972. By 1998, both had completed the process and had a stockpile of weapons. Nuclear weapons may have had the same positive effect on the two countries that they had on the United States and the Soviet Union -- an undeclared superprudence about military hostilities, for fear of the consequences. India pursued from the outset a policy of non-alignment in the Cold War. The United States basically defined this policy as one tilting towards the Soviet Union. To limit the impact of this perceived tilt, the United States joined forces with Pakistan. While Pakistan hoped for U.S. support to recover the half of Kashmir it didn't control, what the United States wanted from Pakistan was its support for U.S. geopolitical control of the Moslem world to its west -- Afghanistan, Iran, and the Arab world. The United States realized that the condition for this was internal stability in Pakistan. It therefore supported a succession of internally-repressive military regimes. It was not at all unhappy when the military deposed and then executed the one civilian leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who in the 1970s tried to pursue a nationalist foreign policy independent of U.S. control. Pakistan and the People's Republic of China were born in the same year. China too pursued a policy of close friendship with Pakistan. Its motives were not too different from that of the United States. China did not appreciate India's links with the Soviet Union, especially since it regarded (and still regards) India as a political and economic rival in Asia, one with whom they too had a war or "border conflict" in 1962. Nor has China appreciated the continuing support the Indian government has given the Dalai Lama. There were three things that began to upset the U.S.-Pakistan cozy arrangement in the last twenty years. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union and therefore the end of the "cold war." This was combined with the end of the Nehru program of internal state-sponsored development and its replacement by a neo-liberal program inspired by the Washington Consensus. Suddenly, relations between India and the United States warmed up considerably, to the chagrin of Pakistan, and indeed of China. Secondly, the internal politics of neighboring Afghanistan changed as well. In the 1980s, Pakistan and the United States joined forces against the Soviet Union's military involvement in Afghanistan, which Gorbachev ended. But then what? It is no secret that the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, strongly backed the takeover by the Taliban of the Afghan government. But the Taliban regime offered its country as a convenient base for al-Qaeda, which the United States came to regard as its nemesis, even before al-Qaeda's successful attack of 9/11 on U.S. soil. Thirdly, with the overthrow of the Taliban in 2002 by a U.S.-led invasion, al-Qaeda forces retreated to secure bases in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda's program was, if not to take over directly the government of Pakistan, at least to force it to weaken, even break, its ties with the United States. Although Pakistan today has a civilian prime minister, real power still lies with the armed forces. And within the armed forces, the ISI still seems to play a very strong, perhaps determining, role. The cumulation of the three changes led to a situation in which, as of about 2005, the United States and Pakistan seemed to agree on very little of any importance. But the two countries seemed nonetheless to remain tied to each other, seemed to think that they still needed each other. Still, they became increasingly suspicious of each other's motives and actions. From the point of view of the U.S. government, Pakistan was the major source of outside support for the Afghan Taliban with whom the U.S. (and NATO) forces were in direct conflict. One part of this support came from the so-called Pakistan Taliban who were hard to distinguish from al-Qaeda. The second part of this support came from the ISI and perhaps from wider branches of Pakistan's military. It became increasingly obvious to the United States that the Pakistan military was neither willing nor able to contain the Pakistan Taliban/al-Qaeda forces. Worse, some of the Pakistan military may have colluded actively with them. The U.S. reaction was to intervene directly in Pakistan in two ways. The first was using its drones to attack directly targets they

deemed dangerous. Of course, drones are notoriously hard to manipulate. There has been a great deal of "collateral damage," to the constant and repeated protest of the Pakistani government. The second way was to pursue on its own the finally successful search for Osama bin Laden, without informing the official Pakistani authorities, whom the United States clearly did not trust not to leak information about the intended attack. If the United States no longer trusts the Pakistani authorities, suspicion is even greater in the other direction. Pakistan has one great guarantee of its security -- its nuclear weapons. As long as they have these, they feel defended against India and against anyone else. They believe, quite firmly, that the United States would like somehow to take possession of this stock. This is not entirely irrational, in that the United States does fear that al-Qaeda, or other hostile forces, might be able to get access to these weapons and that the Pakistani government may not be a position to stop this. Of course, such a putative U.S. attempt to take control of the stock is far from a practical proposition. But there are no doubt people in the U.S. government who do think about this. So now each side is playing its cards with each other. The United States is threatening to cut off, or drastically reduce, financial and military aid. The government is encouraged in this path by a U.S. Congress that is basically hostile to the alliance with Pakistan. Pakistan is retaliating by withdrawing the troops it had stationed on the Afghan border, making it easier than ever for the Pakistan Taliban to send military aid to the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan is also reminding the United States that it has another powerful ally, China. And China is quite happy to continue to support Pakistan. The weakness of Pakistan's regime is internal. Can it continue to control an increasingly anarchic situation? The weakness of the United States is that it doesn't have any real options in Pakistan. Playing it really tough with the Pakistani regime might undo its efforts to withdraw from Afghanistan (and Iraq and Libya) with minimal damage. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global

Humala's Triumph in Peru: America's Defeat


by Immanuel Wallerstein Released: 1 Jul 2011
Ollanta Humala was elected President of Peru on June 5, 2011. The one sure loser in this election was the United States, whose ambassador, Rose Likins, scarcely hid her open campaigning for Humala's opponent in the second round, Keiko Fujimori. What was at stake in this crucial election in Latin America? Peru is a key country in the geopolitics of South America for a number of reasons: its size, its heritage as the locus of the Inca empire, its locus as a fount of the Amazonia River, its ports on the Pacific, and its recent history as the site of a major struggle between nationalist forces and pro-American elites. In 1924, Victor Ral Haya de la Torre, a Peruvian intellectual and Marxist -- a quite unorthodox Marxist -- founded the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA), which was intended to be a pan-American anti-imperialist organization. APRA flourished in Peru, although it was severely repressed. What was original about APRA, unlike most left movements in the Americas, was its understanding that the majority of Peru's peasantry were indigenous Quechuaspeaking peoples who had been systematically excluded from political participation and cultural rights. After 1945, APRA began to lose some of its radical edge but still had a strong popular base. Only the death of Haya de la Torre prevented his election as President in 1980. Peru's governments remained in conservative hands until 1968, when scandals over oil leases were the spark for a military coup by nationalist officers led by Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado. They seized power and established a Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces. The Velasco government nationalized the oil fields, and then multiple other sectors of the economy. It invested heavily in education. More than that, it made it bilingual education, elevating Quechua to co-equal status with Spanish. The government launched programs of agrarian reform and import-substitution industrialization. Its foreign policy moved sharply to the left. Peru cultivated good relations with Cuba, and purchased military equipment from the Soviet Union. After Pinochet's overthrow of the Allende government in Chile in 1973, relations between Peru and Chile became tense. There was even talk of war when finally in 1975 Velasco was deposed by conservative military forces. And Peru thus ended its seven-year period of military-led nationalism with a left socio-economic program. When Alan Garca, as leader of APRA, was elected President in 1985, he briefly renewed the left tradition by proposing a moratorium on external debt. But he was soon blocked in this effort, and then moved rightward to embrace neoliberalism. Peru at this time faced several insurrections, the most famous of which was the Sendero Luminoso, which based its activity in the Andean regions of Quechua and Aymara peasantries. In the 1990 elections, a now quite unpopular Garca faced the famous novelist and noted Conservative thinker and aristocrat, Mario Vargas Llosa, who ran on a purely neo-liberal economic platform. Unexpectedly, a little-known Peruvian of Japanese extraction, Alberto Fujimori, won in the three-way split. Fujimori's voting strength derived largely from voter

rejection of the aristocratic style of Vargas Llosa. Fujimori turned out to be a tough dictatorial type who successfully used the army to crush Sendero Luminoso as well as urban insurrectionary groups. To ensure his power, Fujimori did not hesitate to close down Congress, interfere with the judiciary, and extend his second term. But the high degree of corruption and harsh rule led to his overthrow. He fled to Japan. He was later extradited from Chile, tried for his crimes in a Peruvian court, and sentenced to a long prison term. His successor in 2001, Alejandro Toledo, continued the neoliberal program. And in 2006, Alan Garca again ran for president. He faced a former military officer, Ollanta Humala, who was openly supported by Hugo Chavez, support that hurt his prospects, as did attacks on his human rights record as an army officer. Garca won and continued and amplified the neoliberal path. The economy flourished because of the world boom in mineral and energy exports. But the mass of the population was left out of the benefits. Typically, the government allowed transnational corporations to seize land in the Amazonian region to exploit its mineral resources. The indigenous movements resisted, leading to a massacre in June 2009, called the Baguazo. It is in this last period that Peru became the focal point of two geopolitical struggles. One was between Brazil and the United States. Under Lula's presidency, Brazil had been struggling with considerable success to achieve South American autonomy through the construction of regional structures like UNASUR and Mercosur. The United States sought to counter Brazil's program by creating a Pacific Alliance of Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru based on free trade agreements with the United States. In addition, Colombia, Peru, and Chile launched a project for an integrated stock exchange, whose Spanish acronym is MILA. And Peru's armed forces actively linked up with the U.S. military's Southern Command. The second geopolitical struggle was between China and the United States in the search for privileged access to South America's mineral and energy resources. Peru once again was a key site. What allowed Humala to win the election this time was three things. On the one hand, Humala turned openly and publicly to a Brazilian social-democratic path. No longer any mention of Chavez. Humala met often with Lula and talked of Peru's becoming a "strategic partner" of Mercosur. The second critical element was the very strong endorsement he received from Vargas Llosa. Vargas Llosa, the conservative aristocrat, said it would be a catastrophe for Peru to elect Fujimori's daughter, who would release her father from prison, and continue his disreputable ways. Vargas Llosa caused a serious split in conservative forces. The third critical element was the attitude of the Peruvian left, which had long had its reservations about Humala. As Oscar Ugarteche, a leading left intellectual, wrote for the Latin American press service, Alai-AmLatina, "for all of us Humala is a question mark but Fujimori is a certainty." Ugarteche summed up the election by saying that "What is most significant about it, however, is the return of Peru to South America." We shall see how much Humala will be able to achieve internally in terms of redistribution and restoring the rights of the indigenous majority. But the U.S. geopolitical counteroffensive, the Pacific Alliance, is undone.

Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global

The Coming Israeli Tsunami?


by Immanuel Wallerstein Released: 15 Jun 2011
The Palestinians are pursuing their project of seeking a formal recognition of their statehood by the United Nations when the General Assembly convenes in the fall. They intend to request a statement that the state exists within the boundary lines as they existed in 1967 before the Israeli-Palestinian war. It is almost certain that the vote will be favorable. The only question at the moment is how favorable. The Israeli political leadership is well aware of this. There are three different responses that are being discussed by them. The dominant position seems to be that of Prime Minister Netanyahu. He proposes ignoring such a resolution totally and simply continuing to pursue the Israeli government's present policies. Netanyahu believes that, for a very long time, there have been resolutions adopted by the U.N. General Assembly that have been unfavorable to Israel, all of which Israel has successfully ignored. Why should this one be any different? There are a few politicians on the far right (yes, there is an even further right position than that of Netanyahu) who say that, in reprisal, Israel should formally annex all of the presently occupied Palestinian territories and end all talk of any negotiations with the Palestinians. Some of them also want to force an exodus of non-Jewish populations from this expanded Israeli state. Former Prime Minister (and present Defense Minister) Ehud Barak, whose political base is now almost non-existent, is

warning Netanyahu that he is being unrealistic. Barak says that the resolution will be a tsunami for Israel, and that therefore Netanyahu would be wisest somehow to make a deal with the Palestinians now, before the resolution passes. Is Barak right? Will this be a tsunami for Israel? There is a good chance that he is. There is however virtually no chance that Netanyahu will heed Barak's advice and try seriously to make a deal with the Palestinians before then. Consider what is likely to happen in the General Assembly itself. We know that most (maybe all) countries in Latin America and a very large percentage of countries in Africa and Asia will vote for the resolution. We know that the United States will vote against it and try to persuade others to vote against it. The uncertain votes are those of Europe. If the Palestinians can get a significant number of European votes, their political position will be much reinforced. So, will the Europeans vote for the resolution? That depends in part on what happens throughout the Arab world in the next two months. The French have already hinted openly that, unless they see significant progress in Israel-Palestinian negotiations (which are not even occurring at the moment), they will support such a resolution. If they do, it almost certain that southern European governments will join them. So may the Nordic countries. It is a more open question whether Great Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands are ready to join them. If these countries do decide to go with the resolution, this may resolve the hesitations of various east European countries. In this case, the resolution would obtain the vast majority of Europe's votes. We need to look therefore at what is going on in the Arab world. The second Arab revolt is still in full swing. It would be rash to predict exactly which regimes will fall and which will hold tight in the coming two months. What does seem clear is that the Palestinians are on the verge of launching a third intifada. The Palestinians, even the most conservative among them, seem to have given up hope that there can be any negotiated arrangement with Israel. This is the clear message of the agreement between Fatah and Hamas. And given that the Arab populations of virtually every Arab state are in direct political revolt against their regimes, how could the Palestinians remain relatively quiet? They will not remain quiet. And if they do not remain quiet, what will other Arab regimes do? All of them are having a difficult enough time, to say the least, handling the uprisings in their own countries. Actively supporting a third intifada would be the easiest position to take as part of the effort they are making to regain control of their own country. Which regime would dare not support the third intifada? Egypt has already moved clearly in that direction. And King Abdullah of Jordan has hinted that he too would do so. So imagine the sequence: a third intifada, followed by active Arab support for a third intifada, followed by Israeli intransigence. What will the Europeans then do? It is hard to see them refusing to vote for the resolution. We could easily arrive at a vote with only Israel, the United States, and a very few tiny countries voting against, and perhaps a few abstentions. This sounds like a possible tsunami to me. Israel's major fear for the past few years has been "delegitimization." Would not such a vote precisely encrust the process of delegitimization? And would not the isolation of the United States in this vote further weaken its position in the Arab world as a whole? What then will the United States do? Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global The President of the United States is considered to be the most powerful single individual in the modern world. What Barack Obama is learning to his chagrin is that he still has enormous power to do harm. But he has virtually no power to do good. I think he realizes this, and doesn't know what he can do about it. The fact is that there is very little he can do about it. Take his biggest single concern at the moment -- the second Arab revolt. He didn't start it. He was obviously taken by surprise when it began, as was almost everyone else. His immediate response was to think, correctly, that it posed great dangers to the already shaky geopolitical order in the region. The United States sought in every way it could to limit the damage, maintain its own position, and restore "order." One can't say that the United States has been very successful. Every day in every way the situation has become more disorderly and beyond the control of the United States. Barack Obama is by conviction and by personality the quintessential centrist. He seeks dialogue and compromise between "extremes." He acts with due reflection, and makes major decisions prudently. He is in favor of slow, orderly change -- change that doesn't threaten the basic system of which he is not merely a part but the ordained central figure and most powerful single player. He is today constrained on all sides from playing this role. Nonetheless, he continues to try to play it. He is obviously saying to himself, what else can I possibly do? What happens, as a result, is that other players (including those who were once upon a time his subordinate allies) defy him openly, and shamelessly, and get away with it -- diminishing his power further. Netanyahu addresses the U.S. Congress, which enthusiastically and endlessly applauds his dangerous self-interested nonsense as though he were George Washington reincarnated. It was a direct slap in the face of Barack Obama, even

though Obama had already, in speaking to AIPAC, withdrawn de facto his timid attempt to propose the 1967 Israel/Palestine borders as the basis of a solution. The Saudi government has made it very clear that it will do everything in its power to defend existing regimes in the Arab world and is angry at Obama's occasional concession to "human rights" language. Pakistans government is telling Obama very clearly that, if it tries to be tough with it, they have a firmer friend in China. The Russian, Chinese, and South African governments have all made it very clear to Obama that, if the United States tries to get Security Council action against Syria, it will not have their support and it probably couldn't get even a simple majority of votes -- echoes of Bush's failure in 2003 with the second Iraq resolution. In Afghanistan, Karzai is calling on NATO to stop drone attacks. And the Pentagon is feeling pressure to pull out of Afghanistan on the grounds that it is too expensive. Lest one think that U.S. weakness is exclusively a Middle East issue, take a look at Honduras. The United States had virtually endorsed the coup against now former President Zelaya. Because of the coup, Honduras was suspended from the Organization of American States (OAS). The United States then struggled hard to get Honduras restored to full membership in the OAS on the grounds that a new president had been formally elected. Latin American governments resisted this because Zelaya had not been allowed to return with all phony legal charges dropped. What happened next? Colombia (supposedly the U.S.'s best friend in Latin America) and Venezuela (supposedly the U.S.'s nemesis in Latin America) got together and jointly arranged with the Honduran government in power Zelaya's return under Zelaya's conditions. Secretary of State Clinton smiled wanly at this de facto rebuff to U.S. diplomacy. Finally, Obama is in trouble with the U.S. Congress over the war in Libya. Under the War Powers Act, Obama was supposed to be able to commit troops in Libya only for 60 days without explicit further endorsement by Congress. Sixty days have now passed, and there has been no Congressional action. Continuing the Libyan action is clearly illegal, but Obama is unable to get the endorsement. Nonetheless, Obama remains committed to the Libyan action. And U.S. involvement could escalate. So he can do the harm, but not the good. Meanwhile, Obama is concentrating on getting re-elected. He stands a good chance of achieving this. The Republicans are moving further and further to the right, and politically they are no doubt overdoing it. But once re-elected, the president of the United States will have even less power than today. The world is moving on at a rapid pace. In a world with so many uncertainties and unpredictable actors, the most dangerous "loose gun" is turning out to be the United States. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011, Pakistan time. He was killed by U.S. Seals forces in a special operation ordered by the U.S. president. The whole world knows this, and reactions to this event have been extremely diverse. But has this death changed anything anywhere? Does it matter? The first question that most people are posing is whether this death signals the demise of al-Qaeda. It has become clear for some time that al-Qaeda today is not a single organization but rather a franchise. If Osama directly commanded any group, it was those located in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are what seem to be autonomous structures calling themselves al-Qaeda in other parts of the world, and notably in Iraq, Yemen, and the Maghreb. These groups have paid symbolic homage to Osama but have made their own operational decisions. In addition, the actual combative and political power of the various groups seems to have been in decline for some time. The most important reason for this has not been the killing of al-Qaeda leaders by the United States or other governments but the sense among most other Islamist forces that they could achieve more of their aims by more political routes. The killing of Osama may inspire some immediate al-Qaeda attempts at "revenge" but it is not likely that this will do much to slow down the growing irrelevance of al-Qaeda on a world scene. Will the death of Osama change the situation in either Pakistan or Afghanistan? Pakistan's government was already shaky before this. There is now public grumbling in both Pakistan and the United States about what did the Pakistani government know and when did it know it. The Pakistani government's official line is that it knew nothing of Osama's location for about seven years in a villa next door to their main military academy. And it also claims that it knew nothing in advance about the U.S. raid and deems it to have been an illegitimate infringement of Pakistani sovereignty. Neither argument is very plausible. Of course it knew where Osama was living, or at least some Pakistani officials knew. How could they not? And of course, the U.S. government knew that Pakistan knew but wasn't telling them. This was all part of the difficult, ambiguous relationship of the two allies for at least the last ten years. Will Osama's death change that? I doubt it. The alliance remains mutually necessary. As to whether the Pakistanis were informed of the pending U.S. raid, it depends on which Pakistanis. Clearly, the U.S. wanted to keep the raid secret from any one in Pakistan who might have interfered with it or alerted Osama. But did noone know? We have two pieces of contrary information that have come out. The Guardian published a piece after Osama's death reporting, on the basis of conversations with U.S. and Pakistani officials, that former Pakistan President Musharraf made an agreement with President George W. Bush in 2001, in which Musharraf agreed in advance to a unilateral U.S. raid on Osama whenever it located him, with the provision that the Pakistanis would denounce it publicly afterwards. Musharraf now denies this but who believes him?

