Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 70

Russia: We Need To Be Grown Up

Perhaps it is to do with my Baltic family roots. Perhaps it is my interpretation of history. Perhaps it is my unwillingness to follow the herd. But I have always seen Russia as the saviour of Europe, rather than the threat to its integrity. It was Russia that wore down and destroyed Napoleon’s all conquering army in 1812. Wellington led the allied force which beat him a Waterloo, but by then his attempted comeback was a shadow of his former power. It was Russia’s advance into East Prussia which saved France in 1914 and it was the Red Army which destroyed the mighty Wehrmacht 1941-5. In WWII 90% of German casualties in the armed forces were on the Russian front.

Over that period Russia has traveled a road which took it through Czarist autocracy and serfdom, through the Soviet era and into a republican democracy of a less fluid and more oligarch influenced model than anything in the West. Just as we have learned to live with a united Germany no longer the Third Reich, we should have done likewise with modern Russia,  no longer the Soviet Union. But we have not had the self-confidence to do that. For the most part the West sees Russia as a rival. This has cost us, because it has become one.

Just as Russia initially pulled ahead in the Space Race, to the Western astonishment and fright, so it has now pulled ahead in what can be called cyber propaganda. Cyber warfare is when your power system is shut down and your own missiles fall down on your head. Russia might be ahead with that too, although the West has significant undisclosed capability in that sphere. It is very high tech, so the West is likely to lead.

Cyber propaganda is very low tech involving little more than fake twitter and social media accounts and can very easily be run by governments, security agencies or agents acting on their behalf. It can be run also by organised crime likely to benefit from political change and mischief makers for fun. It can be used by fraudsters to influence markets and inflate gains. It is the essential foundation of modern terrorism. Just as printed and broadcast media created the modern propaganda agenda, which took off in the 1930s, so the huge advance in on line communication through which people everywhere conduct and control their lives in modern times, has enabled the opportunity for this latest manifestation. Nothing can stop it. It is here to stay. Get savvy and get on.

As for Russia, either ignore it as most do, or do it back to deter. Putin is coming up for election soon remember. But be careful what you wish for. Because in the end the world’s largest country will always be a player and few, if any, major world problems can be resolved without its input. As history reveals.

Finally if you contend that Trump and Brexit are not the product of open democracy, but a triumph of Russian cyber propaganda to direct outcomes it favours in countries it does not control, up your game. This is the new world. The old one is history. If you do not rise to the challenge of getting as good and better, so will you be.

 

May’s New Russia Obsession

May’s remarks at the Mansion House last night about Russia were politically childish. It was a vain attempt to project herself as a strong leader and echoed the attacks by Margaret Thatcher upon the Soviet Kremlin, which earned her the title, the Iron Lady, which she wore as a star of honour for the rest of her life. But this nonsense about fake news. Everybody is at it, including the UK, because this is how cyber rivalry works. But to suggest that we are all so stupid that we cannot tell the difference in this country between fake news and the real thing, insults us all.

May needs to remember that Russia is a critical ally of the West in the fight against IS, upon whom we have depended to degrade its military prowess and reduce the territory it controls. Without Putin IS would now control Damascus. Moreover Russia is a critical ally in trying to prevent war in the Korean Peninsular and played a major part in the negotiations stopping nuclear weapons development in Iran, of which agreement, like us, Russia is a signatory.

Sadly all this reinforces the disappointing truth that in the end May hasn’t a clue.

Brexit Drama Hots Up

Two things happened today which are really telling.

The first was a hastily convened meeting  in Downing Street attended by representatives of British business and leading EU business leaders, who read the riot act to ministers about the muddle of the Brexit negotiations and the fact that not a single thing was yet agreed, making the future for trade and business dangerously uncertain.