There is a piece of even more persuasive evidence. Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, published a story the very day of Osama's death, citing eye-witnesses that electricity was cut off in the area during the operation -- indeed for two hours before it occurred -- which could only have been done by some Pakistani agency that knew of the forthcoming raid. The Chinese have at least as good an internal intelligence operation in Pakistan as the United States. So it seems probable that, while some Pakistani agencies were kept in the dark, others coordinated with the United States. At the U.S. end, some members of Congress are agitated about the fact that the Pakistanis must have known Osama was living in Abbottabad, and wish therefore to cut off, or reduce, financial and military aid to Pakistan. But clearly this would be counter to the maintenance of any U.S. influence in Pakistan, and it is unlikely that any real change in current relations will be made. As for Afghanistan, it is clear that, for some time, the Taliban have been taking their distance from al-Qaeda and Osama, in order to pursue their own return to power. Osama's death can only reinforce their position within Afghanistan, and hasten the process by which the United States is being pushed out, something that will make the U.S. military basically very happy. Some in the United States will say that this "victory" permits them to make the necessary political deal with the Taliban. And some who were opposed to U.S. intervention in the first place will say that this proves there is no longer a plausible threat that justifies continuing U.S. presence there. That this scenario is possible can be seen in the anguished outcry among non-Pashtun elements in the north of Afghanistan against drawing either conclusion. So does the killing of Osama at least make a difference in the United States? Well, yes it does. President Obama took a big political risk in conducting the operation, and especially in conducting it by using a Seals force rather than by bombing the residence. Had it gone wrong in any way, he would have been sunk politically. But it didn't go wrong. And all the Republican arguments that he was a weak leader, especially in military matters, have been undone. This will no doubt help him in the coming elections. But again, as many commentators have been pointing out, this will help him only a bit. The economy is still the big internal issue in U.S. politics. And Obama's re-election and Democratic prospects in the Congressional elections will be affected most of all by pocketbook issues in 2012. So, how much difference does Osama's death make? Not too much. The United States is currently engaged in three wars in the Middle East -- in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya. The United States has bases all around the world, in more than 150 countries. It has tense relations currently with North Korea and Iran, and has never ruled out military action. The war in Afghanistan, when it began in 2002, had very strong support from U.S. public opinion, and indeed a great deal of support in other countries. The war in Iraq had almost as much support from U.S. public opinion when it began in 2003, but a lot less support in other countries. Now the United States is halfway into Libya. Less than half the U.S. public is supportive, and there is very much opposition in the rest of the world. The most recent polls in the United States show opposition not only to the Libyan operation but now to remaining in Afghanistan as well. Pollsters are talking of "war-weariness," as well they might, since it is hard to argue that the United States has been victorious in any of these conflicts. The Libyan conflict is heading toward a long morass. In Afghanistan, everyone is trying to figure out a political solution, which would have to involve the Taliban joining the government, and perhaps even in a short time coming to full power. In Iraq, the United States is scheduled to withdraw its troops on December 31. It has offered to leave 20,000 troops there longer, provided the Iraqi government requests it, and does this very soon. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki might be tempted but the Sadrists have told him that, if he does this, they will withdraw their support and his government would fall. The most interesting thing, however, is what is likely to occur in the next year in U.S. internal politics, as it moves forward to a presidential election. Since 1945, the Republican Party has campaigned as the party that strongly supports the military and has accused the Democratic Party of being soft. The Democrats have always reacted by seeking to prove that they were not soft, and in practice there has not been too much difference in the actual policies that were pursued, whichever party held the office of president. Indeed, the biggest wars -- Korea and Vietnam -- were both started under Democratic presidents. The Democratic Party has always had a group, considered its left wing, that have been critical of these wars, and this group continues to exist and to protest. But, among elected politicians, these Democrats have always been a minority, one that was largely ignored. The Republican Party was more united around a program of steady support for the military and for the wars. There were rare Republican politicians who had a different view. They were drawn from the libertarian wing of the party, and the most notable person who incarnated this view was Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. He was also one of the few politicians who thought the unlimited U.S. support for Israel was a bad idea. At the moment, here is where we stand on the race for the presidency. Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate. He is unchallenged within the party. The Republican picture is quite the opposite. There are ten to twelve candidates for the nomination, and not one of them is a clear favorite. The party race is wide open. What does that mean for foreign policy? Ron Paul is seeking the nomination. In 2008, he had almost no support at all.

Now he is doing much better in the campaigning. This is in part because of his strong positions on fiscal policies, but his positions on the war are attracting attention. In addition, a new candidate has entered the ring. He is Gary Johnson, former Republican Governor of New Mexico. Also a libertarian, he is even stronger on the war issues than Paul. Johnson calls for total and immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Given the wide spread of support for the various potential candidates, there are undoubtedly going to be television programs where all the Republican candidates will speak and debate. If Johnson makes the war issue his big campaign argument, this ensures that all the Republican candidates will have to address it. Once that happens, we will discover that the so-called Tea Party Republicans are deeply split on the war involvements. Suddenly, the whole of the United States will be debating this issue. Barack Obama will find that the centrist position he has been trying to maintain has suddenly moved leftwards. In order to remain a centrist, he too will have to move left. This will be a major turning-point in U.S. politics. The idea that the troops should come home will become a serious possibility. Some will fume with anger because the United States will thus be exhibiting weakness. And in some ways this will be true. It is part of U.S. decline. What it will remind U.S. politicians, however, is that fighting wars requires serious support in public opinion. And in this combination of geopolitical and economic pressures that everyone is feeling, war-weariness is a very serious factor from here on in. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press).

The Middle East: Allies in Disarray


by Immanuel Wallerstein Released: 15 Apr 2011
For the last fifty years, United States policy in the Middle East has been built around its very close links with three countries: Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. In 2011, it is at odds with all three, and in very fundamental ways. It is also in public discord with Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and Brazil over its current policies in the region. It seems almost no one agrees with or follows the lead of the United States. One can hear the agonizing frustration of the president, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA, all of whom see a situation careening out of control. Why the United States has created such an incredibly close alliance with Israel is a matter of much debate. But it is clear that for many years the relationship has been getting ever tighter, and more and more on Israeli terms. Israel has been able to count on financial and military aid and the never-failing veto of the United States in the U.N. Security Council. What has happened now is that both Israeli politicians and its U.S. base of support have moved steadily rightwards. Israel is holding on tight to two things: eternal delays on serious negotiations with Palestine and the hope that someone will bomb the Iranians. Obama has been moving in the other direction, at least as much as U.S. internal politics will let him. The tensions are high and Netanyahu is praying, if he does pray, for a Republican presidential victory in 2012. The crisis point may however come before that when the U.N. General Assembly votes to recognize Palestine as a member state. The United States will find itself in the losing position of fighting against this. Saudi Arabia has had a cozy relationship with Washington ever since Pres. Franklin Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz in 1943. Between them, they were able to control the politics of oil worldwide. They collaborated in military matters and the United States counted on the Saudis to hold other Arab regimes in check. But today the Saudi regime feels highly threatened by the second Arab revolt and is very upset by the willingness of the United States to sanction the dethroning of Mubarak by his military as well as by U.S. critiques, however mild, of Saudi intervention in Bahrain. The priorities of the two countries are now quite different. In the era of the Cold War, when the United States regarded India as far too close to the Soviet Union, Pakistan obtained the full backing of the United States (and China), whatever its regime. They worked together to aid the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and force the withdrawal of Soviet troops. They presumably were working together to stem the growth of alQaeda. Two things have changed. In a post-Cold War era, the United States has been developing much warmer relations with India, to the frustration of Pakistan. And Pakistan and the United States are in strong disagreement about how to handle the ever-growing strength of both al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. One of the principal objectives of U.S. foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been to keep western European countries from developing autonomous policies. But today, the three major countries -- Great Britain, France, and Germany -- are all doing that. Neither the tough line of George W. Bush nor the softer diplomacy of Barack Obama seems to have slowed that down. The fact that France and Great Britain are now asking the United States to take a more active lead on fighting Gaddafi and Germany is saying just about the opposite is less important than the fact that all three are saying these things very loudly and strongly. Russia, China, and Brazil are all playing their cards carefully in terms of their relations with the United States. All three oppose U.S. positions on just about everything these days. They may not go all the way (such as using vetoes in the Security Council) because the United States still has claws it can use. But they are certainly not cooperating. The fiasco of Obama's recent trip to Brazil, where he thought he could get a new approach from President Dilma Rousseff -- but he couldn't -- shows how little clout the United States has at present.

Finally, U.S. internal politics have changed. The bipartisan foreign policy has slipped into historical memory. Now, when the United States goes to war as in Libya, public opinion polls show only about 50% support in the general population. And politicians of both parties attack Obama for being either too hawkish or too dovish. They are all waiting to pounce on him for any reversal. What this may do is to force him to escalate U.S. involvement all over the place and thereby exacerbate the negative reaction of all the one-time allies. Madeleine Albright famously called the United States the "indispensable nation." It is still the giant on the world scene. But it is a lumbering giant, uncertain of where it is going or how to get there. The measure of U.S. decline is the degree to which its erstwhile closest allies are ready both to defy its wishes and to say so publicly. The measure of U.S. decline is the degree to which it does not feel able to state publicly what it is doing, and to insist that all is really under control. The United States actually had to cough up a very large sum of money to arrange the release from prison of a CIA agent in Pakistan. The consequences of all this? Much more global anarchy. Who will profit from all of this? That, at the moment, is a very open question. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global The entire Libyan conflict of the last month -- the civil war in Libya, the U.S.-led military action against Gaddafi -- is neither about humanitarian intervention nor about the immediate supply of world oil. It is in fact one big distraction -- a deliberate distraction -- from the principal political struggle in the Arab world. There is one thing on which Gaddafi and Western leaders of all political views are in total accord. They all want to slow down, channel, co-opt, limit the second Arab revolt and prevent it from changing the basic political realities of the Arab world and its role in the geopolitics of the world-system. To appreciate this, one has to follow what has been happening in chronological sequence. Although political rumblings in the various Arab states and the attempts by various outside forces to support one or another element within various states have been a constant for a long time, the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi on Dec. 17, 2010 launched a very different process. It was in my view the continuation of the spirit of the world revolution of 1968. In 1968, as in the last few months in the Arab world, the group that had the courage and the will to launch the protest against instituted authority were young people. They were motivated by many things: the arbitrariness and cruelty and corruption of those in authority, their own worsening economic situation, and above all the insistence on their moral and political right to be a major part of determining their own political and cultural destiny. They have also been protesting against the whole structure of the world-system and the ways in which their leaders have been subordinated to the pressures of outside forces. These young people were not organized, at least at first. And they were not always totally cognizant of the political scene. But they have been courageous. And, as in 1968, their actions were contagious. Very soon, in virtually every Arab state, without distinction as to foreign policy, they have threatened the established order. When they showed their strength in Egypt, still the key Arab state, everyone began to take them seriously. There are two ways of taking such a revolt seriously. One is to join it and try thereby to control it. And one is to take strong measures to quash it. Both have been tried. There were three groups who joined it, underlined by Samir Amin in his analysis of Egypt: the traditional and revivified left, the middle-class professionals, and the Islamists. The strength and character of these groups has varied in each of the Arab countries. Amin saw the left and the middle-class professionals (to the extent that they were nationalist and not transnational neoliberals) as positive elements and the Islamists, the last to get on the bandwagon, as negative elements. And then there is the army, always the bastion of order, which joined the Egyptian revolt late, precisely in order to limit its effect. So, when the uprising began in Libya, it was the direct result of the success of the revolts in the two neighboring countries, Tunisia and Egypt. Gaddafi is a particularly ruthless leader and has been making horrific statements about what he would do to traitors. If, very soon, there were strong voices in France, Great Britain, and the United States to intervene militarily, it was scarcely because Gaddafi was an anti-imperialist thorn in their side. He sold his oil willingly to the West and he boasted of the fact that he helped Italy stem the tide of illegal immigration. He offered lucrative arrangements for Western business. The intervention camp had two components: those for whom any and all military interventions by the West are irresistible, and those who argued the case for humanitarian intervention. They were opposed very strongly in the United States by the military, who saw a Libyan war as unwinnable and an enormous military strain on the United States. The latter group seemed to be winning out, when suddenly the resolution of the Arab League changed the balance of forces. How did this happen? The Saudi government worked very hard and effectively to get a resolution passed endorsing the institution of a no-fly zone. In order to get unanimity among the Arab states, the Saudis made two concessions. The demand was only for a no-fly zone and a second resolution was adopted opposing the intrusion of any Western land

forces. What led the Saudis to push this through? Did someone from the United States telephone someone in Saudi Arabia and request this? I think it was quite the opposite. This was an instance of the Saudis trying to affect U.S. policy rather than the other way around. And it worked. It tipped the balance. What the Saudis wanted, and what they got, was a big distraction from what they thought most urgent, and what they were doing -- a crackdown on the Arab revolt, as it affected first of all Saudi Arabia itself, then the Gulf states, then elsewhere in the Arab world. As in 1968, this kind of anti-authority revolt creates strange splits in the countries affected, and creates unexpected alliances. The call for humanitarian intervention is particularly divisive. The problem I have with humanitarian intervention is that I'm never sure it is humanitarian. Advocates always point to the cases where such intervention didn't occur, such as Rwanda. But they never look at the cases where it did occur. Yes, in the relatively short run, it can prevent what would otherwise be a slaughter of people. But in the longer run, does it really do this? To prevent Saddam Hussein's short-run slaughters, the United States invaded Iraq. Have fewer people been slaughtered as a result over a ten-year period? It doesn't seem so. Advocates seem to have a quantitative criterion. If a government kills ten protestors, this is "normal" if perhaps worthy of verbal criticism. If it kills 10,000, this is criminal, and requires humanitarian intervention. How many people have to be killed before what is normal becomes criminal? 100, 1000? Today, the Western powers are launched on a Libyan war, with an uncertain outcome. It will probably be a morass. Has it succeeded in distracting the world from the ongoing Arab revolt? Perhaps. We don't know yet. Will it succeed in ousting Gaddafi? Perhaps. We don't know yet. If Gaddafi goes, what will succeed him? Even U.S. spokesmen are worrying about the possibility that he will be replaced either with his old cronies or with al-Qaeda, or with both. The U.S. military action in Libya is a mistake, even from the narrow point of view of the United States, and even from the point of view of being humanitarian. It wont end soon. President Obama has explained his actions in a very complicated, subtle way. What he has said essentially is that if the president of the United States, in his careful judgment, deems an intervention in the interests of the United States and the world, he can and should do it. I do not doubt that he agonized over his decision. But that is not good enough. It's a terrible, ominous, and ultimately self-defeating proposition. In the meantime, the best hope of everyone is that the second Arab revolt renews steam -- perhaps a long shot now -and shakes first of all the Saudis. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). There is so much hypocrisy and so much confused analysis about what is going on in Libya that one hardly knows where to begin. The most neglected aspect of the situation is the deep division in the world left. Several left Latin American states, and most notably Venezuela, are fulsome in their support of Colonel Qaddafi. But the spokespersons of the world left in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and indeed North America, decidedly don't agree. Hugo Chavez's analysis seems to focus primarily, indeed exclusively, on the fact that the United States and western Europe have been issuing threats and condemnations of the Qaddafi regime. Qaddafi, Chavez, and some others insist that the western world wishes to invade Libya and "steal" Libya's oil. The whole analysis misses entirely what has been happening, and reflects badly on Chavezs judgment -- and indeed on his reputation with the rest of the world left. First of all, for the last decade and up to a few weeks ago, Qaddafi had nothing but good press in the western world. He was trying in every way to prove that he was in no way a supporter of "terrorism" and wished only to be fully integrated into the geopolitical and world-economic mainstream. Libya and the western world have been entering into one profitable arrangement after another. It is hard for me to see Qaddafi as a hero of the world anti-imperialist movement, at least in the last decade. The second point missed by Hugo Chavezs analysis is that there is not going to be any significant military involvement of the western world in Libya. The public statements are all huff and puff, designed to impress local opinion at home. There will be no Security Council resolution because Russia and China won't go along. There will be no NATO resolution because Germany and some others won't go along. Even Sarkozy's militant anti-Qaddafi stance is meeting resistance within France. And above all, the opposition in the United States to military action is coming both from the public and more importantly from the military. The Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mullen, have very publicly stated their opposition to instituting a no-fly zone. Indeed, Secretary Gates went further. On Feb. 25, he addressed the cadets at West Point, saying to them: "In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president again to send a big American land army into Asia or the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined." To underline this view of the military, retired General Wesley Clark, the former commander of NATO forces, wrote an oped for the Washington Post on Mar. 11, under the heading, "Libya doesn't meet the test for U.S. military action." So,