Flustered ministers promised that things were happening. Whether they are or not remains to be seen. This inept government, unique in British history for its inability to govern coherently, either cannot tell the difference between the generalities of a speech, ie Florence, and the specifics of the offers needed to advance towards a deal. Or it cannot agree among its ranks what those specifics should be. The clear message now coming loud and clear to the hapless cabinet mired in argument, plotting and scandal is this. Time is running out.

The second and even more telling is the announcement within the past hour that parliament will be given a vote on the final terms of whatever deal is agreed with the EU, before it can come into force. Parliament will have the power to reject a deal for which there is no majority. That means hard Brexit is out.  If that is all the government has finally to offer, Brexit is over.

Aung San Suu Kyi: Bob Geldof Acts

This Blog fully endorses Bob Geldof’s action in returning his Freedom to Dublin in protest at the conduct of his fellow freeman, Aung San Suu Kyi. The fact that this peace Ikon stands silent while her military conduct ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, reveals just have mistaken the world has been in ascribing near sainthood to this ruthless, self-centered politician, about whom I held the gravest suspicions from the beginning of her projection onto the world stage. There were moments when I felt that perhaps I had judged her too harshly. Those moments are gone.

All over the world her honours are being cancelled and withdrawn and rightly so. At one level her acquiescence to these atrocities is almost more shocking to the many world figures, who for long worshiped at her feet, than the atrocities themselves. Nevertheless this dreadful military campaign leading to an unprecedented diaspora, has created a humanitarian crisis in which the world at large, once again, will have to come forward and pick up the pieces. Her pieces.

Brexit Negotiations: A Cabinet In Crisis

Never before has the British Government been so divided on the central issue it is mandated to resolve. This is why the Brexit negotiations are so cumbersome and why they cannot succeed. There are only two broad options open. It is not difficult.

The EU is a remarkable Union of 27 sovereign states, or independent national democracies sharing common citizenship and rights of domicile, free borderless trade with common business, medical, financial and security regulations and rules enshrined in European law, which takes precedence over national law.  There is a parliament with members elected by universal suffrage across the union, a council which consists of the elected ministers from every country and a civil service responsible for implementation known as the Commission. For most member states, but not all, there is a single common currency.

This Union is not perfect but it represents the greatest political achievement since the fall of the Roman Empire, and, especially poignant on Remembrance Sunday, has brought a previously unknown level of peace and stability to the continent of Europe and the United Kingdom. The UK, however, has voted to leave.

There are two ways in which this can be done and two ways only. The first is to cut all ties and leave. The potential economic cost, curtailment of freedoms of travel and domicile and the impact on living standards have not been quantified, nor calculated nor even forensically examined. But only a tiny handful of ideologues suppose this country will be better off and not a single one of them, beyond a few vacuous soundbites, has been able to convincingly demonstrate how.

The second way, known as soft Brexit, is the Norway model. Essentially this means we remain in the Single Market and the Customs Union. All the other freedoms of movement, trade and domicile remain, borders are friction-less. There would be no border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. British politicians would cease to have any say, or share in the process of how the EU was run or what its rules were.

At present the government is split down the middle between hard and soft with neither giving ground, but all striving for some fantasy ‘individual’ deal that is simply not on offer, not least because it would never be agreed by all 26 of the remaining members. So the choice is clear and stark. Hard or Soft? The majority in Parliament and in the country do not want either because they have been promised what cannot be delivered. When that becomes clear this whole folly will collapse and with it the party which led the nation into this ridiculous cul-de-sack.

So it really matter not a fig how many scandalized and failing ministers are fired or whether May stays or goes. They are all for the chop in the end anyway.

 

Making Sense of Trump

Up to till now the Trump Presidency has been rather difficult for those outside the US to fathom. It is a fact that at home his power base holds firm and still backs him, but the majority who do not like his presidency are showing signs of stirring to the point of voting en masse for the Democrats in the mid-terms next year. So it is not an exaggeration to say that the perceived wisdom among political commentators across the world is that he is a one term president and if the Russia probe finds a smoking gun, not even that. Even this blog, which dislikes Trump’s conservatism and red neck tendencies, but strongly supports the strategic vision proclaimed in his campaign for the presidency, has begun to wonder how long he can last.

But it looks to me as if the Asia tour is a game changer. Because now we can see much better where he is headed and we can see it without peering through a fog a special prosecutors, leaks to the media, spats in the White House and disclosures in the new York Times. And what we see turns many decades of US statecraft, lecturing and demanding and getting not very far, on its head. Now we have a transactional approach which puts America First (we knew about that but not what it meant), but lets everybody else do their thing as long as it does not damage America.

Unlike his predecessors he has praised China’s achievements and struck up a good working partnership with Xi Jinping. There has been no mention of human rights and, the big surprise, no blame upon the Chinese for exploiting its trade relations with the US. Rather, that is all the fault of previous US administrations. He has walked away from the collapsing model of free trade and opted for one which favours the US first. China is welcome to become the champion of the old model, which suits it so well. Of course the prize is China’s help with North Korea.

But it does not stop there. Not only does Trump have a good working relationship with Xi Jinping, he, clearly to close observers, has one with Putin. Because of the Russia mania at home he has to keep this under wraps but if you look at pictures of the two together you see the knowing familiarity of friends and partners, not the cold formality of enemies. So for the first time since WWII we have a US with a pragmatic foreign policy which wants to fix things not to fan them and is on matey terms with both Beijiing and Moscow. So this is a game changer not just for America, but for the world.  Unlike those whose schooling on world affairs is steeped in Cold War ideology and habits, this Blog thinks this is a positive step in the right direction.

It is still the case that the President has many enemies at home and works in a fetid atmosphere of accusers and suspicion, with a Congress unable thus far to deliver on his promises on Obamacare, tax cuts or infrastructure renewal. But America always backs a president who walks tall abroad. That will change the politics at home. The only downer is that France’s  President Macron is America’s only friend in Europe at the moment. But in America’s twenty-first century world, Europe is no longer the key.

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May Shuffles The Deck Chairs

Her government is taking water certainly. It is not certain if it will sink, nor when. But that it is not a normal functioning government is beyond all doubt. The appointment of Penny Mordant to fill Priti Patel’s vacant post makes sense if you like the idea of an even balance in the Cabinet between Leave and Remain. But the problem with that is this. In the most important political even in our peacetime history, a government equally split into opposite positions on all the fundamental details and expectations is one which  cannot function.

It becomes, in the trending words of a rather clever commentator, a fake government. In the end  fakes fail.

Virginia Deals a Blow To Trump.

President Trump suffered major defeats in Virginia because Democrats turned out in force. Likewise in new Jersey. This is an important moment because it shows that the aura of Trump invincibility is false. He won the Presidency by losing the popular vote by a fair margin, but carried the Electoral College.  There are fewer Republicans than Democrats and if the latter have confidence in their candidate they are likely to win.  Put simply, if this is replicated in the mid-terms in 2018 Trump will lose control (does he have it?) on Capitol Hill and in 2020 he will lose the White House.

But a lot can happen between now and then. If Trump can sort out North Korea, Obamacare and Tax Cuts, all of which are promised, then he could be too big a nut for the Democrats to crack. But if the Republican party continues to bicker and obstruct and none of the big ticket promises come through, the Trump Presidency will end in 2020.

He is unpopular in Western Europe, but liked in the Arab world by the Sunni arm of Islam and in the Far East. He has strong ties with Japan and adequate relations with South Korea. He has struck up a close and productive relationship with China’s leader and if he were allowed to pursue it, he already has one with Putin. He has offered meaningful negotiations to Kim Jon Un. Properly developed this could make Trump a formidable operator on the world stage, cutting deals and fixing problems. And that makes a powerful President of the type American adore.

So do not write off Trump yet. The wild cards are the Russia probe and North Korea. Either could change everything. For better or for worse.

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