despite the call of the hawks for U.S. involvement, President Obama will resist. The issue therefore is not Western military intervention or not. The issue is the consequence of Qaddafi's attempt to suppress all opposition in the most brutal fashion for the second Arab revolt. Libya is in turmoil because of the successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. And if there is any conspiracy, it is one between Qaddafi and the West to slow down, even quash, the Arab revolt. To the extent that Qaddafi succeeds, he sends a message to all the other threatened despots of the region that harsh repression rather than concessions is the way to go. This is what the left in the rest of the world sees, if some left governments in Latin America do not. As Samir Amin points out in his analysis of the Egyptian uprising, there were four distinct components among the protestors -- the youth, the radical left, middle-class democrats, and Islamists. The radical left is composed of suppressed left parties and revitalized trade-union movements. There is no doubt a much, much smaller radical left in Libya, and a much weaker army (because of Qaddafi's deliberate policy). The outcome there is therefore very uncertain. The assembled leaders of the Arab League may condemn Qaddafi publicly, but many, even most, may be applauding him privately -- and copying from him. It might be useful to end with two pieces of testimony from the world left. Helena Sheeham, an Irish Marxist activist, wellknown in Africa for her solidarity work there with the most radical movements, was invited by the Qaddafi regime to come to Libya to lecture at the university. She arrived as turmoil broke out. The lectures at the university were cancelled, and she was finally simply abandoned by her hosts, and had to make her way out by herself. She wrote a daily diary in which, on the last day, Mar. 8, she wrote: "Any ambivalence about that regime, gone, gone, gone. It is brutal, corrupt, deceitful, delusional." We might also see the statement of South Africa's major trade-union federation and voice of the left, COSATU. After praising the social achievements of the Libyan regime, COSATU said: COSATU does not accept however that these achievements in any way excuse the slaughter of those protesting against the oppressive dictatorship of Colonel Gaddafi and reaffirms its support for democracy and human rights in Libya and throughout the continent." Let us keep our eye on the ball. The key struggle worldwide right now is the second Arab revolt. It will be hard enough to obtain a truly radical outcome in this struggle. Qaddafi is a major obstacle for the Arab, and indeed the world, left. Perhaps we should all remember Simone de Beauvoir's maxim: "Wanting to be free yourself means wanting that others be free." Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Fifty-one years ago, on Feb. 3, 1960, the then Prime Minister of Great Britain, Harold Macmillan, a Conservative, addressed the South African parliament, governed by the party that had constructed apartheid as its basis of government. He made what has come to be called the "wind of change" speech. It is worth recalling his words: "The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, the growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a political fact, and our national policies must take account of it." South Africa's Prime Minister, Hendrik Verwoerd, did not appreciate the talk and rejected its premises and its advice. The year 1960 has come to be called the Year of Africa, because 16 colonies become independent states that year. Macmillan's speech was in fact really addressing the issue of those states in the southern half of the continent that had significant groups of White settlers (and often great mineral resources), who resisted the very idea of universal suffrage in which Black Africans would constitute the overwhelming majority of the voters. Macmillan was scarcely a radical. He explained his reasoning in terms of winning over Asian and African populations to the Western side in the Cold War. His speech was significant in that it was the signal that the leaders of Great Britain (and subsequently those of the United States) saw the cause of White electoral dominance in southern Africa as a doomed cause that might drag the West down alongside them. The wind kept blowing, and in one country after another the African majority won their case, until in 1994 South Africa itself succumbed to universal suffrage and elected Nelson Mandela as its president. In the process, however, the economic interests of Great Britain and the United States were somehow preserved. There are two lessons we can draw from this. One is that winds of change are very strong and probably impossible to resist. The second is that once the winds sweep away the symbols of tyranny, it is not at all certain what will follow. Once the symbols fall, everyone retrospectively denounces them. But everyone also wants their own interests to be preserved in the new structures that emerge. The second Arab revolt that began in Tunisia and Egypt is now engulfing more and more countries, and no doubt some further symbols of tyranny will fall or will concede major modifications of their internal state structures. But who will then retain the power? Already in Tunisia and Egypt we see a situation in which the new prime ministers have been persons who were key figures in the previous regime. And the army in both countries seems to be telling protestors to stop protesting. In both countries, there are returnees from exile who are assuming posts and seeking to continue, even expand, ties with the very countries in western Europe and North America that had sustained the previous regimes. To

be sure, the popular forces are fighting back, and just now have been able to force the resignation of the Tunisian prime minister. In the middle of the French Revolution, Danton counseled "de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace." ("Audacity, more audacity, always audacity.") Good advice perhaps, but Danton was guillotined not long thereafter. And those who guillotined him were in turn guillotined. After that we had Napoleon, and then the Restoration, and then 1848, and then the Paris Commune. By 1989, at the Bicentennial, virtually everyone retrospectively was in favor of the French Revolution, but one can reasonably ask if the trinity of the French Revolution -- liberty, equality, and fraternity -- have in fact been realized. There are some things that are different today. The wind of change is now truly worldwide. For the moment, the epicenter is the Arab world, and the wind is still whirling ferociously there. No doubt, the geopolitics of this region will never be the same. The key places on which to keep one's eyes are Saudi Arabia and Palestine. If the Saudi monarchy comes under serious challenge -- and it seems at least possible that it will -- no regime in the Arab world will feel safe. And if the wind of change leads the two main political forces of Palestine to join hands, even Israel may feel it necessary to adapt to the new realities and take account of Palestinian national consciousness, whether it likes it or not -- to paraphrase Harold Macmillan. Needless to say, the United States and western Europe are doing everything in their power to channel, limit, and redirect the wind of change. But their power is not what it used to be. And the wind of change is blowing within their very own home grounds. That is the way of winds. Their direction and momentum is not constant and therefore not predictable. This time the wind is very strong. It may not be so easy any more to channel, limit, and redirect it. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global The World Social Forum (WSF) is alive and well. It just met in Dakar, Senegal from Feb. 6-11. By unforeseen coincidence, this was the week of the Egyptian people's successful dethroning of Hosni Mubarak, which finally succeeded just as the WSF was in its closing session. The WSF spent the week cheering the Egyptians on -- and discussing the meaning of the Tunisian/Egyptian revolutions for their program of transformation, for achieving another world that is possible -- possible, not certain. Somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 people attended the Forum, which is in itself a remarkable number. To hold such an event, the WSF requires strong local social movements (which exist in Senegal) and a government that at least tolerates the holding of the Forum. The Senegalese government of Abdoulaye Wade was ready to "tolerate" the holding of the WSF, although already a few months ago it reneged on its promised financial assistance by three-quarters. But then came the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, and the government got cold feet. What if the presence of the WSF inspired a similar uprising in Senegal? The government couldn't cancel the affair, not with Lula of Brazil, Morales of Bolivia, and numerous African presidents coming. So it did the next best thing. It tried to sabotage the Forum. It did this by firing the Rector of the principal university where the Forum was being held, four days before the opening, and installing a new Rector, who promptly reversed the decision of the previous Rector to suspend classes during the WSF so that meeting rooms be available. The result was organizational chaos for at least the first two days. In the end, the new Rector permitted the use of 40 of the more than 170 rooms needed. The organizers imaginatively set up tents across the campus, and the meeting proceeded despite the sabotage. Was the Senegalese government right to be so frightened of the WSF? The WSF itself debated how relevant it was to popular uprisings in the Arab world and elsewhere, undertaken by people who had probably never heard of the WSF? The answer given by those in attendance reflected the long-standing division in its ranks. There were those who felt that ten years of WSF meetings had contributed significantly to the undermining of the legitimacy of neoliberal globalization, and that the message had seeped down everywhere. And there were those who felt that the uprisings showed that transformational politics lay elsewhere than in the WSF. I myself found two striking things about the Dakar meeting. The first was that hardly anyone even mentioned the World Economic Forum at Davos. When the WSF was founded in 2001, it was founded as the anti-Davos. By 2011, Davos seemed so unimportant politically to those present that it was simply ignored. The second was the degree to which everyone present noted the interconnection of all issues under discussion. In 2001, the WSF was primarily concerned with the negative economic consequences of neoliberalism. But at each meeting thereafter the WSF added other concerns -- gender, environment (and particularly climate change), racism, health, the rights of indigenous peoples, labor struggles, human rights, access to water, food and energy availability. And suddenly at Dakar, no matter what was the theme of the session, its connections with the other concerns came to the fore. This it seems to me has been the great achievement of the WSF -- to embrace more and more concerns and get everyone to see their intimate interconnections. There was nonetheless one underlying complaint among those in attendance. People said correctly we all know what

we're against, but we should be laying out more clearly what it is we are for. This is what we can contribute to the Egyptian revolution and to the others that are going to come everywhere. The problem is that there remains one unresolved difference among those who want another world. There are those who believe that what the world needs is more development, more modernization, and thereby the possibility of more equal distribution of resources. And there are those who believe that development and modernization are the civilizational curse of capitalism and that we need to rethink the basic cultural premises of a future world, which they call civilizational change. Those who call for civilizational change do it under various umbrellas. There are the indigenous movements of the Americas (and elsewhere) who say they want a world based on what the Latin Americans call "buen vivir" -- essentially a world based on good values, one that requires the slowing down of unlimited economic growth which, they say, the planet is too small to sustain. If the indigenous movements center their demands around autonomy in order to control land rights in their communities, there are urban movements in other parts of the world who emphasize the ways in which unlimited growth is leading to climate disaster and new pandemics. And there are feminist movements who are underlining the link between the demands for unlimited growth and the maintenance of patriarchy. This debate about a "civilizational crisis" has great implications for the kind of political action one endorses and the kind of role left parties seeking state power would play in the world transformation under discussion. It will not be easily resolved. But it is the crucial debate of the coming decade. If the left cannot resolve its differences on this key issue, then the collapse of the capitalist world-economy could well lead to a triumph of the world right and the construction of a new world-system worse even than the existing one. For the moment, all eyes are on the Arab world and the degree to which the heroic efforts of the Egyptian people will transform politics throughout the Arab world. But the tinder for such uprisings exists everywhere, even in the wealthier regions of the world. As of the moment, we are justified in being semi-optimistic. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global One of the guiding mantras of the twentieth century was the self-determination of peoples, of nations. It was a piety to which everyone assented in theory. But in practice, it was a very thorny, very murky subject. The key difficulty is how to determine which was the self, the people, the nation that would be entitled to determine its own destiny. There was never any accord on this subject. In the case of colonies, it was a relatively simple question. But in the case of a state already recognized as a sovereign state, opinion was very divided, usually violently divided. The issue is in the headlines at the moment because of the referendum in southern Sudan where the "people" are voting on whether they wish to remain part of the state called Sudan or to constitute a new state separate from Sudan. In every state, without exception, there are people in state power who argue what we have come to call a Jacobin position. They assert that all the citizens of that state constitute a nation, one that has already determined its destiny. We talk of nation-states as though the Jacobin principle were a reality rather than a political aspiration. Jacobins say that the state should be reinforced and strengthened by refusing to recognize the right, the legitimacy of any so-called intermediate group to stand between the state and the citizens. All rights to the individual; no rights to groups. At the same time, in every state, again without exception, there are others -- often called "minorities" -- who contest this idea. They say that the Jacobin position hides the interest of some "dominant" group which maintains its privileges at the expense of all those who belong to groups other than the dominant group. The minorities (who often, but not always, comprise in fact the numerical majority of the population) argue that, unless the rights of groups are recognized, they are denied equal participation in the state. What "rights" do these minorities feel are being denied to them? Sometimes it is linguistic rights, the right to conduct legal, educational, and media business in a language other than the "official" language. Sometimes, it is religious rights, the right to practice openly a religion other than an officially recognized religion, and to conduct their civil affairs under the religious laws that are part of their own religion. Sometimes it is land rights, the rights of groups that hold land under traditional rules that are different from the current rules enacted by the state. There are two strategies to secure the rights of minority groups. One is to seek officially-recognized autonomy in various spheres of social and legal life. The second, if the group occupies a relatively compact geographical zone, is to seek secession, that is, to create a new state. For many groups, these are alternatives between which they might move. Having failed to achieve autonomy, they might seek secession. Or having had their aspirations to secession defeated politically and/or militarily, they might settle for autonomy. The Kurds in Turkey as well as those in Iraq, having sought secession, seem now ready to settle for autonomy. So, it seems, will the francophones in Quebec. The people of the southern Sudan have moved in the other direction, as did the Kosovars in Serbia.

The crucial point is that this is not, ever, a question merely internal to a given state. To be a sovereign state, one must be recognized by other sovereign states as a legitimate entity. Today, the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus is recognized by only one other state. It cannot therefore join international organizations, even if de facto it continues to control its territory. When Kosovo proclaimed its independence, it was recognized only by less than half of the members of the United Nations. We then have to ask why, and by which states? There were some states in Europe but also elsewhere (notably China and Russia) who feared the precedent. They said that, if the Kosovars could declare unilaterally independence, similar groups in their countries might take this as a precedent. The United States and certain states in western Europe thought however that Kosovar independence from Serbia served their geopolitical interest and encouraged the Kosovars to proclaim their independence, which they immediately recognized, and to which they give material and political assistance. When Biafra sought to secede from Nigeria several decades ago, almost all African states supported the efforts of the Nigerian government to suppress the rebellion militarily. The main argument for doing this is that secession of Biafra would set a terrible precedent in Africa where almost all state boundaries were constituted arbitrarily by former colonial powers and in fact traverse ethnic lines. The African states wanted to preserve existing boundaries, however "artificial" they seemed, as the only guarantee of collective order. Now, it seems that the referendum in southern Sudan will produce an overwhelming vote for secession. And the African states that wouldn't recognize Biafra, plus China that won't recognize Kosovo, will almost certainly recognize the new state that is now being created. Indeed, even the state from which the secession is taking place seems to be ready to recognize the new state. Why? The answer is simple. There are geopolitical reasons for doing this. China is interested in good future relations with the new state, which will be a big oil exporter. Interest in buying oil seems to be taking priority over worrying about a precedent for secessionist groups in China. The Sudan seems ready to recognize the new state because the United States has promised specific changes in its own policies vis-a-vis Sudan if they permit the secession to proceed peacefully. The African states are overwhelmed by the de facto accord between the two sides in this controversy. And in addition, many of them sympathize with the groups in southern Sudan who are Nilotic peoples faced with a government dominated by Arab peoples. In the twenty-first century, the Jacobin option is in retreat in most countries. The real question is autonomy versus secession for the so-called minorities. Is one better than the other? There is no general answer to that question. Each case is different in two ways. The actual demography and history of each state is different and therefore what is logically best and maximally just is different. In any case, any new state resulting from secession will immediately discover "minorities" within its boundaries. The debate never ends. But there is a second consideration. Autonomy versus secession has geopolitical consequences. And these are crucial in terms of the ongoing struggles within the world-system as a whole. All parties pursue, rather cynically, their selfinterest as states. How they act can be quite opposite from one situation to the other. This is because outside powers are primarily concerned with the geopolitical impact of the decision. But it is the role of these outside powers that is often decisive. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global

The media are telling us that the economic "crisis" is over, and that the world-economy is once more back to its normal mode of growth and profit. On December 30, Le Monde summed up this mood in one of its usual brilliant headlines: "The United States wants to believe in an economic upturn." Exactly, they "want to believe" it, and not only people in the United States. But is it so? First of all, as I have been saying repeatedly, we are not in a recession but in a depression. Most economists tend to have formal definitions of these terms, based primarily on rising prices in stock markets. They use these criteria to demonstrate growth and profit. And politicians in power are happy to exploit this nonsense. But neither growth nor profit is the appropriate measure. There are always some people who are making profit, even in the worst of times. The question is how many people, and which people? In "good" times, most people are seeing an improvement in their material situation, even if there are considerable differences between those at the top and bottom of the economic ladder. A rising tide raises all ships, as the saying goes, or at least most ships. But when the world-economy becomes stagnant, as the world-economy has been since the 1970s, several things happen. The numbers of people who are not gainfully employed and therefore receiving an income that is minimally adequate goes up considerably. And because this is so, countries try to export unemployment to each other. In addition, politicians tend to try to deprive the elderly retired persons and the young, pre-working-age persons of income in order to

appease their voters in the usual working-age categories. That is why, appraising the situation country by country, there are always some in which the situation looks much better than in most others. But which countries look better tends to shift with some rapidity, as it has been doing for the last forty years. Furthermore, as the stagnation continues, the negative picture grows larger, which is when the media begin to talk of "crisis" and politicians look for quick fixes. They call for "austerity," which means cutting pensions and education and child care even further. They deflate their currencies, if they can, in order that they reduce momentarily their unemployment rates at the expense of some other country's employment rates. Take the problem of government pensions. A small town in Alabama exhausted its pension fund in 2009. It declared bankruptcy and ceased paying its pensions, thereby violating state law which required it to do so. As the New York Times remarked, "It is not just the pensioners who suffer when a pension fund runs dry. If a city tried to follow the law and pay its pensioners with money from its annual operating budget, it would probably have to adopt large tax increases, or make huge service cuts, to come up with the money. Current city workers could find themselves paying into a pension plan that will not be there for their own retirements." But this is the looming problem for every state within the United States who, by law, must have balanced budgets, which means they cannot resort to borrowing to meet current budgetary needs. And there is a parallel problem for every nation within the euro zone who cannot deflate their currencies in order to meet their budgetary needs, which has meant that their ability to borrow leads to exorbitant unsustainable costs. But what, you may ask, about those countries where the economy is said to be "booming" such as Germany and most particularly, within Germany, Bavaria - called by some "the planet of the happy." Why then do Bavarians "feel a malaise" and seem "subdued and uncertain about their economic health"? The New York Times notes that "Germany's good fortune...is widely viewed (in Bavaria) as having come at the expense of workers, who for the past decade have sacrificed wages and benefits to make their employers more competitive....In fact, part of the prosperity comes from people not getting the social security they should have." Well then, at least, there is the good example of the "emerging economies" which have been showing sustained growth during the last few years -- especially the so-called BRIC countries. Look again. The Chinese government is very concerned about the loose lending practices of Chinese banks, which seem to be a bubble, and leading to the threat of inflation. One result is the sharp increase in layoffs in a country where the safety net for the unemployed seems to have disappeared. Meanwhile, the new president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, is said to be disturbed by the "overvalued" Brazilian currency amidst what she sees as the deflating U.S. and Chinese currencies that, together, are threatening the ability of Brazilian exports to be competitive. And the governments of Russia, India, and South Africa are all facing rumbling discontent from large parts of their populations who seemed to have escaped the benefits of presumed economic growth. Finally, and not least, there are the sharp rises in the prices of energy, food, and water. This is the result of a combination of world population growth and increased percentages of people demanding access. This portends a struggle for these basic goods, a struggle that could turn deadly. There are two possible outcomes. One is that large numbers of people will reduce the level of their demand -- most unlikely. The second is that the deadliness of the struggle results in a reduced world population and thereby fewer shortages -- a most unpleasant Malthusian solution. As we enter this second decade of the twenty-first century, it seems improbable that by 2020 we shall look back on this decade as one in which the "crisis" was relegated to a historical memory. It is not very helpful to "wish to believe" in a prospect that seems remote. It does not help in trying to figure out what we should do about it. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2011 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia visited Germany in the end of November. Before arriving there, he published an op-ed in the German newspaper, Sddeutsche Zeitung, which commented on this interview under the headline, "Putin hugs Europe." The contents of the op-ed were quite remarkable. Putin said that the lesson to be drawn from the severest economic crisis of the world economy in eight decades was the need for Russia to work more closely with the European Union. "We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok." He said that "in the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of integration." He suggested that such a continental market would be worth trillions of euros. Putin suggested that the EU and Russia needed to work closer together in the fields of industry and energy. He said that they should consider "what we can do to enable a new wave of industrialization on the European continent." He mentioned such fields as shipbuilding, the airplane and automobile industries, environmental technologies, pharmaceuticals, nuclear energy, and logistics. He called for common undertakings by European and Russian entrepreneurs.

In the field of energy supplies, Putin called for "active exchanges." It was necessary, he said, to work together at "all phases of the technological value creation chain -- from the uncovering of demand for energy resources up to the delivery to the consumer." Thereupon, Russia and the EU can move forward to the elimination of visas which would manifest "not the end but the beginning of a true integration of Russia and the EU." When Putin arrived in Germany he got a warm reception from some leading German bankers and industrialists. He spoke to them as his "friends," and in return the CEO of Siemens said, "We are at home in Russia." He said that "Russia was a clear example of how the emerging nations are giving an impulse to growth in the world economy." Putin continued his "charm offensive" with the German economic elite. He suggested they stood together on currency questions. "We need a new multipolarity in the currency system. We must break the excessive dollar monopoly." He spoke of the example of the Roman Empire, whose policies led to a 500-year-long economic stagnation. He then gave a strong endorsement to the euro, which he called an important balance to the dollar in the world economy. He suggested the possibility of trade being denominated in rubles and euros, and not in dollars. Chancellor Angela Merkel's response to these proposals was cautious but not negative. Germany's Foreign Minister, Guido Weterwelle, said that Putin's proposals show "how close we are in terms of our strategic goals." The strongest endorsement came from some of Germany's leading economic managers. Press response in Germany was mixed. In France, Le Monde noted: "This appeal to economic opening by someone more noted for his nationalist character than his commitment to ideas of free trade is truly innovative. This is all the more the case since the development of industrial cooperation between the two sides has been repeatedly held back for political reasons." It should be observed that Putin was not offering a deal to the "West" but rather to "Europe." It seems a quite specific attempt to encourage a strengthening of ties with Europe at the expense of the United States. While this is not entirely new in terms of Russia's geopolitical stance, it has up to now not been stated so publicly and so boldly. It should be noted too that Putin has given a strong endorsement to the euro at a time when the euro is in need of some political reinforcement. Note too that Putin is not talking of remaining merely or even principally an energy-exporter to Europe. Putin is talking of a new wave of industrialization in which Russia will participate fully. This open diplomacy by Putin should probably worry U.S. leaders more than the modest revelations of Wikileaks. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). For the fifteen to twenty years that the Washington Consensus dominated the discourse in the world-system (circa 19751995), poverty was a taboo word, even as it was increasing by leaps and bounds. We were all told that the only thing that mattered was economic growth, and that the only road to economic growth was to let the "market" prevail without any "statist" interference -- except, of course, that of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.S. Treasury. Great Britain's Mrs. Thatcher famously gave us the slogan, "There is No Alternative" (TINA), by which she meant there was no alternative for any state other than the United States and, I suppose, the United Kingdom. The benighted countries of the global South just had to abandon their naive pretensions at controlling their own fate. If they did, they would one day (but who could say when?) be rewarded with growth. If they did not, they were doomed to -- dare I say it? -- poverty. The glory days of the Washington Consensus are long since over. Things did not improve for most people in the global South -- quite the opposite -- and rebellion was in the air. The neo-Zapatistas rose up in Chiapas in 1994. The social movements brought the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle to a halt in 1999 (from which it has never recovered). And the World Social Forum began its expansive life in Porto Alegre in 2001. When the so-called Asian financial crisis exploded in 1997, causing vast economic damage in east and southeast Asia, and spreading to Russia, Brazil, and Argentina, the IMF pulled out of its pockets its threadbare set of demands for these countries, if they wanted any help. Malaysia had the courage to say no thank you, and Malaysia recovered the most swiftly. Argentina was even bolder, offering to pay its debts at about 30 cents on the dollar (or else nothing). Indonesia however buckled under, and soon thereafter the long-standing, seemingly very stable dictatorship of Suharto was ended by a popular uprising. At the time, no less a person than Henry Kissinger bellowed at the IMF, saying in effect how stupid can you be? It was more important for world capitalism and the United States to keep a friendly dictator in power in Indonesia than to have a country follow the rules of the Washington Consensus. In a memorable 1998 op-ed, Kissinger said that the IMF is acting "like a doctor specializing in measles [who] tries to cure every illness with one remedy." First the World Bank and then the IMF learned their lesson. Forcing governments to accept neo-liberal formulas as their policy (and as the price for financial assistance when their state budgets are out of kilter) can have nasty political consequences. It turns out that there are alternatives after all: People can revolt. When the next bubble burst and the world entered what is now referred to as the financial crisis of 2007 or 2008, the IMF became even more attuned to those unpleasant masses who don't know their place. And lo and behold, the IMF

discovered "poverty." They not only discovered poverty, but they set out to provide programs to "reduce" the amount of poverty in the global South. It is worth understanding their logic. The IMF publishes a sleek quarterly magazine called Finance & Development. It is not written for professional economists but for the wider audience of policymakers, journalists, and entrepreneurs. The September 2010 issue features an article by Rodney Ramcharan whose title tells it all: "Inequality Is Untenable." Rodney Ramcharan is a "Senior Economist" in the IMF's African Department. He tells us -- the new IMF line -- that "economic policies that simply focus on average growth rates could be dangerously naive." In the global South, high inequality can "limit growth-enhancing physical and human capital investments and increase calls for possibly inefficient redistribution." But even worse, high inequality "giv[es] the rich a relatively greater voice than the less homogeneous majority." And this in turn "can further skew the income distribution and ossify the political system, leading to even graver political and economic consequences in the long run." It seems the IMF has finally heard Kissinger. They have got to worry about both the unwashed masses, especially in countries of high inequality, and of their elites, who also delay "progress" because they want to maintain their hold on unskilled labor. Has the IMF suddenly become the voice of the world's left? Don't be silly. What the IMF wants, as do the world's more sophisticated capitalists, is a more stable system in which their market interests prevail. This requires twisting the arms of elites in the global South (and even in the global North) to give up a little of their ill-gotten gains in "poverty" programs that will appease enough of the ever-expanding poor to calm their thoughts of rebellion. It may be too late for this new strategy to work. The chaotic fluctuations are so very great. And "untenable inequality" is growing daily. But the IMF and those whose interests it represents are not going to stop trying. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press).

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Currency War? Of Course


by Immanuel Wallerstein

Released: 1 No

Currencies are a very particular economic problem. For currencies are the one true win-lose relationship. Whatever the merits of revaluing o a particular currency, these merits are only wins if others are losers. Everyone cannot devalue simultaneously. It is logically impossible and t politically meaningless.

The world situation is well-known. We have been living in a world in which the U.S. dollar has been the world's reserve currency. This of cou given the United States a privilege that no other country has. It can print its currency at will, whenever it thinks that doing so solves some imm economic problem. No other country can do this; or rather no other country can do this without penalty as long as the dollar remains the acc reserve currency.

It is also well-known that the dollar has been losing its value in relation to other currencies for some time now. Despite the continuing fluctua curve has been downward for perhaps thirty years at least.

The countries of northeast Asia -- China, Korea, and Japan -- have pursued currency policies that other countries have criticized. Indeed this subject of constant media attention. However, to be fair, it is by no means easy to establish the wisest policy at the moment, even from the s perspective of each country.

I consider the underlying issue simpler than the convoluted explanations of most policy analysts. I start with a few assumptions. The status o as the reserve currency of the world-system is the last major advantage that the United States has in the world-system today. It is therefore understandable that the United States will do what it can to maintain this advantage. In order to do so, it requires the willingness of other cou (including notably those of northeast Asia) not only to use the dollar as a mode of calculating transfers but as something in which to invest th surpluses (particularly in U.S. treasury bonds).

However, the exchange rate of the dollar has been steadily slipping. This means that surpluses invested in U.S. treasury bonds are worth les goes by. There comes a point at which the advantages of such investment (the principal advantage being that it sustains the ability of U.S. e and individual consumers to pay for imports) will eventually be less than the loss of real value of the investments in the treasury bonds. The move in opposite directions.

The problem is one which is posed in any market situation. If the value of a stock is falling, owners will want to divest before it becomes too l rapid divestment by a large stockholder can impel a rush to divest by others, thus causing even greater losses. The game is always to find th moment to divest that is neither too late nor too soon, or not too slowly but not too fast. This requires perfect timing, and the search for perfe the kind of judgment that quite frequently goes awry.

I see this as the basic picture of what is happening and will happen with the U.S. dollar. It cannot continue to maintain the degree of world co that it once enjoyed. Sooner or later, economic reality will catch up with it. This may happen in a five-minute shock or in a much slower proce when it does, the key question is, what then happens?

There is no other currency today poised to replace the dollar as a reserve currency. In that case, when the dollar falls, there will be no reserv We shall be in a multipolar currency world. And a multipolar currency world is a very chaotic world, in which no one feels comfortable becaus constant swift shifts of exchange rates make minimally rational short-term economic predictions very precarious.

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is at the moment warning publicly that the world is plun currency wars, whose outcome "would have a negative and very damaging longer-run impact." One real possibility is that the world may rev seems to me is already reverting, to de facto barter arrangements - a situation that is not really compatible with the effective functioning of a world-economy. Caveat emptor!

Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic W Press). Copyright 2009 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global

by Immanuel Wallerstein

Released: 15 Oct 2010

It is no secret that a lot of countries think they have interests in who governs Afghanistan. And, over the past thirty years, a lot of countries have been sending troops or military hardware or a lot of money in order to get the kind of government in Afghanistan they prefer. It is not hard to show that the degree to which outsider countries have in fact gotten their way is very limited. And the prospects don't look good for the outsiders. There is an increasing sense among outsiders that perhaps they should reduce their active involvement. Intrusion creates a burden that doesn't seem to have too many rewards. The Soviet Union was burned badly in the 1980s and finally withdrew its troops completely. The president they thought they were sustaining was hanged publicly by a grateful nation. The mujahideen that the United States supported in their resistance to Soviet intervention showed their gratitude by breeding and supporting a movement, al-Qaeda, which has ever since devoted its energies to a jihad against the United States and all those whom al-Qaeda considers allies of the United States. The Afghan civil war, which has had more than two sides, has continued unceasingly during all this time. One major force, called the Taliban, has had its ups and downs during these wars. Currently, they seem to be on a considerable upswing again. Since almost all the outsiders, except Pakistan, endlessly repeat their negative views about the Taliban, the ability of the Taliban to persist and to gain ground within has led to a lot of private rethinking among all concerned outside countries. The question should we continue to be involved? is on the agenda everywhere. The neighbors to the north and west -- Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Russia (although it has no direct border), and Iran -- all are concerned. They do not want a government dominated by militant, largely Pashtun, Taliban in power. They fear, probably correctly, that it would oppress in various ways the zones in the north and west which are ethnically tied to their countries. But none of these neighbors seems ready to send in troops. All therefore favor some intra-Afghan political negotiations that would end up with some protection of the zones in the north and the west. The United States currently has a large number of troops in Afghanistan. It is theoretically committed to begin a withdrawal of such troops by July 2011. In theory too, the United States government is hoping for a defeat, or at least a taming, of the Taliban forces, and a strengthening of the official Afghan army under the authority of the formally legal government presided over by President Hamid Karzai.

U.S. troops are assisted by a NATO force from several NATO countries. If the United States is waiting until mid-2011 to draw down troops, most of the NATO countries are anxious to get out sooner, or to announce now the certainty of their eventual withdrawal. In the case of the United States, withdrawal presents an internal U.S. political question. President Obama is weighing whether he will lose more support by withdrawing troops or by not withdrawing troops. Public opinion polls point to the steadily increasing number of voters who are tired of what they see as an unwinnable war in a faraway country. My prediction is that the isolationist thrust is winning over the interventionist thrust in U.S. politics. That leaves two other outsiders -- Pakistan and India. These two countries are of course locked in a long ongoing political (and often military) struggle with each other. And each regards the situation in Afghanistan primarily in terms of its implications for their struggle. Pakistan, via the army's intelligence service, the ISI, has supported the Taliban over the whole period. These days, they tend to deny this because it exasperates the United States, but no one is fooled. Pakistan thinks it can control the Afghan Taliban and that a re-established Taliban government in Kabul would be a bulwark against India. The Indian government has, for the last decade, been an active supporter of the Karzai regime, seeing it as a way to defang Pakistani influence in the country and, over the long run, help create the infrastructure needed to obtain energy resources from Iran and Russia. Both India and Pakistan may be reconsidering their options. There are at least some Indian government analysts who think that, by withdrawing and turning over Afghanistan to the Pakistanis, they would be feeding Pakistan a poison pill that would sap Pakistan's energy and military resources. These analysts are counting on the redoubtable independence of the Afghans, especially the Pashtuns, thinking they would no more tolerate Pakistani control than Soviet or United States control. And what about Pakistan? There are not only Afghan Taliban but, somewhat separately, Pakistani Taliban. While the ISI may appreciate and support those in Afghanistan, they are scarcely enthusiastic about the local variety. Dealing with Pakistani Taliban may do more to distract Pakistan from dealing with India than anything else. Withdrawing from too much involvement in Afghanistan may reduce the internal tensions somewhat. So, one possible outcome of the ongoing civil wars in Afghanistan is that, within five years or so, everyone may be tired of the burden of involvement and just leave the Afghans alone -- "to stew in their own pot," to use a popular phrase. What would such an Afghanistan look like? It's very hard to know. It could look ugly, with the infliction on all Afghans of the least palatable versions of shar'ia law. Or it may surprise us all with the kind of relative live-and-let-live ambiance that Afghanistan has had at some moments of its history. In any case, will the rest of the world care? The next five to ten years is going to be a terrible time economically and politically everywhere. There may be no time or energy to worry about Afghanistan. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2009 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global

This past month, two important events marked the world of Social-Democratic parties. In Sweden, on September 19, the party lost the election badly. It received 30.9% of the vote, its worst showing since 1914. Since 1932, it has governed the country 80% of the time, and this is the first time since then that a center-right party won reelection. And to compound the bad showing, a far right, anti-immigrant party entered the Swedish parliament for the first time. Why is this so dramatic? In 1936, Marquis Childs wrote a famous book, entitled Sweden: The Middle Way. Childs presented Sweden under its Social-Democratic regime as the virtuous middle way between the two extremes represented by the United States and the Soviet Union. Sweden was a country that effectively combined egalitarian redistribution with internal democratic politics. Sweden has been, at least since the 1930s, the world poster child of Social-Democracy, its true success story. And so it seemed to remain until rather recently. It is a poster child no more. Meanwhile, in Great Britain on Sept. 25, Ed Miliband came from far behind to win the leadership of the Labour Party. The Labour Party under Tony Blair had engaged in a radical remaking of the party under the label "the new Labour." Blair had argued that the party should also be a middle way -- one not between capitalism and communism but between what used to be the social-democratic program of nationalization of the key sectors of the economy and the unbridled dominance of the market. This was quite a different middle way than that of Sweden in the 1930s and afterwards. The choice by the Labour Party of Ed Miliband over his older brother David Miliband, a key associate of Tony Blair, was interpreted in Great Britain and elsewhere as a repudiation of Blair and a return to a somewhat more "social-democratic" (more Swedish?) Labour Party. Still, in his first speech to the Labour conference a few days later, Ed Miliband went out of his way to reassert a "centrist" position. He did however lace his statement with allusions to the importance of "fairness" and "solidarity." And he said: "We must shed old thinking and stand up for those who believe there is more to life than the bottom line."

What do these two elections tell us about the future of social-democracy? Social-democracy -- as a movement and an ideology -- is conventionally (and probably correctly) traced to the "revisionism" of Eduard Bernstein in late nineteenthcentury Germany. Bernstein argued essentially that, once they obtained universal suffrage (by which he meant male suffrage), the "workers" could use elections to win office for their party, the Social-Democratic Party (SPD), and take over the government. Once they won parliamentary power, the SPD could then "enact" socialism. And therefore, he concluded, talk of insurrection as the road to power was unnecessary and indeed foolish. What Bernstein was defining as socialism was in many ways unclear but still seemed at the time to include the nationalization of the key sectors of the economy. The history of Social-Democracy as a movement since then has been that of a slow but continuous shift away from a radical politics to a very centrist orientation. The parties repudiated their theoretical internationalism in 1914 by lining up to support their governments during the First World War. After the Second World War, the parties aligned themselves with the United States in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. And in 1959, at its Bad Godesburg conference, the German SPD officially repudiated Marxism entirely. It stated that "from a party of the working class, the Social-Democratic Party has become a party of the people." What the German SPD and other social-democratic parties came to stand for at that time was the social compromise called the "welfare state." In this objective, in the period of the great expansion of the world-economy during the 1950s and 1960s, it was quite successful. And at that time, it remained a "movement" in the sense that these parties commanded the active support and allegiance of very large numbers of persons in their country. When, however, the world-economy entered into its long stagnation beginning in the 1970s, and the world entered the period dominated by neo-liberal "globalization," the social-democratic parties began to go further. They dropped the emphasis on the welfare state to become the advocates merely of a softer version of the primacy of the market. This was what Blair's "new Labour" was all about. The Swedish party resisted this shift longer than others, but it too finally succumbed. The consequence of this, however, was that Social-Democracy ceased to be a "movement" that could rally the strong allegiance and support of large numbers of persons. It became an electoral machine that lacked the passion of yesteryear. If however social-democracy is no longer a movement, it is still a cultural preference. Voters still want the fading benefits of a welfare state. They regularly protest when they lose still another of these benefits, which is happening with some regularity today. Finally a word about the entry of the far right, anti-immigrant party into the Swedish parliament. Social-democrats have never been very strong on the rights of ethnic or other "minorities" -- still less on the rights of immigrants. Socialdemocratic parties have tended to be parties of the ethnic majority in each country, defending their turf against other workers whom they saw as undercutting their wages and employment. Solidarity and internationalism were slogans that were useful when there was no competition in sight. Sweden didn't have to face this issue seriously until recently. And when it did, a segment of social-democratic voters simply moved to the far right. Does social-democracy have a future? As cultural preference, yes; as movement, no. Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press). Copyright 2010 Immanuel Wallerstein -- distributed by Agence Global Democracy is a very popular word these days. There is virtually no country in the world today whose government does not claim to be the government of a democracy. But at the same time, there is virtually no country in the world today about which others -- both inside the country and in other countries -- do not denounce the government as being undemocratic. There seems to be very little agreement about what we mean when we say a country is democratic. The problem is clear in the very etymology of the word. Democracy comes from two Greek roots -- demos, or people, and kratia, or rule, the authority to decide. But what do we mean by rule? And what do we mean by the people? Lucien Febvre told us it is always important to look at the history of a word. The word, democracy, was not always so universally popular. The word first came into common modern political usage in the first half of the nineteenth century, primarily in western Europe. At that time, it had the tonality of terrorism today. The idea that the "people" might actually "rule" was considered by all respectable people as a political nightmare, dreamed up by irresponsible radicals. In fact, the principal objective of respectable people was how to make sure that it was not the majority of the people who had the authority to decide. This authority had to be left in the hands of people who had interests in preserving the world as it was, or as it should be. These were people with property and wisdom, who were considered competent to make decisions. After the revolutions of 1848, in which the "people" rose up in social and national revolutions, men of property and

competence grew frightened. They responded first with repression, and then with calculated concessions. The concessions were to admit people, slowly and bit by bit, to the ballot. They thought that the ballot might satisfy the demands of the "people" and in effect co-opt them into sustaining the existing system. Over the next 150 years, this concession (and others) worked to a considerable degree. Radicalism was muted. And after 1945, the very word, democracy, was co-opted. Everyone now claimed to be in favor of democracy, which is where we are today. The problem, however, is that not everyone is convinced that we are all living in truly democratic countries, in which the people -- all the people -- are truly the ones who are ruling, that is, making the decisions. Once the representatives are chosen, they quite often do not fulfill the demands of the majority, or they oppress important minorities. The "people" often react -- by protest, by strikes, by violent uprisings. Is it "democratic" when the demonstrations are ignored? Or is it "democratic" when the government backs down and submits to the will of the "people"? And who are the people? Are they the numerical majority? Or do major groups have rights that should be guaranteed? Should important groups have some relative autonomy? And what kinds of compromises between the "majority" and important "minorities" constitute "democratic" results? Finally, we must not neglect the ways in which the rhetoric about democracy is used as a geopolitical instrument. Denouncing other countries as undemocratic is regularly used as a justification for intrusion into politically weaker countries. The results of such intrusions are not necessarily that more democratic governments come to power, just different ones with perhaps different foreign policies. Perhaps we should think of democracy as a claim and an aspiration that has not been realized anywhere yet. Some countries may seem to be more undemocratic than others. But are any countries demonstrably more democratic than others? Immanuel Wallerstein, Senior Research Scholar at Yale University, is the author of The Decline of American Power: The U.S. in a Chaotic World (New Press).

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